A Brief History of Music

I had a breif history of music that I had posted on the publis blog just because I thought it would be fun, but I just gotto write the script for the music club's presentation at Freezer's theater. Slightly revised. Here is is.

Narrator: FIRST: there was rhythm.
From the beginning of time (meaning somewhere between the creation and the whole apple incident) there has been a beat.

(Cave man comes out. Strikes up a beat.)

The pulsation echoed through valleys and bounced off of mountainsides; frightening dinosaurs and small birds.

Narrator: It wasn’t long after the invention of beat that melody came along. Melody was
used to great effect by the Greeks. The oldest transcribed piece of music in existence is the Seikilos Epitaph. Found near turkey, it was an epitaph written on the headstone of some dead Greek guy.

(Person in Greek dress. Seikliose Epitaph plays.)

Narrator: Melody didn’t change much. For many years melody was dominated by the
Christian churches. Monks were especially fond of it.
(Monks come out and start chanting)

Narrator: Then, one day, some genius said: What if we were to sing two different notes
at the same time?

Narrator: And Harmony was born. The church now had the market cornered in both
melody and harmony. But, lasciviousness was starting to creep in.

(A group of non monks enter)

A battle between the holy motets and the worldly madrigals was taking place.

(Monks and laymen go back and forth singing their songs)

You can guess which one started to win.

(A monk starts singing a madrigal.)

Narrator: About 1400 AD the Renaissance occurred. You know, the age of
Enlightenment. The most significant change during the renaissance was probably harmony. Up to that point the idea of consonance was in fourth and fifths.
In the Renaissance thirds became what was considered consonant.

Narrator: In about 1600 the baroque era come into music. This brought about the birth
of oratorios, cantatas, and toccatas. One of the most famous being Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor.
(Toccata plays)

Narrator: The baroque also brought about the birth of opera.

(group cringes, one member may faint)

Narrator: (giving them a nasty look) Purcells’ Dido and Aeneas.
In this scene, Dido has given up all hope because her lover Aeneas has left her. So, like any self respecting diva, she decides to commit suicide. As she stabs herself, she sings about her grief.
(Dido takes a really, really, really long time to die.)
She takes a long time to die.

Did I say a long time? I meant a really long time.

A really, really long time to die.

Die!

Narrator: After Baroque there was the classical era, starting in roughly 1730. The
Classical period, besides operas, was known for modulation, complex harmony and symphonies. This is Mozart’s famous “Queen of the Night Aria” from The Magic Flute.

You may recognize this little tune from the classical period by Mozart.

(Twinkle, Twinkle little star)
Narrator: Or this one, by Beethoven.

(Play Beethoven)

Narrator: After the Classical period came the Romantic era where all of the songs were
about unrequited love and death, played as prettily as possible.


Narrator: What you just heard was a classic French art song from the Romantic period, followed by a clip from the symphony fantastique in which a man is sentenced to death after killing his lover. That bump, bump was the sound of his head rolling away after it was chopped off. Thank you Berlios. We ended with The Right of Spring by Stravinsky. The modern era consists of music from the 1900’s until now. You know what that's like. This has been a brief history of music. Thank you.