Major Composers

Major Medieval Composers   -   Full list of Medieval Composers

     Kassia of Constantinople  (805? - 860?)

     Notker "the Stammer" Balbulus  (c. 840 - 912)   St. Gall (Switzerland)

     Hildegard of Bingen  (1098 - 1179)  German

     Pérotin  (fl. c. 1200, died 1205 or 1225)  French?

     Guillaume de Machaut  (1300 - 1377)  French

     Johannes Ciconia  (c. 1370 -1412)  Flemish



Major Renassance Composers  -  Full list of Renaissance composers


Transitional - Medieval to Renaissance

     Oswald von Wolkenstein  (1376 - 1445)  German

     Leonel Power  (1380? - 1445)  English

     John Dunstaple  (c. 1390 - 1453)  English


Early Renaissance

     Note:  "Franco-Flemish" designates an area that today is north-east France, Belgium, and
                sometimes the lower modern Netherlands.

     Guillaume Du Fay  (1397 - 1474)  Franco-Flemish

     Gilles Binchois  (1400 - 1460)  Franco-Flemish

     Johannes Ockegham  (1425 - 1497)  Franco-Flemish


High Renaissance

     Josquin des Prez  (1450 - 1521)  Franco-Flemish

     Jacob Obrecht  (1458 - 1505)  Ghent

     Martin Luther  (1483 - 1546)  German

     John Tavener  (1490 - 1545)  English

     Thomas Tallis  (1505 - 1585)  English

     Jacques Arcadelt  (1507 - 1568)  Franco - Flemish

     Antonio de Calbezon  (1510 - 1566)  Spanish


Late Renaissance

     Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina  (1525 - 1594)  Italian

     Orlande de Lassus  (1530 -1594)  Franco-Flemish

     William Byrd  (1540 - 1623)  English

     Tomas Luis de Victoria  (1548 - 1611)  Spanish

     Guilo Caccini  (1551 -  1618)  Italian

     John Dowland  (1563 - 1626)  English

     Thomas Campion  (1567 - 1620)  English




Major 17th Century Instrumental Composers


     Giovani Gabrelli  (1554 -1612)  Italian

     Jan Sweelinck  (1562 - 1621)

     John Bull  (1562 -1628)  English

     Michael Praetorius  (1571 - 1621)

     Girolamo Frescabaldi  (1583 - 1643)  Italian

     Francesco Cavalli  (1602 - 1676)  Italian

     Jean-Baptiste Lully   (1632 - 1687)  Italian born French - Court of Louis XIV  (25 min)

     Dieterich Buxtehude   (1637? - 1707)  Danish-German -  Organ compositions influenced Bach

     Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber  (1644–1704)  Bohemian  -  early composer of violin sonatas

     Johann Pachelbel   (1653 - 1706)  South German - Canon in D (organ) 

   Arcangelo Corelli   (1653 - 1713)  Italian - Violin virtuoso, developed the Concerto Grosso  (20 min) 


Major 17th Century Opera Composers


Jacopo Peri (1561–1633). A Florentine who composed both the first opera ever, Dafne (1598), and the first surviving opera, Euridice (1600).

Claudio Monteverdi (1567–1643) is generally regarded as the first major opera composer.  In Orfeo (1607) he blended Peri's experiments in opera with the lavish spectacle of the intermedi.  Later, in Venice in the 1640s, he helped make opera a commercially viable form with Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria and L'incoronazione di Poppea, one of the earliest public operas in the present-day operatic repertoire.

Heinrich Schütz (1585 - 1672) wrote what is traditionally considered to be the first German opera, Dafne, performed at Torgau in 1627, the music of which has since been lost.

Luigi Rossi  (1597 - 1653)

Marco Marazzoli

Virgilio Mazzocchi  (1597 - 1646)  Chi soffre, speri  (1st comic opera)

Stefano Landi  (1587 - 1639)  Il Sant'Alessio is  the first opera to be written on a historical subject.  It carefully describes the inner life of the saint, and attempts psychological characterization of a type new to opera.  Most of the interspersed comic scenes, however, are anachronistically (and hilariously) drawn from contemporary life in 17th-century Rome.

Francesco Cavalli (1602–1676). Among the most important of Monteverdi's successors, Cavalli was a major force in spreading opera throughout Italy and also helped introduce it to France. His Giasone was " the most popular opera of the 17th century."

Antonio Sartorio  (1630 - 1680)

Giovanni Legrenzi  (1626 - 1690)

Antonio Cesti  (1623 - 1669)

Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632–1687). In close collaboration with the librettist Philippe Quinault, Lully founded the tradition of tragédie en musique, combining singing, dance and visual spectacle, which would remain the most prestigious French operatic genre for almost a hundred years.   Cadmus et Hermione (1673) is often regarded as the first example of French opera.

Henry Purcell (1659–1695) was the first English operatic composer of significance.  His masterwork is Dido and Aeneas (1688?).



Major 17th Century Composers of Non-opera Vocal Music


     Marc-Antoine Charpentier   (1643 - 1704)  French  (15 min)