1580-1630

The transition from Renaissance to Baroque music began in 1580 by a group of poets, musicians and humanists in Florence. This group rejected the idea based their ideals on Classical, especially ancient Greek, that valued the discourse and oration in their musical drama.  As they rejected the contemporary use of polyphony and focused on monody, they came to the realization that these ideas marked the beginning of Opera. Those in turn turned out to be somewhat of a catalyst for Baroque music.  The musical theory that is seen widespread is the use of the Figured Bass. It developed the importance of harmony as the linear underpinnings of polyphony. Harmony was the end result of counterpoint. The composers of the time began to concern themselves with harmonic progressions, and also employed the triton that was seen as an unstable interval. It created dissonance. In this period harmony was focused in tonality, not in modality as was in the Renaissance. At the end it all lead to the idea that chords, rather then notes could provide a sense of closure, it was one of the fundamental ideas that became known as tonality.