Classical music era
The classical music era in Western music occurred in the second half of the 18th century. Although the term classical music is used as a blanket term meaning all kinds of music in a certain tradition, it can also mean this particular era within that tradition.
The classical music era falls between the Baroque and the Romantic periods. Amongst its earliest composers were Joseph Haydn and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. The best known composer from this period is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The last classical composers are generally taken to be Ludwig van Beethoven, who after writing in a classical style in his early works, pushed its conventions and forms into new territory, and Franz Schubert, who served as a bridge between the Classical and Romantic Era.
Classical music itself is distinguished by the use of dynamic contrast to accent suspension and return to the tonic. Earlier composers did not have as many tools of dynamic contrast; later composers found more varied uses for those tools.
Classical-period music is distinguishable from Baroque music by its plainness of style, without the heavy and complex Baroque figurations, and from Romantic music by its general emotional coolness and its regularity of form. Forms pioneered in the classical period include the symphony and the string quartet; the concerto also saw considerable development.
Composers of the classical era
Referenced By
Antonio Lotti | Art music | Authentic performance | Baroque Music | Basset-horn | Basset clarinet | Basset horn | Basso continuo | Beethoven's ninth symphony | Beethoven/Symphony 3 | Beethoven/Symphony 9 | Christoff Willibald Gluck | Christoph Gluck | Christoph Willibald Gluck | Christoph Willibald von Gluck | Classical Music | Classical music (disambigation) | Classical music (disambiguation) | Continuo | Domenico Alberti | Eroica | Franz Josef Haydn | Franz Joseph Haydn | Gluck | Haydn | History of Western music | Jan Zach | Johann Friedrich Fasch | Johann Nepomuk Hummel | Josef Haydn | Joseph Haydn | Ján Nepomuk Hummel | List of classical composers | List of classical music composers | List of genres of music (A-M) | List of masses by Joseph Haydn | List of time periods | Ludvig van Beethoven | Ludwig Beethoven | Ludwig Van Beethoven | Ludwig von Beethoven | Neo-Classical architecture | Neo-classical | Neo-classicism | Neo-classicism. | Neo-classicist | Neoclassical | Neoclassicism | P. D. Q. Bach | Piano Concerto | Piano Concerto No. 3 | Program Music | Programme Music | Requiem | Requiem mass | Symphony No. 3 (Beethoven) | Symphony No. 40 (Mozart) | Symphony No. 9 (Beethoven) | Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Opus 125 (Beethoven) | Time period
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