In this course of lectures, Abbot Peter (Meshcherinov) talks about an incredibly intense and discovery-rich period in the history of European music, when there was a transition from medieval music to classical music and a completely new era of musical art opened, which still remains largely unsurpassed for us top. The reader will take a journey through the music of the Renaissance and Baroque eras up to its culmination - the work of Johann Sebastian Bach, a brilliant “translator” of the deep symbolic meanings of whose works the author is. This publication is multimedia - the text of the lectures, which is a transcript of the course read by the author specifically for the Orthodox portal "Tradition", is accompanied by musical fragments, which readers can listen to at any time by following the link indicated in the publication.