Classical Music

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, Mauro Giuliani, Fernando Sor, Muzio Clementi, Jan Ladislav Dussek, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, and Christoph Willibald Gluck. Beethoven is also sometimes 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, Luigi Cherubini 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, and Ludwig van Beethoven all worked at some time in Vienna.

Given the extremely broad variety of forms, styles, genres, and historical periods generally perceived as being described by the term "classical music," it is difficult to list characteristics that can be attributed to all works of that type. Vague descriptions are plentiful, such as describing classical music as anything that "lasts a long time," a statement made rather moot when one considers contemporary composers who are described as classical; or music that has certain instruments like violins, which are also found in other genres. However, there are characteristics that classical music contains that few or no other genres of music contain.

Instrumentation
Classical music is often distinguished by its wide use of instruments of varying tones and pitches to create a deep, rich sound. The different movements of classical music were affected largely by the invention and modification of instruments throughout time. While classical music has no "set" of instruments required to fulfill certain standards, composers wrote for orchestras, wind ensembles, or various combinations of instruments for chamber music. Not to be forgotten is the human voice, which has invented its own series of classical music, the Opera. It was not uncommon for classical composers to also write solo pieces for a specific instrument, accompanied by piano or whatever group the composer deemed fit.
The instruments used in most classical music were largely invented before the mid-19th century (often much earlier), and codified in the 18th and 19th centuries. They consist of the instruments found in an orchestra, together with a few other solo instruments (such as the piano, harpsichord, and organ).
Electric instruments such as the electric guitar appear occasionally in the classical music of the 20th and 21st centuries. Both classical and popular musicians have experimented in recent decades with electronic instruments such as the synthesizer, electric and digital techniques such as the use of sampled or computer-generated sounds, and the sounds of instruments from other cultures such as the gamelan.
None of the bass instruments existed until the Renaissance. In Medieval music, instruments are divided in two categories: loud instruments for use outdoors or in church, and quieter instruments for indoor use. Many instruments which are associated today with popular music used to have important roles in early classical music, such as bagpipes, vihuelas, hurdy-gurdies and some woodwind instruments. On the other hand, instruments such as the acoustic guitar, which used to be associated mainly with popular music, have gained prominence in classical music through the 19th and 20th centuries.
While equal temperament became gradually accepted as the dominant musical temperament during the 19th century, different historical temperaments are often used for music from earlier periods. For instance, music of the English Renaissance is often performed in mean tone temperament. Keyboards almost all share a common layout (often called the piano keyboard). Musical instruments with keyboards of this type include the piano, harpsichord, clavichord, organ, and electric piano. In spite of this, keyboard instruments are often played using different techniques.

Form and technical execution
Whereas the majority of popular styles lend themselves to the song form, classical music can also take on the form of the concerto, symphony,sonata, opera, dance music, suite, étude, symphonic poem, and others.
Classical composers often aspire to imbue their music with a very complex relationship between its affective (emotional) content and the intellectual means by which it is achieved. Many of the most esteemed works of classical music make use of musical development, the process by which a musical idea or motif is repeated in different contexts or in altered form. The classical genres of sonata form and fugue employ rigorous forms of musical development.
Along with a desire for composers to attain high technical achievement in writing their music, performers of classical music are faced with similar goals of technical mastery, as demonstrated by the proportionately high amount of schooling and private study most successful classical musicians have had when compared to "popular" genre musicians, and the large number of secondary schools, including conservatories, dedicated to the study of classical music. The only other genre in the Western world with comparable secondary education opportunities is jazz.

Complexity
Performance of classical music repertoire often demands a significant level of technical mastery on the part of the musician; proficiency in sight-reading and ensemble playing, thorough understanding of tonal and harmonic principles, knowledge of performance practice, and a familiarity with the style/musical idiom inherent to a given period, composer or musical work are among the most essential of skills for the classically trained musician. Works of classical repertoire often exhibit artistic complexity through the use of thematic development, phrasing, harmonization, modulation (change of key), texture, and, of course, musical form itself. Larger-scale compositional forms (such as that of the symphony, concerto, opera or oratorio, for example) usually represent a hierarchy of smaller units consisting of phrases, periods, sections, and movements. Musical analysis of a composition aims at achieving greater understanding of it, leading to more meaningful hearing and a greater appreciation of the composer's style.

Society
Often perceived as opulent or signifying some aspect of upper-level society, classical music has generally never been as popular with working-class society. However, the traditional perception that only upper-class society has access to and appreciation for classical music, or even that classical music represents the upper-class society, may not be true, given that many working classical musicians fall somewhere in the middle-class income range in the United States, and that classical concertgoers and CD buyers are not necessarily upper class. Even in the Classical era, Mozart's opere buffe such as Così fan tutte were popular with ordinary people.
Classical music regularly features in pop culture, forming background music for movies, television programs and advertisements. As a result most people in the Western World regularly and often unknowingly listen to classical music; thus, it can be argued that the relatively low levels of recorded music sales may not be a good indicator of its actual popularity. In more recent times the association of certain classical pieces with major events has led to brief upsurges in interest in particular classical genres. A good example of this was the choice of Nessun dorma from Giacomo Puccini's opera Turandot as the theme tune for the 1990 Soccer World Cup, which led to a noticeable increase in popular interest in opera and in particular in tenor arias, which led to the huge sellout concerts by The Three Tenors. Such events are often cited as helping to drive increases in the audiences at many classical concerts that have been observed in recent times.

History
The major time divisions of classical music are the early music period, which includes Medieval (476 – 1400) and Renaissance (1400 – 1600), the Common practice period, which includes the Baroque (1600 – 1750), Classical (1730 – 1820) and Romantic (1815 – 1910) periods, and the modern and contemporary period, which includes 20th century classical (1900 – 2000) and contemporary classical (1975 – current).
The dates are generalizations, since the periods overlapped and the categories are somewhat arbitrary. For example, the use of counterpoint and fugue, which is considered characteristic of the Baroque era, was continued by Haydn, who is classified as typical of the Classical period. Beethoven, who is often described as a founder of the Romantic period, and Brahms, who is classified as Romantic, also used counterpoint and fugue, but other characteristics of their music define their period.
The prefix neo is used to describe a 20th century or contemporary composition written in the style of an earlier period, such as Classical or Romantic. Stravinsky's Pulcinella, for example, is a neoclassical composition because it is stylistically similar to works of the Classical period.

Roots
The roots of Western classical music lie in early Christian liturgical music, and its influences date back to the Ancient Greeks. Development of individual tones and scales was done by ancient Greeks such as Aristoxenus and Pythagoras. Pythagoras created a tuning system and helped to codify musical notation. Ancient Greek instruments such as the aulos (a reed instrument) and the lyre (a stringed instrument similar to a small harp) eventually led to the modern-day instruments of a classical orchestra. The antecedent to the early period was the era of ancient music from before the fall of the Roman Empire (476 AD). Very little music survives from this time, most of it from Ancient Greece.

Early Period
The Medieval period includes music from after the fall of Rome to about 1400. Monophonic chant, also called plainsong or Gregorian Chant, was the dominant form until about 1100 Polyphonic (multi-voiced) music developed from monophonic chant throughout the late Middle Ages and into the Renaissance, including the more complex voicings of motets. The Renaissance period was from 1400 to 1600. It was characterized by greater use of instrumentation, multiple interweaving melodic lines, and the use of the first bass instruments. Social dancing became more widespread, so musical forms appropriate to accompanying dance began to standardize.
It is in this time that the notation of music on a staff and other elements of musical notation began to take shape. This invention made possible the separation of the composition of a piece of music from its transmission; without written music, transmission was oral, and subject to change every time it was transmitted. With a musical score, a work of music could be performed without the composer's presence. The invention of the movable-type printing press in the 15th century had far-reaching consequences on the preservation and transmission of music.
Typical stringed instruments of the Early Period include the harp, lute, vielle, and psaltery, while wind instruments included the flute family (including recorder), shawm (an early member of the oboe family), trumpet, and the bagpipe. Simple pipe organs existed, but were largely confined to churches, although there were portable varieties. Later in the period, early versions of keyboard instruments like the clavichord and harpsichord began to appear. Stringed instruments such as the viol had emerged by the 16th century, as had a wider variety of brass and reed instruments. Printing enabled the standardization of descriptions and specifications of instruments, as well as instruction in their use.

Common Practice Period
The Common Practice Period is when many of the ideas that make up western classical music took shape, standardized, or were codified. It began with the Baroque era, running from roughly 1600 to the middle of the 18th century. The Classical era followed, ending roughly around 1820. The Romantic era ran through the 19th century, ending about 1910.

Baroque music
Baroque music is characterized by the use of complex tonal counterpoint and the use of a basso continuo, a continuous bass line. The beginnings of the sonata form took shape in the canzona, as did a more formalized notion of theme and variations. The tonalities of major and minor as means for managing dissonance and chromaticism in music took full shape.
During the Baroque era, keyboard music played on the harpsichord and pipe organ became increasingly popular, and the violin family of stringed instruments took the form generally seen today. Opera as a staged musical drama began to differentiate itself from earlier musical and dramatic forms, and vocal forms like the cantata and oratorio became more common. Instrumental ensembles began to distinguish and standardize by size, giving rise to the early orchestra for larger ensembles, with chamber music being written for smaller groups of instruments where parts are played by individual (instead of massed) instruments. The concerto as a vehicle for solo performance accompanied by an orchestra became widespread, although the relationship between soloist and orchestra was relatively simple. The theories surrounding equal temperament began to be put in wider practice, especially as it enabled a wider range of chromatic possibilities in hard-to-tune keyboard instruments. For example, equal temperament made possible Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier.

Classical Period Music
The Classical period, from about 1750 to 1820, established many of the norms of composition, presentation and style, and was when the piano became the predominant keyboard instrument. The basic forces required for an orchestra became somewhat standardized (although they would grow as the potential of a wider array of instruments was developed in the following centuries). Chamber music grew to include ensembles with as many as 8-10 performers for serenades. Opera continued to develop, with regional styles in Italy, France, and German-speaking lands. The opera buffa, a form of comic opera, rose in popularity. The symphony came into its own as a musical form, and the concerto was developed as a vehicle for displays of virtuoso playing skill. Orchestras no longer required a harpsichord (which had been part of the traditional continuo in the Baroque style), and were often led by the lead violinist (now called the concertmaster).
Wind instruments became more refined in the Classical period. While double reeded instruments like the oboe and bassoon became somewhat standardized in the Baroque, the clarinet family of single reeds was not widely used until Mozart expanded its role in orchestral, chamber, and concerto settings.

Source: Wikipedia