This is the very first period, the place where we can start to be fairly sure of as to how a huge deal of the music that has survived really sounded. The first written secular music started from the 12th century troubadours (in the form of ballades, estampies, virelais,etc.), but many notated manuscripts come from places of learning mostly associated with the church, and thus unavoidably have a religious basis.

Gregorian plainsong and chant which are monodic (i.e. written as a single musical line) progressively developed during the 11th to 13th centuries to organum (i.e. double or three lines moving at the same but independently, thus almost unintentionally representing the commencements of harmony). Organum was formerly rather stifled by solid rules governing rhythm and melody, which had absolutely led to the Ars Nova period during the 14th century, ultimately represented by these composers;  Landini, de Vitry, and Machaut.

The 15th century witnessed increased freedoms, most especially in terms of what is perceived as ‘polyphony’ and 'harmony'. Composers were still almost all given to choral writing, and some instrumental compositions that have survived frequently give the impression of being vocal works in guise, but remove the words.

There is obvious latest delight in contrast and textural variety, so that a particular part of text could be enhanced, for example, by a vocal part dropping out progressively, only to return at a unique moment of emphasis. Dunstable, Dufay, Despres and Ockeghem were the four most powerful composers of the 15th century.

The second part of the sixteenth century witnessed the commencements of the tradition that many music lovers associate with normal feel of 'classical' music. Progressively, composers shifted away from the modal style of harmony that had predominated for more than 300 years, towards the arrangement of their work into minor and major scales, hence, imparting the powerful sensation of each piece possessing a definite tonal centre or 'key'.

This was also a golden period for choral composition as flow of acapella masses, anthems, madrigals, psalms and motets where been written by the masters of the age. Also, instrumental music, especially keyboard music, came into its own for the very first time in the form of variations, fantasias, and dance movements (pavanes, galliards etc.). Composers of this particular note include Palestrina, Frescobaldi, Victoria, Gibbons, Lassus, Byrd, Alonso Lobo, Tallis, Duarte Lobo, Dowland, Cardoso and Gesualdo.

During this Baroque period, the bases were laid for about the next 300 years of musical expression: the modern orchestra came into existence, with opera (including the chorus, aria, overture, recitative and prelude), the sonata, concerto, and modern cantata. The soft-grained viol string family of the Renaissance period was gradually substituted by the bolder violin, cello and viola, the harpsichord was discovered, and all instrumental groups made essential advances.

Until around 1700, the old modes exerted themselves by adding color to certain chord progressions or melodic lines, but from the commencement of the 18th century, the modern harmonic style based on the minor and major scales was effectively pan-European. Choral music did not dominate any longer, and as composers shifted more to writing idiomatic instrumental works for ensembles of increasing color and variety, so 'classical' music progressively started to work its way into the fabric of society, being played outdoors at special functions or dinner parties (e.g. Handel's Water Music), or such as a spectacle in the form of opera. On a real domestic level, every rich lady would possess a spinet to play, and at meal-times the rich and large houses would call musicians to play what was famously referred to as Tafelmusik in Germany, of and which Telemann was perhaps the most popular composer.

The following were outstanding of the seventeenth century composers who made way for this famous explosion of 'classical' music,: Alessandro Scarlatti, Corelli, Schutz, Monteverdi, Buxtehude, Lully and Purcell. Still, the most famous composers of that period, indeed those who define the sound of Baroque music by their names at its most colorful are Rameau, Handel, François Couperin, Johann Sebastian Bach,  Domenico Scarlatti, Vivaldi, and Telemann, all of them at their creative apex during the first period of the eighteenth century.

The time since the Great War is without any doubt the most bewildering of all, as composers have pulled in several apparently opposing and contradictory directions. Typical of this dilemma during the inter-war years, for example, were the Lehar, Austrians and Webern, the former was experimenting with the highly advanced and compressed form known as 'serial structure', while continually Lehar was yet indulging in an operetta style that would not have looked to be out of place for more than half a century beforehand.

So the styles adopted are diverse throughout the greater part of this recent century that only by experimentation could listeners discover by themselves if certain composers are to their real taste or not.