A printable PDF of this list is available here: midterm-review

Time periods

When did they occur? What are major stylistic features of most music from each period? What kind of ideals did musicians in each time period aspire to? What major world events happen during each time period?

  • Medieval
  • Renaissance
  • Baroque
  • Classical
  • Romantic

Composers

When did they live? Where did they work (and is that different from where they were born)? What pieces did we study by them? What was significant about their life? What was significant about their music? How did they fit into the narrative of music history we’ve been learning in class?

  • Johann Sebastian Bach
  • Ludwig van Beethoven
  • Hector Berlioz
  • Joseph Haydn
  • Jean-Baptiste Lully
  • Martin Luther
  • Gustav Mahler
  • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
  • Sultan Murad IV
  • Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina
  • Pérotin
  • Franz Schubert
  • Richard Wagner

Vocabulary

What do each of these words mean? What composers are associated with each of these terms? What pieces did we listen to that are associated with these terms?

  • Absolute music
  • Aristocracy
  • Bildung
  • Castrati
  • Chorale
  • Chorus
  • Composer
  • Concerto
  • Conductor
  • Counter-Reformation
  • Dynamics
  • Enlightenment
  • Exoticism
  • Form
  • Fugue
  • Genre
  • Harmony
  • Iconography
  • Industrial Revolution
  • Instruments, instrument families, and voice types
  • Janissary
  • Kapellmeister
  • Lied
  • Mass
  • Melody
  • Middle class
  • Minuet
  • Movement or multi-movement work
  • Musicking
  • Mute
  • Opera
  • Ottoman Empire
  • Opus
  • Orchestra
  • Orchestration
  • Paris Conservatory
  • Patronage system
  • Performer
  • Physiology
  • Piece
  • Program music
  • Protestant Reformation
  • Rest
  • Rhythm
  • Rondo
  • Sonata form
  • String quartet
  • Symphony
  • Tempo
  • Texture
  • Theme
  • Volk

Other major concepts

  • Changing definition of what music is
  • Reasons people write music
  • Things that affect how music sounds
  • Music as a display of power
  • Music as entertainment
  • Music as a means of uniting a group of people
  • Music as a social commodity
  • How musicians made money
  • Terms of employment
  • The compositional process
  • Physiological reactions to music
  • The role of the listener in music
  • Classical Greek ideals influencing Europe in the 18th century
  • Non-European cultures influencing Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries
  • Home music making
  • Musical analysis