NB: For a genuine timeline of composers see Classical Net


Paleolithic Period

	Natural Tempering & The Fifth
		Banging - fifths
			drums
		Birds - thirds
			flutes

Civilization and Language

	Natural Tempering & The Fifth
		Harmony
		Chant & Structure in linearity 
		Polyphony

Baroque Period
	Well Tempering
		Harmony revisted in union with polyphony
		Chromaticism - J.S. Bach baroque
		German v. French (Rameau)

Classical Period
		Classical pullback from baroque chromaticism
		C.P.E. Bach
		Mozart
		Hummel, Weber, Clementi, The Scarlattis

Romantic Period
		Beethoven - the fracturer
		Brahms - neo classicism
		Liszt - the innovator
		Reger and neo baroque classicism
		Wagner - pivotal - Tristan chord

Modern Period
		Impressionism - (Debusy) graphic interaction
		Expressionism - (Ravel) graphic interaction
		Atonalism emerges from increasing chromaticism
		Dodecaphony (A. Schoenberg)
		Berg with Schoenberg enlarge atonal forms using the
			principle of dodecaphony
		Webern - refinement
			Klangfarben

Postmodern Period
		Post Webernian Threads
			Total Serialism & the mathematicians
				Babbit, Boulez, Xenakis
			Splintering
				Mysticism (O. Messien) v.
					Logic (K. Stockhausen)

			Aleatorism (performer|Audience choices)
				Stockhausen, Xenakis

			Stochastic music (Xenakis)

			Continuing Romaticism (R. Strauss)

		Later Post Webernian Threads

			Nihilism & Anarchy
			(Wourinen)

			Electronic Music
				Varese
				Babbit - Luenning - Usachevsky
				Boulez
				Xenakis

			Minimalism (Glass)

			Popularism - The tonal repetition is empty
				Junk - Rock
				Yet Worse Junk (Yanni!)

			Neo Popularism - Semi Anarchism
				To please the pretentious illiterati

			A Renewed Search for Tonality Concept
				Wolpe, Pleskow

You Are Here!

All the above has happened. Nothing is now what it seems unless you know what you are hearing. This is not a good thing. That's unlikely - unless you happen to be a musical old fart who happens still to have a memory and a knowledge of musical history or an unbeaten young mind who works for knowledge and understanding. This is a good thing.

Still, you won't know what music is being written because nobody plays it except in special concerts or recitals in big cities, it's not recorded or the recording disappears before you even knew it existed, and it's not likely to be recorded again; the scores are either unavailable or they cost enough to require a grant that you can't get. The musical world is actually ruled by reptiles like a certain Shrub and Jack Valenti. What musical world? Real music is virtually an underground enterprise.

As a fighting response, thanks to the power of the Internet, visit Vox Novus - the new voice in contemporary music.

The are "Arts" no longer deemed worthy, by an unworthy government.

Truly, Arts & Sciences don't come to you; you must go to them, cultivate and nurture them freely; they are the only things that make life worth living. They are the only things by which any future paleontologist will measure us, and they will be doing just that.