Early music is commonly defined as European classical music from the Middle Ages, the Renaissance and the Baroque.

The Early Music Movement as a trend in history is the study and performance of music from composers before our own era and began in 1829 when Felix Mendelssohn conducted Bach's St Matthew Passion.

The early music movement of the 20th century has been closely associated with the concept of performance practice. With the renewed interest in early music came an interest in using period instruments and historically aware playing techniques. According to Margaret Bent (1998), Early music notation, is under-prescriptive by our standards; when translated into modern form it acquires a prescriptive weight that overspecifies and distorts its original openness. In the early music revival of the 20th century, the concept of historically informed performance--that is, using available documentation and other contextual evidence to recreate as closely as possible the original ways of playing the instruments used in early music--became an important facet of the performance of early music.