History of Music

This history is designed to help students survey the vast archives of recorded music, easy to access through the internet, but hard to navigate.

Beyond enjoying the music for its own sake, the history of music is a valuable way to trace the transformation of culture over time as a whole. Musicians obviously play a ubiquitous role in mass culture as well as in elite culture. Studying their lives along with their artwork allows us to get a better sense of how life has changed for everyone, high and low. Music is a form of unity, and so the history of music is a fossil record of what different peoples have bonded over.

20th Century

Luigi Russolo

Franz Schreker

Perry Grainger

Frank Bridge

Arnold Bax

Sophie Carmen Eckhart-Gramatte