- This article is about the genre of classical music or art music in the Western musical tradition. For articles on classical music of non-Western cultures, see Classical music. For the period of music in the late 18th century, see Classical music era.
Classical music is a broad, somewhat imprecise term, referring to music produced in, or rooted in the traditions of, European art, ecclesiastical and concert music, encompassing a broad period from roughly 1000 to the present day. The central norms of this tradition, according to one school of thought, developed between 1550 and 1825, focusing on what is known as the common practice period.
The term classical music did not appear until the early 19th century, in an attempt to 'canonize' the period from Bach to Beethoven as an era in music parallel to the golden age of sculpture, architecture and art of classical antiquity, (from which of course no music has directly survived). The earliest reference to 'classical music' recorded by the Oxford English Dictionary is from about 1836. Since that time the term has developed in common parlance as a simple opposite to popular music.
Timeline
According to one school of thought, musical works are best understood in the context of their place in musical history; for adherents to this approach, this is essential to full enjoyment of these works. There is a widely accepted system of dividing the history of classical music composition into stylistic periods. According to this system, the major time divisions are:
- Ancient music - the music generally before the year 476, the approxiamate time of the fall of the Roman Empire. Most of the extant music from this period is from ancient Greece.
- Medieval, generally before 1450. Monophonic chant, also called plainsong or Gregorian Chant, was the dominant form until about 1100. Polyphonic (multivoiced) music developed from monophonic chant throughout the late Middle Ages and into the Renaissance.
- Renaissance, about 1450–1600, characterized by greater use of instrumentation, multiple melodic lines and by the use of the first bass instruments.
- Baroque, about 1600–1750, characterized by the use of complex tonal, rather than modal, counterpoint, and growing popularity of keyboard music (harpsichord and pipe organ).
- Classical, about 1730–1820, an important era which established many of the norms of composition, presentation and style. Also, the classical era is marked by the disappearance of the harpsichord and the clavichord in favour of the piano, which from then on would become the predominant instrument for keyboard performance and composition.
- Romantic, 1815–1910 a period which codified practice, expanded the role of music in cultural life and created institutions for the teaching, performance and preservation of works of music.
- Modern, 1905-1985 a period which represented a crisis in the values of classical music and its role within intellectual life, and the extension of theory and technique. Some theorists, such as Arnold Schoenberg in his essay "Brahms the Progressive," insist that Modernism represents a logical progression from 19th century trends in composition; others hold the opposing point of view, that Modernism represents the rejection or negation of the method of Classical composition.
- 20th century, usually used to describe the wide variety of post-Romantic styles composed through the year 2000, which includes late Romantic, Modern and Post-Modern styles of composition.
- The term contemporary music is sometimes used to describe music composed in the late 20th century through present day.
- The prefix neo is usually used to describe a 20th Century or Contemporary composition written in the style of an earlier period, such as classical, romantic, or modern. So for example, Prokofiev's Classical Symphony is considered a Neo-Classical composition.
The dates are generalizations, since the periods overlapped. Some authorities subdivide the periods further by date or style. However, it should be noted that these categories are to an extent arbitrary; the use of counterpoint and fugue, which is considered characteristic of the Baroque era, was continued by Mozart, who is generally classified as typical of the Classical period, by Beethoven who is often described as straddling the Classical and Romantic periods, and Brahms, who is often classified as Romantic.
This chart shows a selection of the most famous classical composers. For a more complete overview see Graphical timeline for classical composers 
Classical music as "music of the classical era"
Main article: Classical music era
In music history, a different meaning of the term classical music is occasionally used: it designates music from a period in musical history covering approximately Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach to Beethoven – roughly, 1730–1820. When used in this sense, the initial C of Classical music is sometimes capitalized to avoid confusion.
The nature of classical music
Classical music is primarily a written musical tradition, preserved in music notation, as opposed to being transmitted orally, by rote, or in recordings. While there are differences between particular performances of a classical work, a piece of classical music is generally held to transcend any such interpretation of it. The use of musical notation is an effective method for transmitting classical music, since the written music contains all of the instructions necessary to perform the work as the composer intended. The written score, however, does not usually contain explicit instructions as to how to interpret the piece, apart from the usual directives for dynamics, tempo, etc.; this is left to the discretion of the performers, who are guided by the accumulated body of historic performance practices.
Classical music is meant to be experienced for its own sake. It is unlike those other forms of music that serve merely as an adjunct to other forms of entertainment. Performances of classical music often take place in a relatively solemn atmosphere, with the audience expected to maintain silence and remain immobile during the performance, so that everyone can hear each note and nuance. The performers usually dress formally, a practice which is often taken as a gesture of respect for the music, and performers normally do not engage in casual banter or other direct involvement with the audience. Amateur private readings of chamber music are more informal home occasions.
Written transmission, along with the veneration bestowed on classical works, has important implications for the performance of classical music. To a fair degree, performers are expected to perform a work in a way that realizes the original intentions of the composer, which during the 19th century became stated ever more explicitly (down to the level of small, note-by-note details) in the score. Indeed, deviations from the composer's intentions are sometimes condemned as outright ethical lapses. Yet the opposite trend—admiration of performers for new "interpretations" of the composer's work—can be seen, and it is not unknown for a composer to praise a performer for achieving a better realization of the composer's original intent than the composer was able to imagine. Thus, classical music performers often achieve very high reputations for their musicianship, even if they do not compose themselves.
Classical composition often aspires to a very complex relationship between the affective (emotional) content of the music, and the idea content. There is, in the most esteemed works of Classical music, an intensive use of musical development, the process by which a musical germ idea or motif is repeated in different contexts, or in altered form, so that the mind of the listener consciously or unconsciously compares the different versions. The classical genres of sonata form and fugue employ particularly rigorous forms of musical development. (See also History of sonata form)
Another consequence of the primacy of the composer's written score is that improvisation plays a relatively minor role in classical music--in sharp contrast to traditions like jazz, where improvisation is central. Improvisation in classical music performance was far more common during the Baroque era, and recently the performance of such music by modern classical musicians has been enriched by a revival of the old improvisational practices. During the Classical period, Mozart and Beethoven sometimes improvised the cadenzas to their piano concertos, but tended to write out the cadenzas when other soloists were to perform them.
Art music, concert music, and orchestral music are terms sometimes used as synonyms of classical music.
Complexity
Classical works are generally considered to display great musical complexity through heavy use of development, modulation (changing of keys), little outright repetition, a wide use of musical phrases that are not default length--that is, four or eight bars long- counterpoint, polyphony and sophisticated harmony.
Also, in classical music very long works (30 minutes to three hours) may be built up hierarchically from smaller units (phrases, periods, sections, and movements). Structural levels are distinguished by Schenkerian analysis.
Emotional content
As with many fine art forms, classical music often aspires to communicate a quality of emotion which has a transcendent quality, expressing universals of the human condition. They argue that this deeper reserve of expression allows classical music to reach what has been called the "sublime" in art. Examples often cited in this argument are religious works such as the Masses of Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven or Dvořák, or in works such as Beethoven's setting of Friedrich Schiller's poem, Ode to Joy, in the 9th symphony, which has often been used as a celebratory work at moments of national liberation or celebration, as in the Japanese practice of performing it to observe the New Year.
Instruments
Classical and popular music are distinguished to some extent by their choice of instruments. For the most part, the instruments used in common practice classical music are non-electrical and were invented prior to 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, organ). The electric guitar and electric violin play an extremely prominent role in popular music, but naturally play no role in classical music, and only appear occasionally in the classical music of the 20th and 21st centuries. Both classical and popular musicians have experimented for the last several decades with electrical or electronic instruments (for instance, the synthesizer or electronic tape), and instruments from other cultures (such as the gamelan).
It must be noted that all the bass instruments didn't exist until the Renaissance (in Medieval Music, instruments are divided in two categories: outdoor/church, which sound loud, and indoor instruments).
Also, many instruments which are associated today with popular music used to have important roles on early classical music, such as bagpipes, vilhuelas, hurdy-gurdys and some woodwind instruments. On the other hand, the acoustic guitar, for example, which used to be associated with popular music, started to gain prominence on classical music since the 19th century, what culminated in the 20th century, and today has a prestige it never had before.
Finally, it is important to know that the manners that a classical instrument is tuned may vary drastically according to the period from which the instrument is typical and the period in which the piece was composed. See musical tuning.
Permanence
One criterion that might be said to distinguish classical music is staying power. For instance, some of the works of J. S. Bach are now almost 300 years old, yet they continue to be widely performed.
Bach had many contemporaries whose music was mediocre at best, and today their music is forgotten, surviving perhaps in libraries. The repertoire of classical music is skewed toward works recognized as excellent by listeners over long periods of time.
Influences between classical and popular music
Classical music has always been influenced by or taken material from popular music. Examples include Erik Satie, Kurt Weill's The Threepenny Opera, and postminimalism, as well as much postmodern classical music. Even Brahms used popular themes, as in the student drinking songs that found their way into his Academic Festival Overture.
Musical influence flows the other way as well, from classical music to popular music: one notable example is the "Hooked on Classics" series of recordings made by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in the early 1980s.
Classical music and folk music
Composers of classical music have often made use of folk music, that is, music created by untutored musicians, spread by word of mouth. Often, they have done so with an explicit nationalist ideology; in other cases they have simply mined folk music for thematic material. See: European Classical Composers Noted for Use of Folk Music
Commercial uses of classical music
Certain staples of classical music are often used commercially (that is, either in advertising or in the soundtracks of movies made for entertainment). In television commercials, several loud, bombastically rhythmic orchestral passages have become cliches, particularly the opening "O Fortuna" of Carl Orff's Carmina Burana; other examples in the same vein are the Dies Irae from the Verdi Requiem, and excerpts of Aaron Copland's "Rodeo".
Similarly, movies often revert to standard, cliched snatches of classical music to represent refinement or opulence: probably the most-often heard piece in this category is Mozart's Eine kleine Nachtmusik.
Classical music in education
Throughout history, parents have often made sure that their children receive classical music training from a young age. Early experience with music provides the basis for more serious study later. Some instruments, such as the violin, are almost impossible to learn to play at a professional level if not learned in childhood. Some parents pursue music lessons for their children for social reasons or in an effort to instill a useful sense of self-discipline; lessons have also been shown to increase academic performance. Some consider that a degree of knowledge of important works of classical music is part of a good general education.
The 1990s marked the emergence in the United States of research papers and popular books on the so-called Mozart effect: a temporary, small elevation of a Mozart listener's scores on certain tests. The popularized version of the controversial theory was expressed succinctly by a New York Times music columnist: "researchers have determined that listening to Mozart actually makes you smarter." Promoters marketed CDs claimed to induce the effect. Florida passed a law requiring toddlers in state-run schools to listen to classical music every day, and in 1998 the governor of Georgia budgeted $105,000 a year to provide every child born in Georgia with a tape or CD of classical music. One of the original researchers commented "I don't think it can hurt. I'm all for exposing children to wonderful cultural experiences. But I do think the money could be better spent on music education programs."
See also:
Related genres
Composers of classical music
Terms of classical music
For terms relating specifically to the performance of classical music, see the Musical terminology.
Literature
