The Middle Ages was the most important stage of European feudal society. Religious forces are powerful, forming a political system of the integration of politics and religion. The dark rule of the church over science and humanity greatly suppressed the development of art and made the development of music very slow. However, because the church attached great importance to the role of music education, religious music developed during this period. The most outstanding achievements are the prosperity and spread of Gregorian hymns, the formation of professional musicians, the perfection of notation and the emergence of polyphonic music. Medieval religious music is basically a solo chorus, but there are also forms of chorus, solo and duet, with Gregory Chant as the typical representative. Music is rational, gentle, without emotional changes, dull and monotonous. There are many forms of vocal music singing in drama. Secular music mostly reflects folk life and love, which is vivid and rich, but it is not the mainstream of music in this period. Church music, that is, singing hymns and reciting the Bible, can be imagined as pure vocal music. Religious music has always been dominated by vocal music because vocal music has lyrics. On the contrary, instrumental music mainly developed as secular music. Romanesque music is one of the important musical forms in this period in the Middle Ages, and its representative is Gregorian chant, which is a typical Catholic music.
The characteristics of music in the Renaissance The Renaissance began with the emergence of the Italian Dutch school and gradually spread to the whole of Europe. Renaissance advocated humanism, essentially publicized people and their values, advocated that art expressed people's feelings, and emphasized people's greatness and great potential. At this stage, a large number of secular music spread widely, and the status of the aristocratic class rose, so it was no longer the patent of the church to hire specialized musicians. Music gradually broke away from the pure educational function of religious music, and once again took the expression of human emotions as its fundamental purpose. The development of polyphonic music and the appearance of instrumental music as an independent performance form changed the dominant position of human voice in music and became an important achievement of music development in this period. During the Renaissance, music began to express people's feelings as its main purpose and content, with beautiful style, harmony, gorgeous and pure timbre. In this period, we no longer stick to two parts, but have three parts, paying attention to the harmony effect. Renaissance melody is mainly progressive and vocal, which is related to the cadence of lyrics, and there are few big jumping intervals.
Musical characteristics of baroque period
During the Baroque period, the court became the center of music culture, aristocrats could organize individual bands, and folk music institutions and groups appeared in the city, so the music life of citizens became richer and richer. The appearance of digital bass, the establishment of the average law, the establishment of the big and small sound systems and the formation of the harmony function system made the music in Baroque period transition from a single-part melody with single thought and no ups and downs to the establishment of multi-parts, music contrast and harmony concepts, thus forming the theme music. The establishment of opera is the most outstanding musical achievement in Baroque period. At this time, instrumental music and vocal music are equally divided in musical life, sonata genre forms, and instrumental ensemble forms appear; The clavichord and violin have gradually become the main instruments in instrumental music performance. The music style of Baroque period still has a strong religious color, and the repeated appearance of music rationality, elegance, balance, purity and melody lacks contrast and ups and downs. Baroque usually only expresses a basic emotion, which has the consistency of emotion, rhythm, theme repetition and strength, and achieves the fluency of melody, the simplicity of accompaniment texture and the lyricism of singing style.
Musical characteristics in classical period
Under the influence of the bourgeois revolution and the Enlightenment, the European middle class gradually stepped onto the political stage. The people-oriented thought of the middle class, which is positive and full of revolutionary spirit, has greatly influenced the creative tendency and style of musicians. Lofty, simple, perfect, harmonious and solemn, the use of national folk music and secular music materials, the dramatic pursuit in music development, the perfection of sonata form and the establishment of symphony form have become the outstanding characteristics of music development in the classical period. Among them, the sonata structure takes contrast and unity as the basic principle of musical development of instrumental works, emphasizes the complexity and richness of music, and highlights the relationship between internal contradictions, conflicts and solutions in musical development, laying the foundation for the formation and development of all large-scale instrumental works such as symphonies. At this time, the popularity of concerts, the change in the status of professional musicians, and the composer's creative style with personal attributes have improved the degree of specialization and popularity of music among the public, thus promoting the glory of European music.
In the classical period, the rich changes and contrasts of music and emotion gained new emphasis. The flexibility of rhythm basically belongs to theme music in texture. The melody is pleasant to hear, and the dynamic changes of gradual strengthening and gradual weakening show the musical characteristics of this period.
The Romantic Period's Musical Features
The wave of European bourgeois revolution swept Europe, and the revolution of superstructure further promoted the progress of science and technology and the development of capitalist economy. Accordingly, the rise of bourgeois liberal and democratic ideas has brought European music culture into a new stage of development. Pursuing freedom and advocating individualism became the spirit of the times in this period. As a reaction to the rationalism of classical music school, a romantic music trend of thought with self-expression, personal feelings and consciousness and personal subjective feelings as its main characteristics has emerged. Romanticism takes emotion as the main content of music performance, and pays more attention to the singing of music melody. Lyricism, freedom, poetry and individuality, colorful emotional rendering and the nationality of music have become the main characteristics of romantic music. Therefore, artistic songs, piano lyric sketches and other musical genres that are good at expressing personal feelings have been greatly developed at this time; Symphony and opera also pay more attention to the description and expression of characters' inner feelings. The appearance of title music emphasizes the specific direction and theme of music content, which is a typical symphony poem. Piano became the most important musical instrument in The Romantic Period. The Romantic Period's music emphasizes the individualization of self-expression and style, the individualization of purpose and theme, the individualization of nationalism and exoticism, the title music, expressive timbre, rich harmony, and the expansion of pitch and speed range, which all express personal feelings and expressions to a certain extent.
Characteristics of modern music
After the world entered the 20th century, science and technology were highly developed and social materials were extremely rich. Countries, regions and nations in the world have begun to have opportunities for all-round cultural dialogue on the basis of equality. Economic globalization, political pluralism and cultural localization have greatly influenced the evolution and development of European art schools. The emergence of various artistic trends of thought and the participation of high-tech means in the information age have become the basis and conditions for building a pluralistic, changeable and diverse music development in Europe in the 20th century. The most prominent feature of music in the 20th century is the subversion and innovation of previous music traditions. The local music in ethnic areas began to be openly juxtaposed with the mainstream western music, and the concept of European music center was shaken. The characteristics of music in the 20th century, such as timbre, harmony, the change of traditional tonality system (even atonal music), rhythm (free and changeable rhythm structure) and melody, have made great breakthroughs and subverts. It presents the characteristics of diversification and diversification of music styles in the 20 th century.