Jeannette Sorrell

American early music is the U.S. branch of the post‑war early‑music revival devoted to the historically informed performance of Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque repertoires (roughly c. 1100–1750). It centers on period instruments, historically appropriate tunings and temperaments, small ensemble forces, and style‑specific articulation, ornamentation, and rhetoric. Although the repertory largely originates in Europe, American early music also embraces colonial and mission‑era sources from North and Latin America, and it is shaped by U.S. institutions, festivals, ensembles, university programs, and instrument builders that took root from the mid‑20th century onward.

Early music is a modern performance movement devoted to the repertoire of the Medieval, Renaissance, and early Baroque eras (roughly before c. 1750), approached with historically informed performance (HIP) practices. It emphasizes period instruments (or faithful replicas), historical tunings and temperaments, original notations and sources, and performance conventions documented in treatises of the time. The sound world ranges from monophonic chant and modal organum, to intricate Renaissance polyphony, to the emergence of basso continuo and dramatic affect in the early Baroque. Rather than being a single historical style, early music is a contemporary practice of reviving diverse pre‑Classical musics with scholarly rigor and artistic vitality.

A concerto is a large-scale composition that sets one or more solo instruments in dynamic dialogue with an orchestra. Its core idea is contrast—between soloist and tutti—and the dramatic negotiation of power, color, and thematic responsibility. While Baroque concertos often relied on ritornello form, the Classical era standardized a three-movement plan (fast–slow–fast) with sonata principles in the opening movement. The Romantic period emphasized virtuosity and expressive foregrounding of the soloist, and the 20th–21st centuries broadened the palette with new instruments, harmonies, and formats. Across eras, the concerto remains a showcase for instrumental character, technical brilliance, and the art of orchestral conversation.

Baroque is a period and style of Western art music spanning roughly 1600–1750. It is characterized by the birth of functional tonality, the widespread use of basso continuo (figured bass), and a love of contrast—between soloist and ensemble, loud and soft, and different timbres. Hallmark genres and forms of the era include opera, cantata, oratorio, concerto (especially the concerto grosso), dance suite, sonata, and fugue. Textures range from expressive monody to intricate counterpoint, and melodies are richly ornamented with trills, mordents, and appoggiaturas. Baroque music flourished in churches, courts, and theaters across Europe, with regional styles (Italian, French, German, English) shaping distinctive approaches to rhythm, dance, harmony, and ornamentation.

Renaissance music (c. 1400–1600) marks the shift from medieval sonorities to a clearer, triad-based polyphony in which multiple independent voices are treated with near-equal importance. It favors modal counterpoint, pervasive imitation, smooth voice-leading, and carefully prepared cadences. Text intelligibility and expressive text-setting become central concerns, especially in sacred motets and masses and in secular forms like the Italian madrigal and the French chanson. While much of the repertory is a cappella, instrumental consorts (viol, recorder, sackbut, cornett, organ) play a growing role. A steady tactus underpins rhythms, and tuning systems such as meantone temperament shape its characteristic color. Music printing (from 1501) accelerates stylistic diffusion across Europe.

Classical music is the notated art-music tradition of Europe and its global descendants, characterized by durable forms, carefully codified harmony and counterpoint, and a literate score-based practice. The term “classical” can refer broadly to the entire Western art-music lineage from the Medieval era to today, not just the Classical period (c. 1750s–1820s). It privileges long-form structures (such as symphonies, sonatas, concertos, masses, and operas), functional or modal harmony, thematic development, and timbral nuance across ensembles ranging from solo instruments to full orchestras and choirs. Across centuries, the style evolved from chant and modal polyphony to tonal harmony, and later to post-tonal idioms, while maintaining a shared emphasis on written notation, performance practice, and craft.