What is the oldest surviving example of written music?
Seikilos epitaph
The Seikilos epitaph is the oldest surviving complete musical composition, including musical notation, from anywhere in the world. The epitaph has been variously dated, but seems to be either from the 1st or the 2nd century AD. The song, the melody of which is recorded, alongside its lyrics, in the ancient Greek musical notation, was found engraved on a tombstone (a stele) from the Hellenistic town Tralles near present-day Aydın, Turkey, not far from Ephesus. It is a Hellenistic Ionic song in either the Phrygian octave species or Iastian tonos. While older music with notation exists (for example the Hurrian songs), all of it is in fragments; the Seikilos epitaph is unique in that it is a complete, though short, composition.
Ancient history
The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, beginning with Sumerian Cuneiform script; the oldest discovered form of coherent writing from the protoliterate period around the 30th century BC. Ancient History covers all continents inhabited by humans in the 3,000 BC – 500 AD period.
William Dixon manuscript
The William Dixon manuscript, written down between 1733 and 1738 in Northumberland, is the oldest known manuscript of pipe music from the British Isles, and the most important source of music for the Border pipes. It is currently located in the A.K. Bell Library, Perth, Scotland. Little is known of William Dixon's biography, except what has been learned from this manuscript, and from parish records in Northumberland.
Letter notation
The earliest known letter notation in the Western musical tradition appear in the textbook on music "De institutione musica" by the 6th-century philosopher Boethius. A modified form is next found in the "Dialogus de musica" (ca. 1000) by Pseudo-Odo, in a discussion of the division of the monochord.
Lute
The earliest surviving lute music is Italian, from a late 15th-century manuscript. The early 16th century saw Petrucci's publications of lute music by Francesco Spinacino ( 1507) and Joan Ambrosio Dalza ( 1508); together with the so-called Capirola Lutebook, these represent the earliest stage of written lute music in Italy. The leader of the next generation of Italian lutenists, Francesco Canova da Milano (1497–1543), is now acknowledged as one of the most famous lute composers in history. The bigger part of his output consists of pieces called fantasias or ricercares, in which he makes extensive use of imitation and sequence, expanding the scope of lute polyphony. In the early 17th century Johannes Hieronymus Kapsberger ( 1580–1651) and Alessandro Piccinini (1566–1638) revolutionized the instrument's technique and Kapsberger, possibly, influenced the keyboard music of Frescobaldi.
Song of the Sea
The Song of the Sea is noted for its archaic language. It is written in a style of Hebrew much older than that of the rest of Exodus. Most scholars consider it the oldest surviving text describing the Exodus, dating to the pre-monarchic period. An alternative is that it was deliberately written in an archaic style, a known literary device. Proposed dates range from the 13th to the 5th century BCE.
Anonymus Bellermanni
The Anonymus Bellermanni is a collection of material on music, by one or more unknown authors, transmitted in a number of Byzantine manuscripts and first published by in 1841. Martin West comments: "It is drawn to a marked extent from Aristoxenus and Aristides Quintilianus but contains some valuable matter not found elsewhere, including half a dozen little instrumental tunes and exercises." Along with four poems attributed to Mesomedes, and not counting various fragments on papyrus, it is one of the only examples where a piece of ancient Greek music has survived in the manuscript tradition.
Limenius
Limenius ( ; fl. 2nd century BC) was an Athenian musician and the creator of the Second Delphic Hymn in 128 BC. He is the earliest known composer in recorded history for a surviving piece of music, or one of the two earliest, or the second-earliest, depending first on whether one accepts the proposition of that the composer of the First Delphic Hymn is named Athenaeus and, second, whether that hymn was composed in the same year as the Second Hymn, or ten years earlier. Limenius was a performer on the kithara and, as a professional musician performing in the Pythaïs (the liturgical embassy to the cult centre of Pythian Apollo at Delphi), he was required to belong to one of the guilds of the Artists of Dionysus .
Nabnitu
Nabnitu ("Creation") is an ancient encyclopedic work of the Old Babylonian period ("circa" 1800 BCE) that consists of multiple tablets. Its Tablet XXXII (often called as U.3011) is a Sumerian-Akkadian text from Ur, and notable as one of the oldest extant documented examples of musical notation. Although on its own the tablet is somewhat cryptic, analysis of other ancient Babylonian texts reveals that it describes the nine strings of an unidentified instrument and its intervals. The nine strings, numbered symmetrically as 123454321, are presented in two parallel columns, one in Sumerian and the other in Akkadian. Tablet XXXII is now in the collections of the British Museum.
Echoes from Ugarit
Echoes from Ugarit includes original music compositions for piano and orchestra recorded with The Russian Philharmonic Orchestra with Seregey Kondrashev as a conductor, and Andrey Kudryavtsev concertmaster. This is the first arrangement of the oldest music notation in the world. The release of “Echoes from Ugarit” was accompanied by a hugely successful tour of the USA, Europe and the Middle East.
http://www.1888pressrelease.com/malek-jandali-composer-pianist-is-releasing-his-most-rec-pr-1d6k0do94.html
Lament
Many of the oldest and most lasting poems in human history have been laments. The Lament for Sumer and Ur dates back at least 4000 years to ancient Sumer, the world's first urban civilization. Laments are present in both the "Iliad" and the "Odyssey", and laments continued to be sung in elegiacs accompanied by the aulos in classical and Hellenistic Greece. Elements of laments appear in "Beowulf", in the Hindu Vedas, and in ancient Near Eastern religious texts. They are included in the Mesopotamian city laments such as the Lament for Ur and the Jewish Tanakh, (which would later become the Christian Old Testament).
John J. McClellan
John Jasper McClellan has made the oldest organ recording that we know today on the organ at the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City. It was recorded on or about 1 September 1910. Where the Columbia Graphophone Company had transported equipment to record the famous choir. Two enormous acoustic recording horns, five feet long and two feet wide, were suspended on a rope strung across the Tabernacle. Although the engineer deemed the recordings successful, apparently they were never approved for release.
Later, it can be heard on a 78 rpm plate from Columbia Recordings nr. 1704.
This according to “The first recordings of organ music ever made” by John W. Landon (Theatre organ: Journal of the American Theatre Organ Society LIII/4 [July–August 2011] pp. 22–28).
Music of Kerala
The earliest written record of Malayalam is the "Edakal - 5" inscription (ca. 4th Century CE). The early literature of Malayalam comprised three types of composition:
Malayalam poetry to the late 20th century CE It is very unuseful data. varying degrees of the fusion of the three different strands. The oldest examples of "Pattu" and, are "Ramacharitam" and "Vaishikatantram", both of the twelfth century.
Musical notation
Ancient Greek musical notation was in use from at least the 6th century BC until approximately the 4th century AD; several complete compositions and fragments of compositions using this notation survive. The notation consists of symbols placed above text syllables. An example of a complete composition is the Seikilos epitaph, which has been variously dated between the 2nd century BC to the 1st century AD.
Music of Iran
Music in Iran, as evidenced by the "pre-Iranian" archaeological records of Elam, the oldest civilization in southwestern Iran, dates back thousands of years. Iran is apparently the birthplace of the earliest complex instruments, which date back to the third millennium BC. A number of trumpets made of silver, gold, and copper were found in eastern Iran that are attributed to the Oxus civilization and date back between 2200 and 1750 BC. The use of both vertical and horizontal angular harps have been documented at the archaeological sites of Madaktu (650 BC) and Kul-e Fara (900–600 BC), with the largest collection of Elamite instruments documented at Kul-e Fara. Multiple depictions of horizontal harps were also sculpted in Assyrian palaces, dating back between 865 and 650 BC.
Early music of the British Isles
A rota is a form of round, known to have been used from the 13th century in England. The earliest surviving piece of composed music in the British Isles, and perhaps the oldest recorded folk song in Europe, is a rota: a setting of 'Sumer Is Icumen In' ('Summer is a-coming in'), from the mid-13th century, possibly written by W. de Wycombe, precentor of the priory of Leominster in Herefordshire, and set for six parts. Although few are recorded, the use of rotas seems to have been widespread in England and it has been suggested that the English talent for polyphony may have its origins in this form of music.
History of the harpsichord
The earliest complete harpsichords still preserved come from Italy, the oldest specimen being dated to 1521. (The Royal College of Music in London has a clavicytherium, lacking its action, which may be older.) Even the earliest extant Italian instruments represent an already well-refined form of the instrument, showing no traces of their more primitive origin.
Dance music
While there exist attestations of the combination of dance and music in ancient times (for example Ancient Greek vases sometimes show dancers accompanied by musicians), the earliest Western dance music that we can still reproduce with a degree of certainty are the surviving medieval dances such as carols and the Estampie. The earliest of these surviving dances are almost as old as Western staff-based music notation.
Ancient music
Ancient music is music that developed in literate cultures, replacing prehistoric music. Ancient music refers to the various musical systems that were developed across various geographical regions such as Mesopotamia, India, Persia, Egypt, China, Greece and Rome. Ancient music is designated by the characterization of the basic notes and scales. It may have been transmitted through oral or written systems.
Old Hall Manuscript
The Old Hall Manuscript (British Library, Additional MS 57950) is the largest, most complete, and most significant source of English sacred music of the late 14th and early 15th centuries, and as such represents the best source for late Medieval English music. The manuscript somehow survived the Reformation, and formerly belonged to St. Edmund's College, a Roman Catholic school located at Old Hall Green (hence its name) in Hertfordshire. It was sold to the British Library after an auction at Sotheby's in 1973.
Music
Prehistoric music can only be theorized based on findings from paleolithic archaeology sites. Flutes are often discovered, carved from bones in which lateral holes have been pierced; these are thought to have been blown at one end like the Japanese shakuhachi. The Divje Babe flute, carved from a cave bear femur, is thought to be at least 40,000 years old. Instruments such as the seven-holed flute and various types of stringed instruments, such as the Ravanahatha, have been recovered from the Indus Valley Civilization archaeological sites. India has one of the oldest musical traditions in the world—references to Indian classical music ("marga") are found in the Vedas, ancient scriptures of the Hindu tradition. The earliest and largest collection of prehistoric musical instruments was found in China and dates back to between 7000 and 6600 BC. The "Hurrian Hymn to Nikkal", found on clay tablets that date back to approximately 1400 BC, is the oldest surviving notated work of music.
Music theory
Several surviving Sumerian and Akkadian clay tablets include musical information of a theoretical nature, mainly lists of intervals and tunings. The scholar Sam Mirelman reports that the earliest of these texts dates from before 1500 BCE, a millennium earlier than surviving evidence from any other culture of comparable musical thought. Further, "All the Mesopotamian texts [about music] are united by the use of a terminology for music that, according to the approximate dating of the texts, was in use for over 1,000 years."
Charlotta Seuerling
The harp of Charlotte Seuerling is kept at Stockholm Music Museum; also letters and poems written by her hand is kept. Among her writings are also kept a writing test, which is the oldest expample of blind text in Sweden, written with a writing device constructed for the blind before Braille, kept at Kungliga biblioteket.
Her song "Sång i en melankolisk stund" was published anonymously many times after 1828, and with her name in the song book "Miniaturvisbok" (1852) alongside work by Johan Olof Wallin, Fredrika Bremer and Gunnar Wennerberg.
History of music
Byzantine music (Greek: Βυζαντινή Μουσική) is the music of the Byzantine Empire composed to Greek texts as ceremonial, festival, or church music. Greek and foreign historians agree that the ecclesiastical tones and in general the whole system of Byzantine music is closely related to the ancient Greek system. It remains the oldest genre of extant music, of which the manner of performance and (with increasing accuracy from the 5th century onwards) the names of the composers, and sometimes the particulars of each musical work's circumstances, are known.
Accordion music genres
Although the accordion is best known primarily as a folk instrument, it has been used with increasing frequency by classical composers. The earliest surviving concert piece written for the accordion is "", written in 1836 by Miss Louise Reisner of Paris, an accordionist and amateur composer.
Oxyrhynchus hymn
The Oxyrhynchus hymn is the only surviving fragment of notated Christian Greek music from the first four hundred years of the Christian period, although historian and musician Kenneth Levy has argued that the Sanctus melody best preserved in the Western medieval Requiem mass dates from around the fourth century. Modern recordings of the hymn have been included on a number of releases of Ancient Greek music.
Guqin notation
Written qin music did not directly tell what notes were played; instead, it was written in a tablature detailing tuning, finger positions, and stroke technique, thus comprising a step by step method and description of how to play a piece. Some tablatures do indicate notes using the gongche system, or indicate rhythm using dots. The earliest example of the modern shorthand tablature survives from around the twelfth century CE. An earlier form of music notation from the Tang era survives in just one manuscript, dated to the seventh century CE, called Jieshi Diao Youlan 《碣石調幽蘭》 (Solitary Orchid in Stone Tablet Mode). It is written in a longhand form called "wenzi pu" 〔文字譜〕 (literally "written notation"), said to have been created by Yongmen Zhou (雍門周) during the Warring States period, which gives all the details using ordinary written Chinese characters. Later in the Tang dynasty Cao Rou (曹柔) and others simplified the notation, using only the important elements of the characters (like string number, plucking technique, "hui" number and which finger to stop the string) and combined them into one character notation. This meant that instead of having two lines of written text to describe a few notes, a single character could represent one note, or sometimes as many as nine. This notation form was called "jianzi pu" 〔減字譜〕 (literally "reduced notation") and it was a great advancement for recording qin pieces. It was so successful that from the Ming dynasty onwards, a great many qinpu 〔琴譜〕 (qin tablature collections) appeared, the most famous and useful being "Shenqi Mipu" (The Mysterious and Marvellous Tablature) compiled by Zhu Quan, the 17th son of the founder of the Ming dynasty . In the 1960s, Zha Fuxi discovered more than 130 qinpu that contain well over 3360 pieces of written music. Sadly, many qinpu compiled before the Ming dynasty are now lost, and many pieces have remained unplayed for hundreds of years.
Widsith
There is some controversy as to when "Widsith" was first composed. Some historians, such as John Niles, argue that the work was invented after King Alfred's rule to present "a common glorious past", while others such as Kemp Malone have argued that the piece is an authentic transcription of old heroic songs. Among the works appearing in the Exeter Book, there are none quite like "Widsith", which may be by far the oldest extant work that gives a historical account of the Battle of the Goths and the Huns, recounted as legends in later Scandinavian works such as the Hervarar saga. Archaeologist Lotte Hedeager argues that "Widsith" goes back to Migration Age history--at least part of it was composed in the 6th century, and that the author demonstrates familiarity with regions outside of Britain, including Denmark and the Baltic coast.
Johann Erasmus Kindermann
Most of Kindermann's surviving works are vocal pieces that reflect the transition from older forms to the more modern use of concertato techniques and basso continuo and explore a variety of techniques from motets for choir without instruments to concertos for solo voices after Schütz's sectional concertos, recitative and dialogue experiments (some of which look up to late Baroque works - for example, by using unprepared dissonance in the recitative "Dum tot carminibus" for tenor and continuo). Some two hundred songs survive, on diverse texts: homophonic settings of brief poetic texts, songs for one or two voices and continuo with instrumental ritornellos, etc. Several manuscript pieces are important precursors to later church cantatas and belong to the earliest large-scale Nuremberg vocal music to have contrasting solo and choral movements.
Of the keyboard music, "Harmonia Organica" (1645) is the most important collection, not only in the musical sense but also in the history of music printing, as it is perhaps the earliest engraved German music. It consists of 25 contrapuntal pieces. The first fourteen are preludes, 15-20 measures long, with no imitative idiom present, each starting with all voices together. The first six cover all church modes (one prelude for both authentic and plagal modes); the next six repeat this series transposing it down a fifth. The rest of the pieces of the collection are titled "fuga": some are genuine fugues, others are based on chorale melodies and use them in a variety of ways, sometimes one phrase is answering another, other times the second phrase may be used for an interlude, etc. There is one remarkable triple fugue on chorale melodies, and an early example of chorale fugue (i.e. fugue on the first phrase of the chorale melody), a model which would later be extensively used by central German composers and, most importantly, Johann Pachelbel and J.S. Bach. The final piece of "Harmonia Organica" is a Magnificat setting, which begins and ends with a full-fledged improvisatory, free section. Different verses are treated differently: some as cantus firmus in one of the voices, one as a fugue, one as an echo, etc. Other surviving keyboard music by Kindermann includes a number of dances for the harpsichord.
Mesomedes
Prior to the discovery of the Seikilos epitaph in the late 19th century, the hymns of Mesomedes were the only surviving written music from the ancient world. Three were published by Vincenzo Galilei in his "Dialogo della musica antica e della moderna" (Florence, 1581), during a period of intense investigation into music of the ancient Greeks. These hymns had been preserved through the Byzantine tradition, and were presented to Vincenzo by Girolamo Mei.
History of the guqin
In 1977, a recording of "Liu Shui" 【流水】 (Flowing Water, as performed by Guan Pinghu, one of the best qin players of the 20th century) was chosen to be included in the Voyager Golden Record, a gold-plated LP recording containing music from around the world, which was sent into outer space by NASA on the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecraft. It is the longest excerpt included on the disc. In 2003, guqin music was proclaimed as one of the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity by UNESCO.
Cædmon
The only known survivor from Cædmon's oeuvre is his "Hymn" (audio version). The poem is known from 21 manuscript copies, making it the best-attested Old English poem after Bede's "Death Song" (with 35 witnesses) and the best attested in the poetic corpus in manuscripts copied or owned in the British Isles during the Anglo-Saxon period. The "Hymn" also has by far the most complicated known textual history of any surviving Anglo-Saxon poem. It is found in two dialects and five distinct recensions (Northumbrian "aelda", Northumbrian "eordu", West-Saxon "eorðan", West-Saxon "ylda", and West-Saxon "eorðe"), all but one of which are known from three or more witnesses. It is one of the earliest attested examples of written Old English and one of the earliest recorded examples of sustained poetry in a Germanic language. Together with the runic Ruthwell Cross and Franks Casket inscriptions, "Cædmon's Hymn" is one of three candidates for the earliest attested example of Old English poetry.
Frank Lambert (inventor)
After being restored by Aaron Cramer, Lambert's talking clock is currently at the National Watch and Clock Museum in Columbia, PA, and is listed in "The Guinness Book of World Records" and in "The Encyclopedia of Recorded Sound" as the world's oldest playable recording. Until 2008 it was considered to be the oldest surviving sound recording but a phonautogram of Au Clair de la Lune by Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville from 1860 has been found to pre-date it. However, Lambert's recording is still the oldest which can be played with its own original device, unlike the phonautogram which was played by optically scanning it and using a computer to process the scan into a digital audio file.
Musical notation
The scholar and music theorist Isidore of Seville, while writing in the early 7th century, considered that "unless sounds are held by the memory of man, they perish, because they cannot be written down." By the middle of the 9th century, however, a form of neumatic notation began to develop in monasteries in Europe as a mnemonic device for Gregorian chant, using symbols known as neumes; the earliest surviving musical notation of this type is in the "Musica disciplina" of Aurelian of Réôme, from about 850. There are scattered survivals from the Iberian Peninsula before this time, of a type of notation known as Visigothic neumes, but its few surviving fragments have not yet been deciphered. The problem with this notation was that it only showed melodic contours and consequently the music could not be read by someone who did not know the music already.
Dafne
Dafne is the earliest known work that, by modern standards, could be considered an opera. The libretto by Ottavio Rinuccini survives complete; the mostly-lost music was completed by Jacopo Peri, but at least two of the six surviving fragments are by Jacopo Corsi. "Dafne" was first performed during Carnival of 1598 (1597 old style) at the Palazzo Corsi.
Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565
The Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565, is a piece of organ music written, according to its oldest extant sources, by Johann Sebastian Bach. The piece opens with a toccata section, followed by a fugue that ends in a coda. It is one of the most famous works in the organ repertoire.
Middle Eastern music
Historically, the oldest pictorial record of the oud dates back to the Uruk period in Southern Mesopotamia over 5000 years ago. It is on a cylinder seal currently housed at the British Museum and acquired by Dr. Dominique Collon, Editor of Iraq at the British Institute for the Study of Iraq.
Narrative poetry
The oral tradition is the predecessor of essentially all other modern forms of communication. For thousands of years, cultures passed on their history through the oral tradition from generation to generation. A clear example of this – and the oldest one – comes from Ancient India, the Vedic Chant, which is often considered the oldest unbroken oral tradition in existence today. In addition, one of the most notable was the ancient Hebrews, people of the Middle East; they were taught and passed on the stories of God in over 115 countries worldwide. The poetry in the Bible is called the Psalms, that capture stories of conquest, failure, confession and more. Some of it is narrative in nature.
Musical instrument
Researchers have discovered archaeological evidence of musical instruments in many parts of the world. Some finds are 67,000 years old, however their status as musical instruments is often in dispute. Consensus solidifies about artifacts dated back to around 37,000 years old and later. Only artifacts made from durable materials or using durable methods tend to survive. As such, the specimens found cannot be irrefutably placed as the earliest musical instruments.
In July 1995, Slovenian archaeologist Ivan Turk discovered a bone carving in the northwest region of Slovenia. The carving, named the Divje Babe Flute, features four holes that Canadian musicologist Bob Fink determined could have been used to play four notes of a diatonic scale. Researchers estimate the flute's age at between 43,400 and 67,000 years, making it the oldest known musical instrument and the only musical instrument associated with the Neanderthal culture. However, some archaeologists and ethnomusicologists dispute the flute's status as a musical instrument. German archaeologists have found mammoth bone and swan bone flutes dating back to 30,000 to 37,000 years old in the Swabian Alps. The flutes were made in the Upper Paleolithic age, and are more commonly accepted as being the oldest known musical instruments.
Codex Speciálník
The Speciálník Codex (CZ-HKm MS II.A.7) is a 15th-century "speciálník" (i.e., special songbook) originating from a monastery in the region of Praha (Prague). Its eclectic mix of Medieval and Renaissance "a cappella" sacred music is matched only by its brilliant juxtapositions of well-known and obscure pieces and composers. Containing works for two, three, and four voices, the Codex is one of the oldest surviving collections of Czech Renaissance polyphony, and originated in the Utraquist protestant congregations of around 1500. The manuscript is currently in the Hradec Králové Museum, which acquired it from a Prague antique dealer in 1901.
Irish music collecting
Very little Irish music composed before 1700 survives. Some airs from this period are preserved in manuscript, the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book being one of the more notable examples. A reference to " Callen O Costure Me/Cailin O Chois tSuire Me" in William Ballet's book of lute music in the late 16th centureyis the first known record of an Irish song being set down in musical notation.
Sebastian Virdung
In 1511, he published his treatise "Musica getuscht und angezogen" The text is described as the first printed book on the subject. It covered theory of music, counterpoint and composition. However, none of these subjects are to be found in the printed work that survives. Existing sections are based on instruments with illustrations and is notable for being the oldest printed source on this subject. The second is said to be "Musica instrumentalis deudsch" (1529) by Martin Agricola. These works are both illustrated, and important for the history of European instruments. It classifies instruments into families. It is also a source on musical notation.
Prehistoric music
Findings from Paleolithic archaeology sites suggest that prehistoric people used carving and piercing tools to create instruments. Archeologists have found Paleolithic flutes carved from bones in which lateral holes have been pierced. The Divje Babe flute, carved from a cave bear femur, is thought to be at least 40,000 years old. Instruments such as the seven-holed flute and various types of stringed instruments, such as the Ravanahatha, have been recovered from the Indus Valley Civilization archaeological sites. India has one of the oldest musical traditions in the world—references to Indian classical music ("marga") are found in the Vedas, ancient scriptures of the Hindu tradition. The earliest and largest collection of prehistoric musical instruments was found in China and dates back to between 7000 and 6600 BCE.
Ancient music
In 1986, Anne Draffkorn Kilmer from the University of California at Berkeley published her decipherment of a cuneiform tablet from Nippur dated to about 2000 BCE. She proposed that they represent fragmentary instructions for performing music, that the music was composed in harmonies of thirds, and that it was also written using a diatonic scale . The notation in that tablet was not as developed as the notation in the later cuneiform Hurrian tablets from Ugarit, dated by Kilmer to about 1250 BCE . The interpretation of the notation system is still controversial (at least five rival interpretations have been published), but it is clear that the notation indicates the names of strings on a lyre, and its tuning is described in other tablets. These tablets represent the earliest recorded melodies, though fragmentary, from anywhere in the world .
Musica enchiriadis
Musica enchiriadis is an anonymous musical treatise of the 9th century. It is the first surviving attempt to set up a system of rules for polyphony in western art music. The treatise was once attributed to Hucbald, but this is no longer accepted. Some historians once attributed it to Odo of Cluny (879-942). It has also been attributed to Abbot Hoger (d. 906).
Ancient history
Ancient music is music that developed in literate cultures, replacing prehistoric music. Ancient music refers to the various musical systems that were developed across various geographical regions such as Persia, India, China, Greece, Rome, Egypt and Mesopotamia (see music of Mesopotamia, music of ancient Greece, music of ancient Rome, music of Iran). Ancient music is designated by the characterization of the basic audible tones and scales. It may have been transmitted through oral or written systems. Arts of the ancient world refers to the many types of art that were in the cultures of ancient societies, such as those of ancient China, Egypt, Greece, India, Persia, Mesopotamia and Rome.
Antwerp songbook
The "Antwerp songbook" is the first printed large collection of Dutch songs known, to have survived the centuries. Many songs had been transmitted through oral tradition since the end of the Middle Ages: in those cases, the tune was referred to as an "oudt liedeken", an old song. Many songs, printed for the first time in the Antwerp songbook, were already known for centuries by that time and were included in several songbooks and anthologies.
History of music
It has been suggested that the "Divje Babe Flute", a cave bear femur dated to be approximately 43,500 years old, is the world's oldest musical instrument and was produced by Neanderthals. Claims that the femur is indeed a musical instrument are, however, contested by alternative theories including the suggestion that the femur may have been gnawed by carnivores to produce holes.
Bone tool
A number of different musical instruments have been created from bone. A vulture-bone flute discovered in Europe is currently considered the world's oldest musical instrument. At about 40,000 years old, the instrument dates to the time that modern humans were settling in the area. Researchers argue that musical instruments such as this flute helped modern humans form tighter social bonds, giving them an advantage over their Neanderthal counterparts.
Music technology (mechanical)
Findings from paleolithic archaeology sites suggest that prehistoric people used carving and piercing tools to create instruments. Archeologists have found Paleolithic flutes carved from bones in which lateral holes have been pierced. The Divje Babe flute, carved from a cave bear femur, is thought to be at least 40,000 years old. Instruments such as the seven-holed flute and various types of stringed instruments, such as the Ravanahatha, have been recovered from the Indus Valley Civilization archaeological sites. India has one of the oldest musical traditions in the world—references to Indian classical music ("marga") are found in the Vedas, ancient scriptures of the Hindu tradition. The earliest and largest collection of prehistoric musical instruments was found in China and dates back to between 7000 and 6600 BC.
Jan Trojan Turnovský
The oldest dated composition originates from 1572, the earliest work was composed in 1602. Fifteen of his forty compositions have been preserved completely. A half of Trojan's compositions is preserved and carefully dated in the collection "Benešovský kancionál" ("Benešov Hymnbook"), collected by Václav Kolářovic (died 1596). One Latin ordinarium, two responsories and eleven Czech songs have been completely preserved. In addition to this Trojan composed six Czech and four Latin motets, two song fragments, five Czech plenaria and seven compositions intended for Utraquist religious service. These compositions are preserved in fragments.
List of languages by first written accounts
A written record may encode a stage of a language corresponding to an earlier time, either as a result of oral tradition, or because the earliest source is a copy of an older manuscript that was lost. An oral tradition of epic poetry may typically bridge a few centuries, and in rare cases, over a millennium. An extreme case is the Vedic Sanskrit of the "Rigveda": the earliest parts of this text may date to 1500 BC, while the oldest known manuscripts date to 1040 AD.
Similarly the oldest Avestan texts, the "Gathas", are believed to have been composed before 1000 BC, but the oldest Avestan manuscripts date from the 13th century AD.
Musical notation
The earliest form of musical notation can be found in a cuneiform tablet that was created at Nippur, in Sumer (today's Iraq), in about 1400 BC. The tablet represents fragmentary instructions for performing music, that the music was composed in harmonies of thirds, and that it was written using a diatonic scale. A tablet from about 1250 BC shows a more developed form of notation. Although the interpretation of the notation system is still controversial, it is clear that the notation indicates the names of strings on a lyre, the tuning of which is described in other tablets. Although they are fragmentary, these tablets represent the earliest notated melodies found anywhere in the world.
Music in Medieval England
A rota is a form of round, known to have been used from the thirteenth century in England. The earliest surviving piece of composed music in the British Isles, and perhaps the oldest recorded folk song in Europe, is a rota: a setting of 'Sumer Is Icumen In' ('Summer is a-coming in'), from the mid-thirteenth century, possibly written by W. de Wycombe, precentor of the priory of Leominster in Herefordshire, and set for six parts. Although few are recorded, the use of rotas seems to have been widespread in England and it has been suggested that the English talent for polyphony may have its origins in this form of music.
History of music
It is probable that the first musical instrument was the human voice itself, which can make a vast array of sounds, from singing, humming and whistling through to clicking, coughing and yawning. As for other musical instruments, in 2008 archaeologists discovered a bone flute in the Hohle Fels cave near Ulm, Germany. Considered to be about 35,000 years old, the five-holed flute has a V-shaped mouthpiece and is made from a vulture wing bone. The oldest known wooden pipes were discovered near Greystones, Ireland, in 2004. A wood-lined pit contained a group of six flutes made from yew wood, between 30 and 50 cm long, tapered at one end, but without any finger holes. They may once have been strapped together.
Music of Wales
The earliest written records of the Welsh harpists' repertoire are contained in the Robert ap Huw manuscript, which documents 30 ancient harp pieces that make up a fragment of the lost repertoire of the medieval Welsh bards. The music was composed between the 14th and 16th centuries, transmitted orally, then written down in a unique tablature and later copied in the early 17th century. This manuscript contains the earliest body of harp music from anywhere in Europe and is one of the key sources of early Welsh music. The manuscript has been the source of a long-running effort to accurately decipher the music it encodes.
The Song of Roland
The Song of Roland () is an epic poem (Chanson de geste) based on the Battle of Roncevaux Pass in 778, during the reign of Charlemagne. It is the oldest surviving major work of French literature and exists in various manuscript versions, which testify to its enormous and enduring popularity in the 12th to 14th centuries.
Sheet music
A tablet from about 1,250 BC shows a more developed form of notation. Although the interpretation of the notation system is still controversial, it is clear that the notation indicates the names of strings on a lyre, the tuning of which is described in other tablets. Although they are fragmentary, these tablets represent the earliest notated melodies found anywhere in the world.
Ancient Greek musical notation was in use from at least the 6th century BC until approximately the 4th century AD; several complete compositions and fragments of compositions using this notation survive. The notation consists of symbols placed above text syllables. An example of a complete composition is the Seikilos epitaph, which has been variously dated between the 2nd century BC to the 1st century AD.
Rossi Codex
The Rossi Codex is a music manuscript collection of the 14th century. The manuscript is presently divided into two sections, one in the Vatican Library and another, smaller section in the Northern Italian town of Ostiglia. The codex contains 37 secular works including madrigals, cacce and, uniquely among trecento sources, monophonic ballatas. The codex is of great interest for trecento musicologists because for many years it was considered the earliest source of fourteenth-century Italian music. Although other pre-1380 sources of secular, polyphonic, Italian music have now been identified, none are nearly so extensive as the Rossi Codex.
History of the guqin
In the second period, guqin music was influenced by Confucian ideology and Daoist philosophy, Central Asian music imported into the imperial court, as well as entertainment music of the Sui and Tang Dynasty. During this period attempts were made to codify playing techniques and notation. Based on the detailed description in the essay "Qin Cao" 【琴操】 by Cai Yong (132–192), the standard form of the qin was most likely set around the late Han Dynasty. The earliest surviving qin in this modern form, preserved in both China and Japan, have been reliably dated to the Tang Dynasty. Many are still playable, the most famous perhaps being the one named "Jiuxiao Huanpei" 《九霄環佩/九霄环佩》, attributed to the famous late Tang Dynasty qin maker Lei Wei (雷威). It is kept in the Palace Museum in Beijing. The earliest known piece of notated guqin music, Jieshi Diao Youlan, dates from this period.
Israel in Egypt
For a long time, the earliest known recording of music known to still exist was an excerpt from this oratorio conducted by August Manns. The recording was of several thousand singers singing "Moses and the Children of Israel"  in the Crystal Palace Handel Festival of June 29, 1888, recorded by Col. George Gouraud on Edison's yellow paraffin cylinder. The limitations of recording technology at that time, together with the number of voices, the distance of the recording device from the singers and the acoustics of the Crystal Palace, mean that the recorded sound was dim to begin with, and it has since then become badly degraded. What survives is barely audible but still identifiable by ear, and gives some insight into performance practices at the height of the Handel Festival phenomenon.
Sheet music
In Ancient Greek music, three hymns by Mesomedes of Crete exist in manuscript. One of the oldest known examples of music notation is a papyrus fragment of the Hellenic era play "Orestes" (408 BC) has been found, which contains musical notation for a choral ode. Ancient Greek notation appears to have fallen out of use around the time of the Decline of the Roman Empire.
History of the violin
The oldest confirmed surviving violin, dated inside, is the "Charles IX" by Andrea Amati, made in Cremona in 1564, but the label is very doubtful. The Metropolitan Museum of Art has an Amati violin that may be even older, possibly dating to 1558 but just like the Charles IX the date is unconfirmed. One of the most famous and certainly the most pristine is the Messiah Stradivarius (also known as the 'Salabue') made by Antonio Stradivari in 1716 and very little played, perhaps almost never and in an "as new" state. It is now located in the Ashmolean Museum of Oxford.
Urner Tellspiel
The Urner Tellspiel () is the earliest surviving written version of a William Tell play.
Classics
The earliest surviving works of Greek literature are epic poetry. Homer's "Iliad" and "Odyssey" are the earliest to survive to us today, probably composed in the eighth century BC. These early epics were oral compositions, created without the use of writing.
Around the same time that the Homeric epics were composed, the Greek alphabet was introduced; the earliest surviving inscriptions date from around 750 BC.
European drama was invented in ancient Greece. Traditionally this was attributed to Thespis, around the middle of the sixth century BC, though the earliest surviving work of Greek drama is Aeschylus' tragedy "The Persians", which dates to 472 BC. Early Greek tragedy was performed by a chorus and two actors, but by the end of Aeschylus' life, a third actor had been introduced, either by him or by Sophocles. The last surviving Greek tragedies are the "Bacchae" of Euripides and Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus, both from the end of the fifth century BC.
Origins of opera
"Dafne" by Jacopo Peri was the earliest composition considered opera, as understood today, although with only five instrumental parts it was much more like a chamber opera than either the preceding intermedi or the operas of Claudio Monteverdi a few years later. It was written around 1597, largely under the inspiration of an elite circle of literate Florentine humanists who gathered as the "Camerata". Significantly, "Dafne" was an attempt to revive the classical Greek drama, part of the wider revival of antiquity characteristic of the Renaissance. The members of the Camerata considered that the "chorus" parts of Greek dramas were originally sung, and possibly even the entire text of all roles; opera was thus conceived as a way of "restoring" this situation. The libretto was by Ottavio Rinuccini, who had written some of the 1587 Medici intermedi, in which Peri had also been involved; Rinuccini appears to have recycled some of the material, at least from the scene illustrated at right. Most of the music for "Dafne" is lost (the libretto was printed and survives), but one of Peri's many later operas, "Euridice", dating from 1600, is the first opera score to have survived to the present day.
Music technology
Findings from paleolithic archaeology sites suggest that prehistoric people used carving and piercing tools to create instruments. Archeologists have found Paleolithic flutes carved from bones in which lateral holes have been pierced. The Divje Babe flute, carved from a cave bear femur, is thought to be at least 40,000 years old. Instruments such as the seven-holed flute and various types of stringed instruments, such as the Ravanahatha, have been recovered from the Indus Valley Civilization archaeological sites. India has one of the oldest musical traditions in the world—references to Indian classical music ("marga") are found in the Vedas, ancient scriptures of the Hindu tradition. The earliest and largest collection of prehistoric musical instruments was found in China and dates back to between 7000 and 6600 BC.
Composer
Music was an important part of social and cultural life in Ancient Greece. We know that composers wrote notated music during the Ancient Greek era because scholars have found the Seikilos epitaph. The epitaph, written around 200 BC to around AD 100 is the oldest surviving example of a complete musical composition, including musical notation, in the world. The song, the melody of which is recorded, alongside its lyrics, in the ancient Greek musical notation, was found engraved on a tombstone, a stele, near Aydın, Turkey (not far from Ephesus). It is a Hellenistic Ionic song in either the Phrygian octave species or Iastian tonos.
History of lute-family instruments
Western scholarship has traditionally credited the Greeks, including Pythagoras (c.  570 – c.  495 BC), with discovery of this math. However, as modern scholars have looked at cuneiform texts, it is clear that the Greeks were not the first. Recorded thinking in Mesopotamia about the mathematical ratios of strings predates the Greek thinking by at least 1500 years. Furthermore, a form of written music came out of that era, called the Hurrian songs, currently the oldest known written music, and is based on modes of music, created through string ratios. The Persian and Arab thinkers from the Umayyad and Abbssid periods (7th to 13th centuries A.D.), however, did not access this ancient mathematical thinking, but began working with the math again after they accessed Greek thinking.
History of music in the biblical period
Among the earliest pictographic signs found have been of a boat-shaped harp found on a Sumerian clay tablet dating back to 3000 BC, and an earlier depiction of this harp was also found in modern southwest Iran dating around 3200 BC.
Many relics of musical instruments have been found in Palestine dating from the Hellenistic age giving details about the state, character, and practice of liturgical music. In other cases, many musical instruments of the Hebrews mentioned in the Bible are identified by analogy with similar instruments found in other nearby cultures, such as Egypt and Babylonia. An example of some instruments mentioned in the bible can be found in Daniel 3:5:
According to Jewish historian Josephus Flavius, all details of the First Temple, including its musical instruments, were made and viewed as "symbols of the universe," especially instruments like the kithara or lyre. In his "Antiquities of the Jews", Josephus explains that the musical instruments, along with other matters of Jewish religion, represent a perishable "image" of the cosmos, or of "a cosmic Temple."
History of music in the biblical period
The New Testament was not written until centuries later than the old and the music had attained much higher development, according to music historian Ida Whitcomb. As it related to Christ, it is called Christian music. However, there are but few allusions to it in three of the Gospels: in the Gospel of Luke, there are the "Angels' Song," Mary's "Magnificat," and Zacharias's "Song." In Acts, Paul and Silas sing behind prison-bars: the prison is shaken, the doors fly open, and they are free. In the Epistles, there are but few references to music, but in Ephesians there is a "beautiful one," in which Paul exhorts the churches to sing "Psalms" and "spiritual songs."
Prehistoric music
In 2008, archaeologists discovered a bone flute in the Hohle Fels cave near Ulm, Germany. The five-holed flute has a V-shaped mouthpiece and is made from a vulture wing bone. The researchers involved in the discovery officially published their findings in the journal "Nature" in June 2009. It is one of several similar instruments found in the area, which date to at least 35,000 years ago, making this one of the oldest confirmed find of any musical instruments in history. The Hohle Fels flute was found next to the Venus of Hohle Fels and a short distance from the oldest known human carving. On announcing the discovery, scientists suggested that the "finds demonstrate the presence of a well-established musical tradition at the time when modern humans colonized Europe". Scientists have also suggested that the discovery of the flute may help to explain why early humans survived, while Neanderthals became extinct.
Cædmon
Cædmon's only known surviving work is "Cædmon's Hymn", the nine-line alliterative vernacular praise poem in honour of God which he supposedly learned to sing in his initial dream. The poem is one of the earliest attested examples of Old English and is, with the runic Ruthwell Cross and Franks Casket inscriptions, one of three candidates for the earliest attested example of Old English poetry. It is also one of the earliest recorded examples of sustained poetry in a Germanic language. In 1898, Cædmon's Cross was erected in his honour in the graveyard of St Mary's Church in Whitby.
Ecbasis captivi
The Ecbasis captivi (full title: "Ecbasis cuiusdam captivi per tropologiam", "The escape of a certain captive, interpreted figuratively") is an anonymous Latin beast fable that probably dates to the middle of the 11th century, and was likely written in the Vosges region of France. It is the oldest example of a European beast fable to survive, and the first medieval European example of anthropomorphic animals. The poem is written in hexameters with Leonine internal rhyme frequently used throughout the poem. The text survives in two manuscripts, both of which now are at the Royal Library of Belgium.
Religious Jewish music
Probably the oldest surviving tradition in Jewish music is the melodies used in chanting readings from the Scriptures. These melodies are denoted by special signs printed above or below each word in the Hebrew Bible, and differ greatly between Jewish communities, though some features found in many traditions suggest a common origin. They may also differ depending on the book or passage being read, or the time of year (e.g. there are special melodies for the scriptural readings on the High Holy Days, Tisha B'Av, Purim, and the three festival holidays, Sukkot, Pesach and Shavu'ot, as well as deviations from the typical melodies for the chanting of the 10 commandments, the song of the sea and some other smaller sections of text.)
Music of Mesopotamia
Mesopotamian music had a system that introduced rigidity in the music, preventing the melody from developing into chaos. Until recently no form of musical notation had been known, however there is a cuneiform tablet containing a hymn and what has been translated as musical instructions for a performer, making this tablet the oldest known musical notation. There were strict instructions for how to perform music, similar to chord progression today. These instructions also seem to point to a strong desire for musicians to play in tune, with steps in performing requiring frequent attempts to tune the instruments.
Experimental Talking Clock
The Experimental Talking Clock was recorded c. 1878 by inventor Frank Lambert. It was long thought to be the world's oldest playable sound recording and is listed in both the Guinness Book of World Records and The Encyclopedia of Recorded Sound as such; however, an older phonautogram recording from 1860 by Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville was reproduced for the first time in 2008 with the aid of modern technology. The talking clock is still the oldest recording that can be played back with its own mechanism, without the involvement of digital technology.
Pipe organ
Before the Baroque era, keyboard music generally was not written for one instrument or another, but rather was written to be played on "any" keyboard instrument. For this reason, much of the organ's repertoire through the Renaissance period is the same as that of the harpsichord. Pre-Renaissance keyboard music is found in compiled manuscripts that may include compositions from a variety of regions. The oldest of these sources is the Robertsbridge Codex, dating from about 1360. The Buxheimer Orgelbuch, which dates from about 1470 and was compiled in Germany, includes intabulations of vocal music by the English composer John Dunstaple. The earliest Italian organ music is found in the Faenza Codex, dating from 1420.
Euridice (Peri)
Euridice (also Erudice or Eurydice) is an opera by Jacopo Peri, with additional music by Giulio Caccini. It is the earliest surviving opera, Peri's earlier "Dafne" being lost. (Caccini wrote his own "Euridice" even as he supplied music to Peri's opera, published this version before Peri's was performed, in 1600, and got it staged two years later.) The libretto by Ottavio Rinuccini is based on books X and XI of Ovid's "Metamorphoses"
which recount the story of the legendary musician Orpheus and his wife Euridice.
Psalter
Non-illuminated psalters written in Coptic include some of the earliest surviving codices (bound books) altogether; the earliest Coptic psalter predates the earliest Western (Irish) one by more than a century.
The Mudil Psalter, the oldest complete Coptic psalter, dates to the 5th century. It was found in the Al-Mudil Coptic cemetery in a small town near Beni Suef, Egypt. The codex was in the grave of a young girl, open, with her head resting on it. Scholar John Gee has argued that this represents a cultural continuation of the ancient Egyptian tradition of placing the Book of the Dead in tombs and sarcophagi.
Phonograph
Frank Lambert's lead cylinder recording for an experimental talking clock is often identified as the oldest surviving playable sound recording,
although the evidence advanced for its early date is controversial.
Wax phonograph cylinder recordings of Handel's choral music made on June 29, 1888, at The Crystal Palace in London were thought to be the oldest-known surviving musical recordings, until the recent playback by a group of American historians of a phonautograph recording of "Au clair de la lune" made on April 9, 1860.
The 1860 phonautogram had not until then been played, as it was only a transcription of sound waves into graphic form on paper for visual study. Recently developed optical scanning and image processing techniques have given new life to early recordings by making it possible to play unusually delicate or physically unplayable media without physical contact.
Prehistoric music
The oldest flute ever discovered may be the so-called Nicholas flute, found in the Hohle Fels cave, Germany in 2008, though this is disputed. The item in question is a fragment of the femur of a juvenile cave bear, and has been dated to about 43,000 years ago. However, whether it is truly a musical instrument or simply a carnivore-chewed bone is a matter of ongoing debate. In 2012 some flutes, that were discovered years earlier in the Geißenklösterle cave, received a new high-resolution carbon-dating examination yielding an age of 42,000 to 43,000 years.
Robertsbridge Codex
The Robertsbridge Codex (1360) is a music manuscript of the 14th century. It contains the earliest surviving music written specifically for keyboard.
Hymn
Although most familiar to speakers of English in the context of Christianity, hymns are also a fixture of other world religions, especially on the Indian subcontinent. Hymns also survive from antiquity, especially from Egyptian and Greek cultures. Some of the oldest surviving examples of notated music are hymns with Greek texts.
Yemmerrawanne
While in Mayfair, Yemmerrawanne and Bennelong gave a recital of a native song accompanied by clapsticks. One of their audience, Edward Jones wrote down and published the words and music (in "Musical Curiosities", London, 1811), the oldest known published music from Australia.
Medieval music
Liturgical drama developed possibly in the 10th century from the tropes—poetic embelishments of the liturgical texts. One of the tropes, the so-called Quem Quaeritis, belonging to the liturgy of Easter morning, developed into a short play around the year 950. The oldest surviving written source is the Winchester Troper. Around the year 1000 it was sung all around Europe.
Zither
The earliest known surviving instrument of the zither family is a Chinese guqin, a fretless instrument, found in the tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng dating from 433 BC. Similar instruments along this design were developed over the following centuries, for example: the Japanese silk strung koto, the siter of Indonesian gamelans; the Qānūn (or Kanun) of the Middle East; the valiha, a tube zither of Madagascar; and many others. Increasing interest in 'world music' has brought wider recognition to these other zither family members, both ancient and modern. Many of these instruments have been sampled electronically, and are available in instrument banks for music synthesizers.
In Europe and other more northern and western regions, early zithers were more similar to the modern mountain dulcimer, having long, usually rectangular, sound boxes, with one or more melody strings and several unfretted drone strings. Some of these employed movable bridges similar to the Japanese koto, used for retuning the drone strings. The Alpine "Scheitholt" furnishes an example of this older type of European zither. By the late 18th century, two principal varieties of European concert zither had developed, known as the "Salzburg zither" (with a rounded side away from the player), and the "Mittenwald zither" (with both sides rounded). Both styles are still found in concert zithers today, although the Salzburg style has become by far the most common.
Viennese zitherist Johann Petzmayer (1803–1884) became one of the outstanding virtuosi on these early instruments, and is credited with making the zither a household instrument.
In 1838, Nikolaus Weigel of Munich conceived the idea of adopting fixed bridges, adding additional strings, tuning them in the cycle of fifths, and chromatically fretting the fingerboard – effectively converting a rather crude folk instrument into the concert zither. His ideas were not, however, widely accepted until 1862, when luthier Max Amberger of Munich fabricated a new zither based on Weigel's design. At this point the zither had reached something very close to its modern concert form. Within a relatively short time the new design had largely replaced the old Volkszither (though still called by the same name among folk musicians) throughout central Europe, particularly in the Alpine countries. As the 'concert zither' it also began to attract the attention of serious composers, a number of whom, themselves, became concert zither virtuosi. These composers, called the """, flourished between 1870 and 1910. And no less a composer than Johann Strauss II gave the instrument a prominent solo in one of his most famous waltzes, "Tales from the Vienna Woods".
Odisha
Odissi (Orissi) dance and music are classical art forms. Odissi is the oldest surviving dance form in India on the basis of archaeological evidence. Odissi has a long, unbroken tradition of 2,000 years, and finds mention in the "Natyashastra" of Bharatamuni, possibly written c. 200 BC. However, the dance form nearly became extinct during the British period, only to be revived after India's independence by a few gurus.
O Virgo Splendens
O Virgo Splendens ("O Splendid Virgin") is a monodic song (fol. 21v-22) from the Llibre Vermell de Montserrat, one of the oldest extant medieval manuscripts containing music. In modern times it has been recorded by many artists:
Scanian Law
Codex Runicus ("AM 28 8vo") is the most famous of several manuscripts from the 13th to 15th centuries containing handwritten copies of the Scanian Law. The second part of the Codex Runicus manuscript consists of two short historical texts: a fragment of a list of Danish kings and a chronicle beginning with the legendary Danish king Hadding's son Frode and ending with Eric VI of Denmark. Following the historical texts is a description of the oldest border between Denmark and Sweden and at the last leaf, the notes and words of the oldest preserved piece of music known in Denmark, a verse with accompanying musical notation on a four-line staff - the first musical notations written in Scandinavia.
Early music
Interpretations of historical scope of "early music" vary. The original Academy of Ancient Music formed in 1726 defined "Ancient" music as works written by composers who lived before the end of the 16th century. Johannes Brahms and his contemporaries would have understood Early music to range from the High Renaissance and Baroque, while some scholars consider that Early music should include the music of ancient Greece or Rome before 500 AD (a period that is generally covered by the term Ancient music). Music critic Michael Kennedy excludes Baroque, defining Early music as "musical compositions from [the] earliest times up to and including music of [the] Renaissance period".
Psalter 1446/171
http://www.unesco.org/new/en/communication-and-information/memory-of-the-world/register/full-list-of-registered-heritage/registered-heritage-page-8/the-oldest-manuscripts-preserved-at-the-national-archives-of-georgia/
History of music
Prehistoric music, once more commonly called primitive music, is the name given to all music produced in preliterate cultures (prehistory), beginning somewhere in very late geological history. Prehistoric music is followed by ancient music in most of Europe (1500 BC) and later music in subsequent European-influenced areas, but still exists in isolated areas.
De rerum natura
Copies of the poem were preserved in a number of medieval libraries, with the earliest extant manuscripts dating from the ninth-century. The oldestand, according to David Butterfield, most famousof these is the Codex Oblongus, often called O. This copy has been dated to the early ninth century and was produced by a Carolingian scriptorium (likely a monastery connected to the court of Charlemagne). O is currently housed at Leiden University. The second of these ninth-century manuscripts is the Codex Quadratus, often called Q. This manuscript was likely copied after O, sometime in the mid-ninth century. Today, Q is also housed at Leiden University. The third and final ninth-century manuscriptwhich comprises the "Schedae Gottorpienses" fragment (commonly called G and located in the Kongelige Bibliotek of Copenhagen) and the "Schedae Vindobonenses" fragments (commonly called V and U and located in the Austrian National Library in Vienna)was christened by Butterfield as S and has been dated to the latter part of the ninth century. Scholars consider manuscripts O, Q, and S to all be descendants of the original archetype, which they dub Ω. However, while O is a direct descendant of the archetype, Q and S are believed to have both been derived from a manuscript (Ψ) that in turn had been derived from a damaged and modified version of the archetype (Ω).
Tournai Mass
Before the 15th century, most musical settings of the Ordinary of the Mass were grouped according to movement. For instance, the Ivrea Codex and Apt Codex both contain mass movements, and these movements are grouped so that all of the Kyries are together, all of the Glorias are together, and so on. A priest selecting the music for the service would choose one from each group to be sung, and so any setting of a movement could be used in combination with any other. The Tournai Mass is the first known mass to have been written in a manuscript as if it were a single unified setting of the entire Ordinary. Three other similarly compiled masses from the 13th and early 14th century survive: the Toulouse Mass, Barcelona Mass, and Sorbonne Mass (also known as the Besançon Mass). All of these masses are anonymous, and musicological scholarship indicates that all of them are compilations of the works of several composers.
Claudio Veggio
Of greatest significance to musicologists is a manuscript by Veggio which survived in the archives of Castell'Arquato. It appears to be a rough copy of his draft compositions, containing numerous sketches, strikeouts and revisions; it is one of the earliest such music manuscripts to survive, and provides a rare window into compositional procedures of the time. Many of the compositions are transcriptions for keyboard of vocal compositions, now lost, probably by other composers.
Music of Slovakia
Some of the oldest recorded forms of music in Slovakia are liturgical song (in Old Slavonic) from the time of Great Moravian empire (9th century), from which developed much of the sacred music of later centuries. Latin plainsong was also widespread in the region at this early period, especially after the incororation of Slovakia into the Kingdom of Hungary in 1218. Early codices include the 'Nitra Gospels' of c. 1100, and the 'Pray codex' (c. 1195). From the 15th to the 17th centuries, polyphony was practised and developed at many urban centres, including Bratislava, Bardejov, Levoča and Kežmarok.
Byzantine Empire
The ecclesiastical forms of Byzantine music, composed to Greek texts as ceremonial, festival, or church music, are, today, the most well-known forms. Ecclesiastical chants were a fundamental part of this genre. Greek and foreign historians agree that the ecclesiastical tones and in general the whole system of Byzantine music is closely related to the ancient Greek system. It remains the oldest genre of extant music, of which the manner of performance and (with increasing accuracy from the 5th century onwards) the names of the composers, and sometimes the particulars of each musical work's circumstances, are known.
Newa music
These stories infer that Newa music is primarily derived from the classic Hindu and Buddhist music. Music accompanied most of the traditional epics and plays written in Sanskrit and Nepal Bhasa. This music is based on raga and taal system. The earliest discovered treatise on Newa music is a manuscript called Sangit Chandra Grantha. It was written by King Jagatjyoti Malla of Bhaktapur and his minister Vanshamani Ojha. The manuscript primarily deals with dance, drama and stage play. The text was written in Sanskrit with translations and explanation in Nepal Bhasa. This was followed by another manuscript called Gayanlochan, written by King Jitamitra Malla. Various manuscripts on musical instruments have been found as well. The most famous ones of these are Taal anukaranam, Mridanga Anukaranam, Panchataal baaja.
Part (music)
The historical development of polyphony and part-writing is a central thread through European music history. The earliest notated pieces of music in Europe were gregorian chant melodies. It appears that the "Codex Calixtinus" (12th century) contains the earliest extant decipherable part music. Many histories of music trace the development of new rules for dissonances, and shifting stylistic possibilities for relationships between parts.
Christ ist erstanden
"Christ ist erstanden" (Christ is risen) is a German Easter hymn, and is possibly the oldest Christian liturgical German song. It has inspired music by composers such as Ludwig Senfl and Heinrich Schütz (from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries respectively) through to modern composers such as Oskar Gottlieb Blarr and Enjott Schneider, and has appeared in 45 hymnals, including the current German Catholic and Protestant hymnals. Translations and paraphrases include a version by Catherine Winkworth which has appeared in 231 hymnals. "Christ ist erstanden" also inspired Martin Luther to write "Christ lag in Todes Banden", deriving the melody from it.