How history changed music: 8 moments that shaped the soundtrack of our world

From the Black Death to the French Revolution, music has long been affected by the upheavals of history. Rebecca Franks speaks to Gillian Moore, presenter of the new BBC Radio 3 series Key Changes, about the events that transformed the art form forever

A medieval manuscript illustration showing a lively musical performance. Three standing musicians play long wind instruments and drums while three seated women clap and dance before a richly patterned red-and-gold backdrop.

Published: May 25, 2026 at 6:49 PM

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One thousand years ago, in 1026, a monk called Guido d’Arezzo caused a musical revolution when he invented the stave, which for the first time offered a means of writing down and sharing music.

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Ever since then, the story of this art form has been one of innovation and invention, with music shaped, shocked and sharpened by historical, social, political and technological events.

In a landmark new series for BBC Radio 3, Key Changes, presenter Gillian Moore traces pivotal points of musical history across the past millennium. And here, she picks eight moments when history and music have collided in unexpected and intriguing ways.

The west façade of Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, photographed during restoration work following the 2019 fire. The Gothic cathedral’s twin towers rise above ornate stone carvings beneath a cloudy sky, with cranes and scaffolding visible beside the building.

The imposing west façade of Notre-Dame Cathedral, pictured in November 2025. The Parisian landmark became a major centre of medieval musical innovation | Credit: Getty Images

1. The construction of Notre-Dame

With its dramatic flying buttresses, stone gargoyles and beautiful stained-glass windows, the Cathedral of Notre-Dame is an architectural marvel.

Constructed between 1163 and c1250 on the orders of Maurice de Sully, bishop of Paris, it is arguably the crowning glory of the Age of Cathedrals. “It’s this huge space – and it had to be filled with huge music,” says Gillian Moore.

Before this point, liturgical music was dominated by rather austere plainchant – single, unaccompanied melodic vocal lines. But the magnificent Parisian cathedral became a centre of musical innovation, and in the hands of composers like Léonin and Pérotin, the so-called ‘Notre-Dame School’ flourished.

Their music was characterised by polyphony, in which several melodic lines are heard together at once, which became one of the foundations of western art music.

“It was this more elaborate and evolved type of music, really inspired by these huge spaces,” says Moore. “There was this idea of ‘hocket’ [meaning hiccup], with these little phrases of music pinging across the cathedral. It’s quite playful.”

A medieval manuscript illumination depicting Guillaume de Machaut seated at a writing desk, composing music. The poet-composer wears a red robe and works beneath an ornate black-and-gold patterned backdrop, with musical notation visible below the illustration.

A manuscript illumination depicting Guillaume de Machaut. The French poet-composer drew inspiration from the turbulent events of the 14th century, notably the Black Death | Credit: Getty Images

2. The Black Death

Between 1346 and 1353, the Black Death killed, by some estimates, 25 million people, a pandemic that ravaged the population of Europe. But one person who survived this brutal plague, after withdrawing from public life, was Guillaume de Machaut, a French poet-composer renowned for his ability to unite music and lyrics.

He wrote about the suffering and turmoil going on in society around him in his poem The Judgement of the King of Navarre, probably around 1349, offering a parallel to Boccaccio’s vivid descriptions of the plague in his book, the Decameron.

Machaut survived until 1377, composing to the end. Having weathered his bruising encounter with one of history’s cataclysmic events, Machaut left his mark on music, as a creator of love songs, author of the masterful Messe de Nostre Dame, and as a leading light of the revolutionary Ars nova (‘new art’) style.

Laurence Olivier as King Henry V in the 1944 film adaptation of Henry V. Olivier sits astride a horse in medieval armour and dark riding clothes beneath a dramatic cloudy sky.

Laurence Olivier rides his trusty steed in the 1944 film adaptation of Henry V. The film features a rendition of the ‘Agincourt Carol’, which was written to celebrate the real-life battle at the climax of Shakespeare’s play | Credit: Getty Images

3. The battle of Agincourt

When England won the battle of Agincourt in 1415, beating the French, the balance of power in the Hundred Years’ War shifted. Triumphant songs were written about the victory, including the ‘Agincourt Carol’, which centuries later featured in Laurence Olivier’s film Henry V (1944).

This anonymous hymn is preserved in the Trinity Carol Roll, and at one time it was attributed to the English composer John Dunstable, although scholars now agree that’s unlikely.

Still, Dunstable played a crucial part in creating the contenance angloise – or ‘English manner’ – which became influential across the continent. His music formed part of the shift from the medieval style to the more consonant sounds familiar to us today.

“If you want to be technical, medieval music is based on fourths and fifths,” explains Moore, referring to the intervals (or spaces) between notes. “But the English sound is more based on thirds and sixths, a sound we now think of as much more pleasing and consonant.”

A colourful historical painting depicting the surrender of Granada in 1492. Muslim ruler Muhammad XII approaches on horseback as Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain stand amid a large ceremonial gathering outside the city.

A painting depicts Muhammad XI of Granada surrendering to Ferdinand and Isabella in January 1492. The fall of Muslim Spain inspired works by a number of 15th-century composers, including Juan del Encina | Credit: Getty Images

4. The fall of Granada

The arts flourished in the court of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile during the 15th century, with the Catholic monarchs offering valuable patronage to artists, poets and composers, including Juan del Encina.

Encina was the first Spanish dramatist to write for performance, and his music features prominently in the important Cancioneros collections of Spanish music from this era.

There were also Moorish musicians working at the court, like the Warden of the Minstrels Ayaya Fisteli, but in 1482, Ferdinand and Isabella launched a campaign against Granada, the final stronghold of Moorish rule in Spain.

Many Arabs and Jews were forced to convert to Catholicism, and their number included musicians. Encina was one of many composers who wrote about the fall, in, for instance, his song ‘Levanta, Pascual, levanta!’

Ferdinand and Isabella’s court had other far-reaching consequences. Under their auspices, Christopher Columbus sailed for the New World, paving the way for Spain’s expansion and colonialism, which eventually saw musical influences exchanged between Spain and Mexico.

A black-and-white engraving depicting Martin Luther playing a lute while gathered with singers and listeners inside a domestic interior. Several figures hold song sheets as they sing, while others sit nearby listening attentively.

An engraving depicts Martin Luther playing the lute at the home of his foster mother, Ursula Cotta. Luther’s religious reforms helped pave the way for the modern hymn, says Gillian Moore | Credit: Getty Images

5. The Reformation

The Lutheran Reformation, which began in 1517, saw an overhaul of religious worship across Scandinavia and what is now Germany. One of the elements the monk and theologian Martin Luther transformed was music, which he preferred to be performed in the vernacular rather than in Latin. Lutheran chorales – simple tunes with four-part harmonies, designed for congregational singing – became widespread.

“It was really the invention of the modern hymn,” notes Moore, who sees a line of descent from Luther to the 18th-century cleric Charles Wesley, a leading figure of the Methodist movement and the author of more than 6,500 hymns.

Gospel hymns, the hymns sung in church today, and perhaps even the music of Simon and Garfunkel, owe their existence to Luther, argues Moore.

And then, of course, there’s JS Bach, one of the towering figures of western music, who took the Lutheran chorale and turned it into an art form.

A 19th-century engraving depicting a performance inside the concert hall of the Paris Conservatoire. A large orchestra performs beneath ornate chandeliers as audience members fill the grand hall and tiered balconies.

A late 19th-century illustration shows a performance inside the concert hall of the Paris Conservatoire. Founded in 1795, the state-funded institution was grounded in the ideals of the French Revolution | Credit: Getty Images

6. The French Revolution

One of the direct results of the French Revolution was the creation of the first major modern state-funded conservatory in 1795, the Paris Conservatoire.

“It was grounded in revolutionary ideas about citizenship, education, merit and the role of music in a republic,” says Moore. “Before 1789, French music revolved around the royal court and aristocratic patronage. The revolution swept that away, reframing music as a means of reshaping civic virtue, emotional solidarity, republican identity and national pride.”

Gilding its progressive credentials, the conservatoire had a female professor in its first year, Hélène de Montgeroult, an aristocrat who, so the legend goes, escaped the guillotine by improvising on ‘La Marseillaise’.

Many of France’s most celebrated musicians would go on to study at the conservatoire, which became a model for similar institutions around Europe.

Lotte Lenya and Kurt Weill face one another in a posed black-and-white portrait from around 1930. Lenya wears a dark suit with a white collar, while Weill, dressed in a light-coloured jacket and round glasses, sits opposite her in profile.

German composer Kurt Weill and his wife, the Austrian singer and actor Lotte Lenya, pictured in 1930. Weill fled Nazi persecution in 1933 and went on to become one of America’s most celebrated composers | Credit: Getty Images

7. The rise of the Nazis

When the Nazis rose to power in 1930s Germany, their racist politics and laws about cultural “cleansing” forced a mass exodus of Jewish composers.

Dozens came to the UK, while a number of leading lights went to the US, including Arnold Schoenberg, Kurt Weill and Erich Korngold, who were persecuted for their Jewish heritage, as well as Paul Hindemith, whose music was dubbed “degenerate”.

Germany’s loss was America’s gain. “Broadway and Hollywood benefited. These classically trained musicians were making a living in these places, and they were doing it brilliantly,” says Moore.

Weill made his mark on musical theatre, with Broadway successes including Knickerbocker Holiday and Lady in the Dark. Over in California, meanwhile, Korngold brought his lush Viennese orchestral style to Hollywood film scores. Today’s leading film composers, including John Williams, are indebted to his work.

Residents of besieged Leningrad clear snow and ice from a city street during the winter of 1942. Dozens of bundled civilians wield shovels amid towering piles of frozen rubble and snow during the harsh conditions of the Siege of Leningrad.

Residents clear snow and ice in Leningrad (now St Petersburg) in 1942 – the same year that the besieged city hosted the first performance of Shostakovich’s Symphony No 7 in C Major | Credit: Getty Images

8. The siege of Leningrad

Even in the darkest, harshest of climates of the Second World War, music survived. Olivier Messiaen, for instance, wrote his Quartet for the End of Time in the Stalag VIII-A prisoner-of-war camp in what is now Poland. Viktor Ullmann and Pavel Haas were among the composers who kept on writing while interned in the Theresienstadt ghetto.

That defiant spirit, of resistance to fascism, came to be symbolised too by Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony, first performed on 9 August 1942 in Leningrad during its 872-day siege by the Nazis.

Hundreds of thousands of people were killed during that period; the city’s residents were reduced to eating rats, horses, pets and even leather and glue. Only 15 or so members of the Leningrad Radio Orchestra were left able to play, but extra musicians, including soldiers, were marshalled – and even given extra rations.

The performance was broadcast live, and legend has it that a German general could hear it over the radio: “When it finished, I realised that never ever shall we be able to enter Leningrad. It is not a city that can be conquered.”

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BBC Radio 3’s Key Changes began in April and will continue throughout 2026, with all episodes available to stream on BBC Sounds

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