Most of the early music that we have today still in print is primarily sacred music. This music, for the most part, is in the form of sections of the Mass, such as the Gloria, Kyrie and Agnus Dei. Most people of the Middle Ages were poor peasants who worked all day for meager wages and had no idle time lounging the way the upper classes did. Therefore, there are few extant secular compositions of music from this era. The rise of a new middle class, however, gave financial freedom for some people to spend time and money on entertainment in the form of music and dance. Thus, the rise of the middle classes also gave way to the rise in composition and performance of secular music, which became the music of choice for composers of that day.
Many of the songs we have today of the Middle Ages were in Latin, and are by anonymous composers. Many were written by wandering people, many of them men and churchmen without permanent residences of their own. Men who could not obtain......

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Title: History Of Western Music
Approximate Word Count: 1351
Approximate Pages: 6 (250 words per double-spaced page)

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