Aztec music: Did you mean...?

Claude Debussy (1862-1918) was a French composer most famous for his piano and orchestral music. Works like Clair de Lune have become piano standards while La Mer, with its unusual use of instruments and impressionistic use of waves of sounds...

Franz Schubert (1797-1828) was an Austrian composer of Romantic music best known for his songs, symphonies, piano music, and chamber music. Schubert's career lasted only 15 years, but he was a prolific composer. Neither a conductor or virtuoso...

Hector Berlioz (1803-1869) was the leading French composer of Romantic music, best known for his innovative Symphonie fantastique and use of large-scale orchestras and choruses in works like The Trojans opera. Berlioz's innovative style brought...

An Aztec (Mexica) shield of wood covered in turquoise and shell mosaic. Likely used only as a ceremonial shield. The design shows solar disks and a long, winding snake crisscrossing the shield horizontally. The shield was dedicated to the...

A map illustrating the various stages of Aztec expansion under successive rulers in the 15th and early 16th centuries CE.

A scene from the 16th century CE Florentine Codex depicting Aztec musicians. Music and dance were an important element of Aztec education and public life.

European explorers began to probe the Western Hemisphere in the early 1500s, and they found to their utter amazement not only a huge landmass but also a world filled with several diverse and populous indigenous cultures. Among their most...

This painting from the Tomb of Nebamun (c. 1350 BCE) shows women making music and other almost naked women dancing.

An infographic showcasing the evolution of musical styles and the creative contributions of a plethora of classical composers through four distinct periods in art history: Baroque, Classicism, Romanticism, and Modernism.

Richard Strauss (1864-1949) was a German conductor and composer of both innovative late-Romantic and Modernist music. He is best known for his symphonic poems and operas like Salome and Elektra, both of which caused a sensation. Strauss gained...