Well before J. S. Bach’s death in 1750, musical tastes were changing. Two of Bach’s sons were very successful composers in this newer “Gallant” style that had taken hold in the final decades of what we still consider the Baroque. This preference for simplicity and homophonic texture over the complex counterpoint of Bach and Handel paved the way for a new musical era that we label as classical.

Introduction

The dates of the Classical period in Western music are generally accepted as being between about 1750 and 1820. However, the term is used in a colloquial sense as a synonym for Western art music, which describes a variety of Western musical styles from the ninth century to the present, and especially from the sixteenth or seventeenth to the nineteenth.

The Classical period falls between the Baroque and the Romantic periods. The best-known composers from this period are Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Ludwig van Beethoven; other notable names include Luigi Boccherini, Muzio Clementi, Antonio Soler, Antonio Salieri, François Joseph Gossec, Johann Stamitz, Carl Friedrich Abel, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, and Christoph Willibald Gluck. Ludwig van Beethoven is also regarded either as a Romantic composer or a composer who was part of the transition to the Romantic.

Franz Schubert is also something of a transitional figure, as are Johann Nepomuk Hummel, Mauro Giuliani, Friedrich Kuhlau, Fernando Sor, Luigi Cherubini, Jan Ladislav Dussek, and Carl Maria von Weber. The period is sometimes referred to as the era of Viennese Classic or Classicism (German: Wiener Klassik), since Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Joseph Haydn, Antonio Salieri, and Ludwig van Beethoven all worked at some time in Vienna, and Franz Schubert was born there.

Classicism

In the middle of the 18th century, Europe began to move toward a new style in architecture, literature, and the arts, generally known as Classicism. This style sought to emulate the ideals of Classical antiquity, especially those of Classical Greece. While still tightly linked to Court culture and absolutism, with its formality and emphasis on order and hierarchy, the new style was also cleaner, that is to say, more orderly. Classicism in music favored clearer divisions between parts, brighter contrasts and colors, and simplicity rather than complexity. In addition, the typical size of orchestras began to increase.

The remarkable development of ideas in “natural philosophy” had already established itself in the public consciousness. In particular, Newton’s physics was taken as a paradigm: structures should be well-founded in axioms and be both well-articulated and orderly. This taste for structural clarity began to affect music, which moved away from the layered polyphony of the Baroque period toward a style known as homophony, in which the melody is played over a subordinate harmony. This move meant that chords became a much more prevalent feature of music, even if they interrupted the melodic smoothness of a single part. As a result, the tonal structure of a piece of music became more audible.

The new style was also encouraged by changes in the economic order and social structure. As the 18th century progressed, the nobility became the primary patrons of instrumental music, while public taste increasingly preferred comic opera. This led to changes in the way music was performed, the most crucial of which was the move to standard instrumental groups and the reduction in the importance of the continuo—the rhythmic and harmonic ground of a piece of music, typically played by a keyboard (harpsichord or organ) and potentially by several other instruments. One way to trace the decline of the continuo and its figured chords is to examine the disappearance of the term obbligato, meaning a mandatory instrumental part in a work of chamber music. In Baroque compositions, additional instruments could be added to the continuo according to preference; in Classical compositions, all parts were specifically noted, though not always noted, so the term “obbligato” became redundant. By 1800, it was practically extinct.

Economic changes also had the effect of altering the balance of availability and quality of musicians. While in the late Baroque a major composer would have the entire musical resources of a town to draw on, the forces available at a hunting lodge were smaller and more fixed in their level of ability. This was a spur to having primarily simple parts to play, and in the case of a resident virtuoso group, a spur to writing spectacular, idiomatic parts for certain instruments, as in the case of the Mannheim orchestra. In addition, the appetite for a continual supply of new music carried over from the Baroque, meant that works had to be performable with, at best, one rehearsal. Indeed, even after 1790 Mozart wrote about “the rehearsal,” with the implication that his concerts would have only one.

Since polyphonic texture was no longer the main focus of music (excluding the development section) but rather a single melodic line with accompaniment, there was a greater emphasis on notating that line for dynamics and phrasing. The simplification of texture made such instrumental detail more important, and also made the use of characteristic rhythms, such as attention-getting opening fanfares, the funeral march rhythm, or the minuet genre, more important in establishing and unifying the tone of a single movement.

Forms such as the concerto and sonata were more heavily defined and given more specific rules, whereas the symphony was created in this period (this is popularly attributed to Joseph Haydn). The concerto grosso (a concerto for more than one musician) began to be replaced by the solo concerto (a concerto featuring only one soloist) and therefore began to place more importance on the particular soloist’s ability to show off.

Main Characteristics

Classical music has a lighter, clearer texture than Baroque music and is less complex. It is mainly homophonic—melody above chordal accompaniment (but counterpoint by no means is forgotten, especially later in the period). It also makes use of style galant in the classical period which was drawn in opposition to the strictures of the Baroque style, emphasizing light elegance in place of the Baroque’s dignified seriousness and impressive grandeur.

Variety and contrast within a piece became more pronounced than before. A variety of keys, melodies, rhythms, and dynamics (using crescendo, diminuendo, and sforzando), along with frequent changes of mood and timbre were more commonplace in the Classical period than they had been in the Baroque. Melodies tended to be shorter than those of Baroque music, with clear-cut phrases and clearly marked cadences. The orchestra increased in size and range; the harpsichord continuo fell out of use, and the woodwinds became a self-contained section. As a solo instrument, the harpsichord was replaced by the piano (or fortepiano). Early piano music was light in texture, often with Alberti bass accompaniment, but it later became richer, more sonorous, and more powerful.

Importance was given to instrumental music—the main kinds were sonata, trio, string quartet, symphony, concerto, serenade and divertimento. The sonata form developed and became the most important form. It was used to build up the first movement of most large-scale works, but also other movements and single pieces (such as overtures).

Defining Characteristics of Classicism in Music

Although Baroque music was evenly divided between vocal and instrumental music genres and secular and sacred music, composers began to move toward specific trends in the Classical period that followed. Instrumental music grew in popularity during the Classical period because instruments, tonal systems, and orchestral writing in the Baroque period had become more standardized. The harpsichord declined in popularity as the pianoforte became prominent. Composers concentrated on creating new music with larger forms, including sonatas, symphonies, and string quartets, that allowed audiences to be continually entertained over a longer period of time. Vocal music also continued to develop in the Classical period, taking opera to a new level where composers integrated recitative and aria forms to move the drama of opera forward.

In contrast to the Baroque period ornamentation and decoration, Classical music focused on clarity, precision, and formal structure. The melody in a musical work was the most important component. An emphasis on melody meant that the harmony in most works was homophonic. Instead of several competing melodies, as was the case in the polyphonic textures of the Renaissance and Baroque eras, background materials supported the main melody as much as possible. Tonality and tonal centers were very clearly defined, with chord progressions helping to define major sections of the music.

Wolfgang Amadeu Mozart – Ave Verum Corpus

Key Music Terms

Instrumentation became more standardized during the Classical period. For example, the symphony orchestra was organized into a format with specific instruments and sections, as we recognize orchestras today. During the Classical period, the harpsichord was no longer a prominent instrument, but the pianoforte—a forerunner of the modern piano—became very popular.

Introducing Mozart’s Fortepiano

Mozart: Rondo in D-Dur KV 485 (Fortepiano, 430 Hz)

Timbre, or tone quality, describes the quality of a musical sound. Timbre is generally discussed using adjectives, like bright, dark, buzzy, airy, thin, and smooth. Many different adjectives can be effectively used to describe timbre, based on your perceptions and opinions about what you hear in the sound. Classical composers used instruments for their traditional sounds. Performers sometimes became virtuosos, extremely skilled at demonstrating advanced performing abilities.

Beethoven Violin Concerto – 1st Cadenza

Texture is a term that describes what is going on in the music at any moment. Musical texture is the way that melody, harmony, and rhythm combine. Texture can be described in musical terms like monophonic, homophonic, and polyphonic or with adjectives like thin, thick, and rich. A lot of Classical period music was homophonic and revolved around melody or melodic statements. Some Classical music included the fugue, which was polyphonic.

Mozart: Laudate Dominum

Haydn: String Quartet Op. 20 no. 2 in C major

Harmony is created when at least two voices perform together. Two different types of textures exist in music that may create harmony: homophony and polyphony. One additional musical texture, monophony, does not include any harmony. Monophony was not as common during the Classical period as it was in earlier years.

When considering musical texture, ask yourself these questions:

• What instruments or voices am I hearing?
• Do I hear one melody or more than one?
• Are the extra voices or instruments changing together or at different times?
• Is it difficult to identify the melody, perhaps because several melodies are happening at once?

Tempo is the speed of the music. Tempo may also be called time. The tempo can change during a piece to add expression or emotional communication. Speeding up the tempo is called an accelerando, and slowing down gradually is called ritardando. Classical period music began to explore tempo changes.

Rhythm became an important area of focus in Classical music. Although during the Baroque period rhythms were constant and repetitive, Classical music rebelled against this uniformity. Rhythm was used as a tool to drive audience interest during the late 1700s and became flexible. Rhythm became one of several ways composers provided variety in their works while still maintaining enough cohesiveness to keep listeners interested.

Dynamics are changing the volume levels of musical sounds. Dynamics can range from softer than soft or quiet (piano) to very loud (forte). Dynamics can also change, getting louder (crescendo) and getting softer (diminuendo). Dynamics and changing dynamics give the music expression, make it interesting, and add variety.

Haydn, Symphony No. 94 in G Major

Form is the organization and structure of a musical selection. In the Classical period, new and precise forms were created to help composers produce large quantities of quality music on demand. Some of these forms included the sonata, rondo, theme and variations, and minuet and trio. The multimovement symphony was developed to provide extended performances that entertained audiences for greater lengths of time, as concert halls were built and concert attendance became a public pastime.

Instrumental Music Forms

Instrumental music from this period mostly fit into the multimovement format. Movements are complete sections of a work with their own form, often a binary (aab) or ternary (aba) form. In binary form, the music consists of two distinct sections without a return of the first section. In ternary form, the first section presents the theme or main ideas, the next section develops these ideas in a new key using other musical ideas, and the final section returns to the familiar material from the first section either in part or whole.

A typical four-movement work was organized in the following manner:

1. A fast movement in sonata (aba) form

2. A slower movement in theme and variation form or some kind of ternary (aba) form

3. A dance movement, often a minuet and trio (aab) or scherzo and trio

4. A fast movement, often a rondo (abacada) or sonata (aba) form

When a musical work consisted of only three movements, the third dance movement was left out—a choice commonly made by Mozart.

The term sonata refers to both a multimovement piece of music performed by a single instrument (usually the piano) or a small group (violin and piano, flute and piano, etc.), and also to the first movement in a large, multimovement work (referred to as sonata form).

Listen to Mozart’s Piano Sonata no. 11 in A Major, Rondo Alla Turca, K. 331. This particular Mozart sonata includes a first movement in theme and variations form, a second movement in minuet and trio form (binary form), and a final movement in rondo form. Mozart left out the typical first-movement sonata form altogether.

W.A. Mozart: Piano Sonata No 11 in A – Major, K.331 

A Complete Introduction to Musical Form

Licensing & Attributions

“The Classical Era” from Introduction to Music Appreciation

Hansen, Bethanie; Whitehouse, David; and Silverman, Cathy, “Introduction to Music Appreciation” (2014).ePress Course Materials. Book 3. http://digitalcommons.apus.edu/epresscoursematerials/3

Edited and additional material by Jennifer Bill