Joseph Sowa states that the western art really started with Bach, Telemann,
and contemporaries.  They were the first generation of the well-tempered
tuning, and the first of the diatonic music.

This leaves out a host of great seventeenth century composers at the
very least, and seems to me profoundly arbitrary.  There are Monteverdi,
Schuetz, the Gabrielis, Palestrina, Byrd, just to name a few great
composers in the great tradition of western music.

Bernard Chasan