by Luiz Henrique Guitte Bernabé

Music, accompanies, worship, dance and songs have been developed in all cultures, but the notion of creating music, primarily for its own beauty, has been a preoccupation of the Western world.

The History of Western music begins in the churches of the Middle Ages, where composers began writing new melodies on top of old religious chants. This new musical fabric called polyphony, astonished listeners with its changing tonal colors.

In the Renaissance, polyphony blossomed into an elaborated system of melodies, overlapping and echoing each other in following rhythms. A system of counterpoint controlled the way melodies fit together so that the harmony was always clear. Also at this time, instrumental samples began to appear, at first, imitating the vocal music.

By the Baroque era, instrumental music became a force of its own. String and keyboard instruments were especially popular. Composers, like J. S. Bach, wrote music with a faster pulse and rapid tonal changes. A new system - tonality - organized tons into modern harmonies.

In the Classical Age, Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven used tonality to compose extended sonatas and symphonies. Orchestras grew in size to perform this new grand music.

In exploring new harmonies, composers, in the romantic era, used music to express history, ideas, emotions, even national sentiments. The most representative names of this period are Beethoven, in some way, Schubert, Schumann, Chopin, Wagner, and Brahms. In the middle of the 19th century, the tonal system spread into nationalism from Bohemia, from Russia and from France.

By the end of the 19th century the color of sound became an end in itself as tonality was extended into its farthest limits.

The tonal system violently collapsed in the early 20th century. Composers, like Stravinsky, rejected the old styles and unleashed new prime rhythms and different harmonies.

At the same time, popular music erupted as a powerful creative force. Jazz gripped America with its African rhythms and Western harmonies.

Rock music burst in the scene in the middle of the century, combining jazz elements with folk music and new electronic instruments. Its unparalleled popularity has reached every corner of the world.

At century’s end classical and popular styles are undergoing an astonishing crossed fertilization. New high-grades promise to carry Western music forward in its continuing evolution.