The Middle Ages started sometime around the 5th century (400-500) with the fall of the Western Roman Empire. It ended in the 15th century with the beginning of the Renaissance and the so-called Age of Discovery. Medieval music was predominately vocal: religious music was written in monody (melodies for a single voice), while secular (nonreligious) music was sung by troubadours and trouvères. 

Hildegard of Bingen was a composer as well as a writer and Benedictine nun. She wrote many sacred songs, in the specific form of plainsong, with a number of voices singing in unison.

The Renaissance began not as a historical period, but as a movement among the elite of European society—the nobility, clergy, and emerging middle class. In the arts, the Renaissance is often associated with the architectural achievements of Brunelleschi, who built the spectacular dome of the cathedral in Florence in 1420. Vocal music remained prominent in the Renaissance, but polyphonic (multi-voice) works grew increasingly complex.

French composer Josquin des Prez was a central figure of the Renaissance. His works form a bridge between the sonorities of the Middles Ages and those of the High Renaissance. He is seen as the supreme master of polyphonic early Renaissance vocal music. 

Music printing became possible with Petrucci, which had an important impact on musicians and singers. Music could circulate much more easily than it had in the days when copyists had to transcribe scores and parts out by hand.

This Italian composer wrote many masses and motets and is seen as one the great composers of sacred music. His six-voice mass, Missa Pape Marcelli, is a fine example of polyphonic writing.

Jacques Cartier, French navigator, explored the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, erected a cross in Gaspé and took possession of the territory in the name of the King of France, François 1er.

(Cultural landmark in the history of Québec and Canada)

The Baroque period, like the Renaissance, began as an artistic movement in Italy. The musical era is generally delineated by two events: the development of opera in 1600 and the death of Bach in 1750. Baroque compositions are characterized by extreme harmonies, complex ornamentation, dramatic contrasts, and extensive use of counterpoint (as for example in the fugues of Bach).

With 26 contract workers (woodcutters, carpenters, and farmers), Samuel de Champlain founded Québec.

(Cultural landmark – History of Québec and Canada)

As well as being a virtuoso violinist, Vivaldi was among the leading composers of the Baroque period. His signature work, The Four Seasons, is a concerto featuring the violin written around 1723.

As well as a fine organist and teacher, Johann Sebastian Bach was a prolific composer who worked in every musical genre of his time except opera. Like Vivaldi, he is one of the great composers of the Baroque era, so much so that his death is seen as drawing the curtain on the entire period. He had 20 children, several of whom became musicians themselves, such as his son Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. The Toccata and Fugue in E Minor for organ is among his notable works. The fugue is also great place to hear what counterpoint is.

Giovanni Battista Pergolesi’s compositions are among the first to reflect the principles of the galant style that appeared in the 18th century. He was also among the first composers of opera buffa. He also wrote religious works, of which his Stabat Mater is one of the best known.

The Classical period in music doesn’t overlap with the classical period in other art forms: the classical movement in French plastic arts and literature occurred between about 1660 and 1725. In music it’s generally said to have begun after Bach’s death in 1750 and ended with Beethoven at the turn of the 19th century, around 1825. The musical language of the Classical period features simple harmonies, symmetrical structure, and a particular attention to melody.

The great Austrian composer of the Classical period is nicknamed “father of the string quartet” and “father of the symphony” for his fundamental contributions to the development of the two genres. He wrote over 100 symphonies and 68 string quartets. The 2nd movement of the symphony No. 94, nicknamed “The Surprise,” features a powerful and surprising stroke of the timpani that has given the symphony its name.

This composer was a child prodigy who wrote more than 600 instrumental and vocal works, including several comic operas, symphonies and string quartets. His celebrated Eine Kleine Nachtmusik (A Little Night Music) and his Rondo Alla Turca are two popular works that you’ll recognize after hearing only a few notes. Despite living only 35 years, his musical legacy is enormous.

The Seven Years’ War was the first war to span the globe, with Great Britain and France the principal belligerents. The Battle of the Plains of Abraham (1759) in Quebec was a pivotal event in the larger conflict and the history of Canada, as the British forces under Wolfe defeated Montcalm’s French troops and captured Québec for the British.

(Cultural landmark – History of Québec and Canada)

The Treaty of Paris, which brought the Seven Years’ War to a close, officially ceded Canada to Great Britain.

(Cultural landmark – History of Québec and Canada)

This German composer and pianist revolutionized orchestral writing with the nine symphonies he composed. He also wrote string quartets, piano works, and vocal music. His strength of will was legendary, conducting his last symphony despite having lost his hearing entirely. It was his work that opened the door to the Romantic period.

The Quebec Act was the legislation that guaranteed French Canadians the right to maintain their language, civil law, and Catholic faith.

(Cultural landmark – History of Québec and Canada)

The Constitutional Act was the legislation that divided Quebec into two parts: Lower Canada and Upper Canada.

(Cultural landmark – History of Québec and Canada)

It’s generally said that the Romantic period in music began with the death of Beethoven in 1825 and continued until the end of the 19th century. It was an age preoccupied with human freedom and striving for connection to the emotions and nature. Opera and orchestral music developed enormously. More instruments were added to the orchestra and it grew larger and larger. The symphony orchestra configuration we know today was established. The pieces composers wrote became more and more demanding from a technical standpoint as instrumental virtuosity was increasingly prized. 

Italian composer Niccolò Paganini was a celebrated violin virtuoso. You might even say that 19th-century instrumental virtuosity was largely an effect of his influence. His violin compositions place extreme technical demands on the performer, as his 24 Caprices for Solo Violin demonstrate. 

Italian composer Gioachino Rossini is particularly known for his operas (he wrote 39 of them) and the beautiful, catchy melodies they contain, as are heard in the overture of The Barber of Seville and William Tell.

Despite his early death at age 31, Franz Schubert composed over a thousand works in his career. He excelled in chamber music and is recognized as the master of the Lied, a song form in which a German poem is sung with piano (or ensemble) accompaniment. Schubert is seen as forming a bridge between the Classical and Romantic periods, though the aesthetic of his compositions is closer to that of the Romantic period. One of his best-known melodies is from the 4th movement of “The Trout,” his only quintet for piano and string quartet. 

Hector Berlioz was a French composer and conductor known for his program symphonies in which a story (and a text) is associated with each section. The last movement of his Symphonie fantastique includes a diabolical witch’s circle dance accompanied by the Dies Irae (“Day of Wrath”), a sequence dating back to the Middle Ages.

German pianist, conductor, and composer Felix Mendelssohn was influenced by Bach’s harmonic complexity as well as Mozart’s graceful melodies and Beethoven’s dramatic power. Among his outstanding works is his Violin Concerto in E Minor.

Chopin was a Polish composer and pianist noted for his highly developed melodic sense. He wrote prolifically for the piano, his work including nocturnes, waltzes, mazurkas, and preludes.

Robert Schumann, the husband of Clara Wieck Schumann, was a music critic, pianist, and composer remarkable in particular for his piano music and Lieder (German art song). He led a tormented life, and his music carries a powerful emotional charge, as can be heard in his Träumerei.

Franz Liszt was a Hungarian virtuoso pianist, arranger, and composer. Like Paganini, his impressive technique is reflected in his extremely complex piano writing. His Douze études d’exécution transcendante (Transcendental Studies) for piano are a good example. 

Richard Wagner, composer of the four part opera The Ring of the Nibelung with a total length of 14 hours, liked to call on the full power of the orchestra in his works.

Giuseppe Verdi was a great composer of 19th-century Italian opera. Perhaps you’ll recognize some passages from his celebrated operas La Traviata (“Brindisi”), Rigoletto (“La donna è mobile”) or Nabucco (“Va, pensiero”)?

Clara Schumann (née Wieck) was among the leading concert pianists of her time and also a composer. She was married to Robert Schumann and was a close friend of Johannes Brahms. She wrote vocal, chamber, and piano music. Her trio for piano, cello, and violin is notable for its energy and adventurous harmonies. 

Composer, critic, and conductor Bedřich Smetana is considered by many to be the father of Czech national music. The Moldau is the second of a set of six symphonic poems entitled Má Vlast (My Homeland) and is a tone painting of the Czech Republic’s longest river.

Austrian composer known as “The Waltz King.” His works comprise a ballet and more than 500 waltzes, polkas, quadrilles, and operettas. His waltzes are in the Viennese style, with The Blue Danube undoubtedly the best known of them.

Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist inspired by the great Classical and Baroque masters. He wrote four big symphonies as well as chamber and piano music. He worked closely with Clara Schumann. His Hungarian Dances are a set of 21 pieces for piano four hands inspired by Hungarian traditional music. 

Georges Bizet was a leading French composer of the Romantic period and is known for his orchestral suites and operas. The premiere of Carmen, a staple of the opera repertoire, took place three months before his early death at age 36. 

A Russian composer, he wrote symphonies, operas and ballet music, including the famous Nutcracker in 1892.

Antonín Dvořák, like Smetana, was a Czech nationalist composer. He wrote nine symphonies, including the Symphony “from the New World.” 

Norwegian composer, pianist, and conductor who borrowed from Norwegian folktales in his work. His Peer Gynt Suite No. 1 is often heard today as background music for cartoons.

Italian composer Giacomo Puccini was one of a long line of musicians and is best known as the composer of such operas as Tosca, La bohème, and Madame Butterfly.

The British North America Act came into effect, creating the Canadian Confederation: Canada became a country (comprising Quebec, Ontario, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia).

(Cultural landmark – History of Québec and Canada)

Distinguished American pianist and composer Amy Beach rose to prominence at a time when it was difficult for women to pursue careers. She abandoned her career as a concert pianist when she married Dr. Beach, turning to composition. In addition to compositions for piano, she wrote chamber music, an opera, a symphony, and vocal works.

Wilfrid Laurier was the first francophone to be elected prime minister of Canada. He led the country from 1896 to 1911.

(Cultural landmark – History of Québec and Canada)

The 20th century was marked by a string of pivotal events, including world wars, the first airplane flight, the moon landings, and women’s winning the right to along with such inventions as the computer, the Internet—even the microwave oven! Musically the period stands out for the huge range of styles adopted by its composers, from neoclassicism to impressionism, twelve-tone music, atonality, aleatoric writing, minimalism, and many others.

Claude Debussy had a profound influence on 20th-century French music with his radical new ideas about harmony. He is the leading representative of the impressionist movement in music. Clair de lune for piano and the opera Pelléas et Mélisande are two of his best-known works.

French composer Erik Satie’s novel harmonies and chromaticism led Debussy to call him “the Forerunner.” His Gymnopédies for solo piano form a series of slow waltzes.

A Russian composer and naturalized American citizen who looked more to his Romantic-era predecessors (Tchaikovsky and Chopin) than to the developments of his own time. There are many recordings online of him playing his own music. Among his best-known works are the piano concertos and his Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini.

An Austrian composer, painter, and theorist who changed music history by breaking with tonality and developing the 12-tone system. Pierrot lunaire is one of his major works and was premiered in 1912. 

Maurice Ravel was a French composer noted for sophistication and refinement and for exploring new instrumental possibilities at the same time as Debussy. His Boléro, which he himself thought of as an orchestration exercise, remains one of his most-performed works.

British composer and conductor Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was the son of an English mother and a father from Sierra Leone. Many of his compositions draw on his African roots. He published his first piece, In Thee, O Lord, at age 16 and his first symphony at age 20.

Calixa Lavallée (1842–1891) wrote the music for the national anthem, “O Canada,” to words by Adolphe-Basile Routhier. It was first performed on June 24, 1880, in Quebec City.

Béla Bartók was a composer and pianist as well as an ethnomusicologist. He collected and analyzed the folk music of his native Hungary as well as that of Romania and Slovakia. Its influence can be heard in many of his works, including the Romanian Dances.

Russian composer Igor Stravinsky, a naturalized French and then American citizen, was one of the trailblazers of modern music, noted for his new approach to rhythm in classical music. His Rite of Spring caused a riot at its premiere in 1913. 

French composer, conductor, and teacher Nadia Boulanger studied composition at the Paris Conservatory with Gabriel Fauré. She was among the first women to become an orchestra conductor and is recognized as one of the 20th century’s leading composition teachers.

A composer and pianist who was strongly influenced by the traditions of Russian Romanticism. Like many artists, he fled the country in 1918 after the First World War, but unlike the others he returned to the USSR in 1936. He died the same day as Stalin. Among his notable works are Peter and the Wolf and the ballet Romeo and Juliet.

Quebec composer and teacher Claude Champagne studied the piano, then got interested in composition and went to study in Paris. He continued his career as a composer after his return home, while also teaching an entire generation of composers at Université de Montréal and the Montreal Conservatory of Music, including Jocelyne Binet, François Morel, Pierre Mercure, Roger Matton, Clermont Pépin, and others. The concert hall of Université de Montréal’s faculty of music was named after him at its inauguration in 1964.

American composer Georges Gershwin was strongly influenced by jazz. Among his works is Rhapsody in Blue for piano and orchestra.

American pianist and composer Duke Ellington is a leading figure in jazz history. He authored a raft of jazz standards, including “It Don’t Mean a Thing” and “Take the ‘A’ Train.”

Joseph Vézina (1849–1924) was the first music director of the Orchestre symphonique de Québec.

(Cultural landmark – History of the Orchestre symphonique de Québec)

This Russian composer rose to become a leading figure of the Soviet period and composed 15 symphonies and 15 string quartets. His impressive Waltz No. 2 is very well known.

French composer and organist Olivier Messiaen used a modal system with a unique sound. Some notable influences on his work were birdsong, his religious faith, and Medieval plainsong. Quartet for the End of Time is one of his major works.

Chance plays a major role in the works of this American avant-garde composer. His somewhat controversial 4'33" is a work in three movements in which the performers remain entirely silent. The effect is to make the audience and ambient sounds an integral part of the listening experience.

Félix Leclerc was a Quebec singer-songwriter-composer who did a great deal to advance the cause of Quebec on the international scene. He was tremendously successful in France, inspiring such French chansonniers as Jacques Brel and Georges Brassens. Among his best known songs are “Le p’tit bonheur” and “Moi, mes souliers.”

(Cultural landmark – History of Québec and Canada)

(Cultural landmark – History of Québec and Canada)

Quebec organist Françoise Aubut-Pratte began her studies at the Montreal Conservatory, then continued at the Paris Conservatory with Marcel Dupré and Olivier Messiaen. She was the first North American to graduate with a Premier Prix from the Paris Conservatory. 

Jocelyne Binet was one of Quebec’s first woman composers. She studied with Claude Champagne in Montreal and Olivier Messiaen in Paris. She wrote four orchestra pieces as well as chamber music and vocal works. She taught analysis and counterpoint at Université Laval for close to 10 years.

Quebec pianist and composer François Morel studied with Claude Champagne at the Montreal Conservatory of Music. He worked over 25 years as a composer and conductor with Radio-Canada. His works were played in many big cities around the world. He also taught composition, orchestration, and analysis at the Université Laval Faculty of Music from 1979 to 1997. 

Pierre Mercure was a Quebec bassoonist and composer. He was a member of the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal from 1947 to 1952. Many of his compositions make use of the contemporary music of incorporating recorded sounds. 

A native of Natashquan on the North Shore, Gilles Vigneault is a singer-songwriter-composer as well as a storyteller and poet. Vigneault is a sovereignist and French-language advocate and has written numerous songs, including “Jack Monoloy,” “Pendant que...,” “Si les bateaux,” and “Gens du Pays” (which is also sung in Quebec to wish someone a happy birthday).

Roger Matton was a Quebec composer, professor, and ethnomusicologist. He studied with Claude Champagne at the Montreal Conservatory and with Nadia Boulanger and Olivier Messiaen in Paris. He started out writing radio and television music in Montreal then joined Université Laval’s Folklore Archives as a researcher and ethnomusicologist from 1956 to 1976. The influence of folklore can be heard in his music.

(Cultural landmark – History of the Orchestre symphonique de Québec)

The work of Estonian composer Arvo Pärt is influenced by “Minimal Music.” That minimalist movement first appeared in United States in the 1960s with Steve Reich (1936-) and Philip Glass (1937-). It’s based on repetition and on maintaining a regular pulse. Fratres is one of his most frequently performed works.

These special concerts for elementary school kids were specially put together to introduce children to symphonic music and the orchestra. Often they included a host or theatrical performances. Music education has been important to the Orchestre symphonique de Québec for a long time!

(Cultural landmark – History of the Orchestre symphonique de Québec)

Jacques Hétu’s 70 works have made him among the most frequently performed Canadian composers both inside and outside the country. He studied at the University of Ottawa’s School of Music and the Montreal Conservatory. He taught analysis, music literature, orchestration, and composition at Université Laval from 1963 to 1977.

(Cultural landmark – History of Québec and Canada)

(Cultural landmark – History of Québec and Canada)

(Cultural landmark – History of the Orchestre symphonique de Québec)

José Evangelista’s compositions tangibly reveal the influence of his native Spain. Melody is also a prominent concern in his work. He arrived in Canada in 1969 and moved to Montreal in 1970, where he completed his master’s and doctorate in composition. He was a professor at the faculty of music of Université de Montréal from 1979 to 2009. He founded the Balinese Gamelan Workshop in 1987.

Gisèle Ricard is a Quebec composer who studied at Université Laval. She cofounded AMAQ, Quebec City’s contemporary music association and was director of the E27 new music organization from 2002 to 2008.

Rock ’n’ roll appeared in the late 1940s and developed enormously over the course of the 1950s. Elvis Presley (1935–1977), who was known as “the King of Rock ’n’ Roll,” had a profound effect on the genre. 

Pianist and conductor Lorraine Vaillancourt is the founder and artistic director of Montreal’s Nouvel ensemble moderne (NEM). She headed up the contemporary music workshop at Université de Montréal’s Faculty of Music from 1974 to 2016. She has received eight Opus Awards in recognition of her contributions to Quebec musical life.

(Cultural landmark – History of Québec and Canada)

(Cultural landmark – History of the Orchestre symphonique de Québec)

Gilles Bellemare has written more than 40 symphonic works and was the artistic director and principal conductor of the Orchestre symphonique de Trois-Rivières for more than 27 years. He has been a professor at the Trois-Rivières Conservatory of Music since 1984. 

Ana Sokolović is a Serbian Canadian composer born in Belgrade in 1968. She studied composition at Université de Montréal with José Evangelista. She has received numerous awards and honours and has written orchestral works, chamber music, and vocal works in a variety of genres.

(Cultural landmark – History of Québec and Canada)

Composer Katia Makdissi-Warren was born in Sainte-Foy, now part of Quebec City. She has made her mark both nationally and internationally. She is very active on the Montreal contemporary music scene and her works are regularly performed in France, Germany, Lebanon, Morocco, Argentina, and Spain. 

(Cultural landmark – History of the Orchestre symphonique de Québec)

(Cultural landmark – History of the Orchestre symphonique de Québec)

(Cultural landmark – History of the Orchestre symphonique de Québec)

(Cultural landmark – History of the Orchestre symphonique de Québec)

To mark Quebec City’s 400th anniversary, the Orchestre symphonique de Québec performed Mahler’s Symphony No. 8—the “Symphony of a Thousand”—with 1,000 instrumentalists and singers (three orchestras, 12 choirs, and eight soloists) and an audience of 12,000.

(Cultural landmark – History of the Orchestre symphonique de Québec)

(Cultural landmark – History of the Orchestre symphonique de Québec)

The two orchestras joined together on the same stage to perform The Rite of Spring by Igor Stravinsky.

(Cultural landmark – History of the Orchestre symphonique de Québec)

(Cultural landmark – History of the Orchestre symphonique de Québec)