The Classical Era

Music between 1750 to 1820

• ‘Classical’ is often used to describe all ‘serious’ or ‘art’ music - in other words, music that isn’t pop, jazz or folk. But there’s also a Classical Era in the history of music, during which composers such as Haydn and Mozart were active.

• The Classical Era began during the period known as the age of Enlightenment, a time of radical change in social values and ethics. For the first time in many centuries, it was fashionable to champion human rights and freedom of religion and there was an emphasis on simplicity and naturalness that led to a clean architectural style reminiscent of ancient Rome and Greece - hence the term ‘Classical’.

• A more permissive society led to music being performed for the first time in public concerts, and many concert societies were set up throughout Europe’s major cities.

• Orchestras went through great changes: there was no longer any need for the harpsichord or organ as a musical foundation, and wind instruments such as the horn, trumpet, clarinet, flute and oboe joined the strings to create a new, distinctive sound.

• The orchestral set-up now led to the arrival of the era's most important type of music, the symphony - a standard, strict three-movement format. This consisted of a quick opening movement, slow middle movement and another quick movement to finish with. The first composers to use the symphony format include J.S. Bach’s son, Carl Philip Emanuel Bach.

• As time went on, it became the fashion to include an elegant short movement before the final movement, usually based around the minuet, a popular dance.

• Along with the orchestra came the string quartet, consisting of two violins, a viola and a cello. The works are themselves called ‘string quartets’ and follow a standard, four-movement format reminiscent of the symphony.

• The piano, or pianoforte (its proper name) was also introduced during this period. This gave keyboard players the ability to vary how softly (piano) or loud (forte) notes sounded according to how the keys were pressed.

• The most important solo pieces of the Classical Era were sonatas, written for any solo instrument but most notably composed for the piano. Like the symphony, the sonata was the Classical Era’s way of gathering many different types of instrumental music into one.

• The Classical era was dominated by its two greatest composers, Haydn and Mozart who worked in Vienna. Haydn composed fantastic choral, operatic, orchestral and instrumental music - but it was with the symphony that his greatest achievement came of which he wrote over a hundred.

• Mozart also wrote an enormous amount of music in his short life - 41 symphonies, for example. His operas were probably his greatest achievements, though, and he showed himself to be one of the most talented musical dramatists ever; some of his finest operas are Don Giovanni, The Marriage of Figaro and The Magic Flute.

• In the last years of the eighteenth century came Beethoven, a composer who started writing music in the controlled classical style inherited from Mozart and Haydn. He eventually outgrew it, and literally split apart the classical style at the seams, marking the dawning of a new era known as the Romantic Era in music.

• The Classical Era was a time when composers introduced a sense of elegance and control into music. The clarity and purity of the music is untroubled and relaxing. But look a little deeper and you may well find a dramatic core that can be very moving indeed.

Great works from the Classical era:

Mozart: Requiem, Don Giovanni, The Magic Flute, Piano Concerto no.21, Clarinet Concerto
Haydn: The Creation, Symphony no.101 ‘Clock’, String Quartet op.76 no.3 ‘Emperor’
Gluck: Orfeo ed Eurydice Beethoven: Symphony no.3 'Eroica'