Early Music · 1000

The World It Came From

For most of this era, music in Europe was the Church's domain. Monks sang plainchant — unaccompanied, single-line melodies — as an act of worship, not entertainment. The idea of music as art for its own sake barely existed.

What changed everything was notation. Once Guido D'Arezzo invented a system for writing pitch down on a staff, music could be taught, shared, and built upon. Polyphony — multiple voices singing different lines simultaneously — became possible. The "New Art" (Ars Nova) of the 14th century was the result: complex, rhythmically sophisticated music that the Church initially resisted and eventually embraced.

Alongside sacred music, secular song flourished in the courts of southern France (troubadours) and northern France (trouvères). These were the pop songs of their day — love songs, dance music, narrative ballads.

Where to start: Hildegard's Ordo Virtutum — haunting, otherworldly, unlike anything else. Then Machaut's Messe de Notre Dame to hear how far polyphony had come by 1365.

Composers of the Early Music Era

Guido D'Arezzo

c.991–1033 · Italian

The monk who invented staff notation — the system of lines and spaces we still use today. Before Guido, music could only be transmitted orally. His Micrologus was the most widely read music treatise of the Middle Ages. He also invented solfège (do, re, mi...).

Micrologusc.1025
Ut queant laxis (solfège hymn)c.1020

Start with: Ut queant laxis — the hymn from which solfège was derived.

Hildegard of Bingen

1098–1179 · German

Abbess, mystic, scientist, poet, and composer — one of the most remarkable figures of the Middle Ages. She composed over 70 plainchant melodies and wrote Ordo Virtutum — the earliest surviving musical drama, predating opera by 400 years. Her melodies are unusually wide-ranging and expressive, full of soaring leaps that feel almost modern.

Ordo Virtutumc.1151
Symphonia armonie celestium revelationumc.1150s
O Euchari in leta viac.1150s

Start with: O Frondens Virga — short, beautiful, immediately striking.

Léonin

c.1150–1201 · French

The first named composer of polyphonic music. Working at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, Léonin compiled the Magnus liber organi — the great book of organum — establishing the Notre-Dame school of polyphony. He stretched plainchant melodies into long, slow notes while adding elaborate melodic lines above them.

Magnus liber organic.1170
Viderunt omnes (organum)c.1170

Start with: Viderunt omnes — hear the birth of polyphony.

Adam de la Halle

c.1245–1288 · French

The "Hunchback of Arras" — a trouvère poet-composer who bridged sacred and secular music. His Le Jeu de Robin et de Marion is considered the earliest surviving secular musical play, a pastoral drama with songs that anticipate the comic opera tradition by centuries.

Le Jeu de Robin et de Marionc.1283
Le Jeu de la Feuilléec.1276

Start with: Le Jeu de Robin et de Marion — the medieval world's most charming musical play.

Guillaume de Machaut

c.1300–1377 · French

The towering figure of the Ars Nova — the "New Art" of the 14th century. Machaut was both a great poet and the greatest composer of his age. His Messe de Notre Dame is the first complete polyphonic mass setting by a single composer, a landmark in music history. He also wrote hundreds of secular songs — motets, ballades, rondeaux — of extraordinary sophistication.

Messe de Notre Damec.1365
Remede de Fortunec.1340
Ma fin est mon commencementc.1360

Start with: Messe de Notre Dame — the first great polyphonic mass.