Early Music
This is one for Empress Bob* or GMF, I guess: why is early music so called?

It's not like we only recently discovered that hitting or stroking stuff with other stuff can be fun...**

*OK - I still think of you as BobFossil
**Oh, the filth...
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Mon 1 Dec 2008, 16:07, 4 replies, latest was 16 years ago)

At a guess
maybe it means music as in a form of recreation? I know music has been around since prehistoric times but it's always been to mark occasions or for religious worship. Music as a commercial entity has barely been around for a century, so maybe that's what's meant by "early music".
(GONEism, Mon 1 Dec 2008, 16:16, Reply)

Easy.
Music from recorded history ie. classical compositions and that music which has existed since we were able to record it and play it back*

* may contain large amounts of guess
( Noeli overtheshoulderboulderholderthingstraplatchboobs, Mon 1 Dec 2008, 17:01, Reply)

Morning!
Only just saw this question:

Welcome to the opening of a BIG can of worms!
'Early Music' is a horribly ambiguous term: at its most basic, it basically means anything composed before the Classical* era started: this generally means that the Early Music era finished in 1750, with the death of JS Bach.

HOWEVER: many Classical music styles were already very much in evidence by 1750, there was no clearly-defined move from the Baroque to the Classical style of composition.
In fact, most musicologists (myself included) say that the Baroque style warrants (and mostly gets) its own genre (just like Classical, Romantic, Modern etc are all clearly-defined periods), and Early Music really finishes with the onset of the Baroque era (which started around 1600, with the implementation of harmonic progression, and a greater importance placed on one distinct melody being accompanied by a simpler, but still harmonically important, bass line).
The onset of the Baroque also marked a turning point for the secular/sacred divide: during the Renaissance, the majority of notated music was sacred: motets, anthems, masses etc, for voices. With the Baroque, the use of the 24 Keys became standard, composers notated dance movements, and Monteverdi wrote 'Orfeo' in c.1607 (which is generally acknowledged as being the first ever true "opera" - again, a secular piece).

Musicologists therefore mostly think of Early Music as being the music of the Mediaeval and Renaissance periods: music was composed in multiple strands of polyphonic lines, in "modes" as opposed to "keys". There was secular music in the Rennaisance/Mediaeval of course, but less of it survives.

The next part of the Early Music definition is this: towards the end of the 18th Century, in the Classical period, pieces started to stay in the repertoire for longer periods of time. Before that, they would be composed, performed, and forgotten, all very quickly. Therefore, the Early Music definition applies to music that was abandoned very quickly, and thus had to be "revived" back into the repertoire. Early Music became "early" simply by being forgotten about until "rediscovered". This is why the Baroque period is broadly defined by the general public as "Early": because much of its music was composed, performed, and then not performed again for a very long time. Even though Baroque music is generally closer to Classical in style.**

The Early Music Movement: this was essentially set up by a bunch of early instrument collectors deciding to perform Early Music on the instruments it was actually written for. It took off in a big way, and now "Period Instruments" are manufactured all over the world, according to the specifications of the real Early instruments.


I hope that helps and is slightly illuminating. Gaz me if you want further details.



*When I say 'Classical' with a capital 'C', it means the standard way of compartmentalising classical Western music into various eras: Baroque, Classical, Romantic, Modern.

**This raises the question: now that Baroque music is performed as frequently, and is just as well-known, as Classical repertoire, can it be taken out of the "Early Music" bracket?
(The Empress it seems you CAN polish a turd!, Tue 2 Dec 2008, 11:05, Reply)

Magic
Thanks
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Tue 2 Dec 2008, 11:19, Reply)