Classical Music

28 Jan

“Classical music is music that has been composed by musicians who are trained in the art of writing music and written down in music notation so that other musicians can play it. It probably requires some training or literacy in order to perform.”

The term "classical music" first began to appear in the early 19th century, and gained popularity among music lovers who regarded the period from Bach (technically, a Baroque composer) to Beethoven as a shining era in music history.

Classical music is a European tradition of music that is distinct from popular or folk forms. The 18th and 19th centuries were the formative period of classical music, when the sonata, concert, symphony, oratorio, and opera were born.

classical music most properly describes music composed from about 1750 to 1820, including the work of Haydn and Mozart, but only most of Beethoven. It doesn't include Bach or Wagner, or Debussy or Copland, though you'll hear plenty of all of those artists on Classical MPR and other classical music stations.

The term "classical music" first began to appear in the early 19th century, and gained popularity among music lovers who regarded the period from Bach (technically, a Baroque composer) to Beethoven as a shining era in music history. The later 19th century ultimately became known as the Romantic Era, but when it came to telling the general public what their local orchestras were playing, Berlioz and Brahms were slipped in under the broad "classical music" rubric. Eventually, 20th-century composers from Stravinsky to Stockhausen crowded under the umbrella as well.

Everyday enjoyment of classical music doesn't require you to strain your brain with such fine distinctions, but it definitely helps to understand that classical music is a living tradition that's being defined and redefined every day. Although Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and their contemporaries will always have pride of place in the world of classical music, the long history of what we now consider classical music didn't begin with them and certainly didn't end with them.

The classical music tradition lives on in composers writing scores for performance by orchestras, for chamber ensembles, for solo performers — and also in unexpected places. Even if you never listen to "classical music," you're constantly hearing music that's been influenced by the classical tradition, from precisely composed video-game scores

Vienna, the European capital of classical music, had been a center of musical innovation since the 18th and 19th centuries, when the Habsburgs patronage drew composers there. You can visit the homes of many composers, including Haydn, Brahms, Schubert, Beethoven, or Mozart, which are now mostly small museums. Musicologists can stay up all night talking about the shape and trajectory of classical music, debating questions like the importance of the score, the role of improvisation, and the nature of musical form. Where you come down on these questions determines who precisely you think falls into the broadly defined genre of "classical music." Renaissance troubadours? Frank Zappa? Duke Ellington? Yes, no, maybe?

Some famous classical music pieces include:

Carmen: By Bizet

The Blue Danube: By Johann Strauss II

Eine kleine Nachtmusik: By Mozart

Für Elise: By Beethoven

O mio babbino caro: From Gianni Schicchi by Puccini

The Four Seasons: By Vivaldi

Some other classical music pieces include:

Peer Gynt Suite No. by Edvard Grieg

Adagio for Strings by Samuel Barber

The Valkyrie: Ride of the Valkyries by Richard Wagner

Canon in D Major by Johann Pachelbel