Periods

Baroque

about 1600 to 1750

The word was borrowed from jewellers, where it meant a pearl that came out lumpy, and it began as an insult. Across its hundred and fifty years European music acquired several things still in use: major and minor keys, a way of building harmony upward from a bass line, and the concerto's argument between one player and many. Ensembles are small, the lines stay separately audible, and a movement usually picks one affect and drives it the whole way rather than changing character.

The dates are a reading aid, not a boundary. Bach died writing counterpoint that Haydn's generation had already given up, and Rachmaninoff was writing romantic concertos while Webern wrote twelve-tone miniatures. Any two neighbouring periods overlap by decades.