The History of Classical Music

Dates: 1450-1600

Composers: Those who composed music were usually employed to do something else, such as work as a priest. 
- William Byrd
- Orlando Di Lasso
- Josquin Des Prez
- Thomas Tallis
- Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina

Features: 
- A capella
- Mainly contrapuntal 
- Lots of imitation
- Polychoral pieces in antiphonal style
- Secular music
- Mainly vocal/choral music 
- The motet 
- Madrigal
- Stately pavan
- Galliard  

Dates:  1600-1750

Composers: 
- J.S Bach 
- George Friederic Handel
- Claudio Monteverdi
- Archangelo Corelli
- Johann Pachebel
- Domenico Scarlatti
- Henry Purcell
- Antonio Vivaldi
- Georg Philipp Telemann

Features: 
- The birth of opera
- Basso Continuo  
- Quartet/quintet
- Concerto Grosso
- Aria
- Prelude & Fugue
- Suite 

Dates: 1750-1820

Composers: 
- Christoph Willibad Gluck 
- Franz Joseph Haydn
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
- Ludwig Van Beethoven
- Louis Spohr

Features:
- Simple melody accompanied by harmonic progressions
- Some syncopation
- Mainly homophonic 
- Sonata 

Dates: 1810-1920

Composers:
- Niccoló Paganini
- Franz Schubert
- Hector Berlioz
- Felix Mendelssohn
- Frédéric Chopin
- Robert Schumann
- Johannes Brahms
- Franz Liszt
- Johann Strauss
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
- Gustav Mahler
- Richard Strauss

Features: 
- Concerto
- More technical pieces 

Date: 1900's 

Composers:
- Arnold Schoenberg
- Béla Bartók
- Igor Stavinsky
- George Gershwin
- Benjamin Britten
- Scarlatti

Features:
- Clashing harmonies
- A tonal music