| The Classical Period
(1750-1820)
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| Classical Era |
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From roughly 1750 to 1820, artists, architects, and musicians moved away from the heavily ornamented styles
of the Baroque and instead embraced a clean, uncluttered style they
thought reminiscent of Classical Greece. The newly established
aristocracies were replacing monarchs and the church as patrons of the
arts, and were demanding an impersonal, but tuneful and elegant music.
Dances such as the minuet and the gavotte were
provided in the forms of entertaining serenades and divertimenti.
At this time the Austrian capital of Vienna became the musical
center of Europe, and works of the period are often referred to as being
in the Viennese style. Composers came from all over Europe to
train in and around Vienna, and gradually they developed and formalized
the standard musical forms that were to predominate European musical
culture for the next several decades. The Classical period reached its
majestic culmination with the masterful symphonies, sonatas,
and string quartets by the three great composers of the
Viennese school: Franz Joseph, Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and
Ludwig van Beethoven. During the same period, the first voice of the
burgeoning Romantic musical ethic can be found in the music of Viennese
composer Franz Schubert. |
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Great Composers of the Classical Period
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 Franz
Joseph Haydn born second of twelve children to a poor but
music-loving family, at the age of eight Franz Joseph was accepted in
the choir of St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna. In 1749, after enduring
nine years at the cathedral, he was turned out when his voice broke.
Without money, a job, or a home, the young man somehow survived by
singing, playing the harpsichord where he could, and teaching, all the
time practicing and continuing to study music. He also began composing
and making connections, and was given his first professional position
leading the orchestra of a Count Morzin of Bohemia. His first symphony
led to his being engaged in 1761 as orchestra conductor to the Hungarian
Prince Paul Anton Esterházy. Haydn spent thirty years in the
employ of the Esterházys, virtually as a servant, but nevertheless
composing some 90 symphonies, two dozen operas, a number of masses,
and vast amounts of chamber music. His fame spread across
Europe due to the publication of his music and, almost unknown to him,
the immense popularity of his music set the standard of the musical
tastes and techniques of the next half century. He met the young Mozart
in 1781 and the two became close friends and admirers of the other's music. When
Prince Nicolaus Esterházy died in 1790 (he had succeeded
Prince Paul in 1762 and had retained Haydn's services), Haydn was
dismissed by his successor. With a generous pension and income from
publications and pupils, Haydn moved to Vienna. He was invited to London
by impresario J. P. Salomon for a series of concerts. During this visit
and a second trip to England, Haydn composed his last twelve
"London" symphonies, his crowning achievements in the genre. Known
today as the "The father of the Symphony and the String
quartet", Haydn actually invented neither, but did develop them
into the forms that eventually swept throughout Europe. Joseph Haydn was
evidently an unassuming man who seemingly without effort turned out
literally hundreds of sonatas, quartets, symphonies,
operas and concertos during his career. His music is
always extremely well-crafted and seemingly simple and charming, but
there are always flights of fancy and pure jokes amidst the classical
veneer. By 1802, Haydn, now an old man, felt himself played out. He
spent his last years enjoying the adulation that came his way from all
over Europe. When in the spring of 1809, the French under Napoleon began
their destruction of Vienna, Haydn suffered a quick decline and died on
May 31. Back To List
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 Wolfgang
Amadeus Mozart at the age of four he could learn a piece of music in
half an hour. At five he was playing the clavier incredibly well. At six
he began composing, writing his first symphonies at the age of
eight. He was constantly traveling all over Europe with his father,
Leopold Mozart (1719-1787), a violinist, minor composer and Vice-Kapellmeister
at the court of the Archbishop of Salzburg. The musical feats and tricks
of young Wolfgang were exhibited to the courts (beginning in Munich in
1762), to musical academicians, and to the public. Between the ages of
seven and fifteen, the young Mozart spent half of his time on tour.
During these tours, Mozart heard, absorbed, and learned various European
musical idioms, eventually crystallizing his own mature style. in 1777
Wolfgang went on a tour with his mother to Munich, Mannheim, and Paris.
It was in Paris that his mother died suddenly in July, 1778. With no
prospects of a job, Mozart dejectedly returned to Salzburg in 1779 and
became court organist to the Archbishop. Mozart finally achieved an
unceremonious dismissal from the archiepiscopal court in 1781, and
thereafter became one of the first musicians in history to embark upon a
free-lance career, without benefit of church, court, or a rich patron.
Mozart moved to Vienna where he lived for a time with the Weber's, a
family he had met in 1777. He eventually married Constanze Weber
in August of1782, against the wishes and strict orders of his father.
Then for a time, things began to look bright for the young composer.
Mozart is probably the only composer in history to have written
undisputed masterworks in virtually every musical genre of his age.
Between 1782 and 1785, Mozart composed a series of six string quartets
which he dedicated to Haydn. Upon playing through some of them together,
Haydn said to Mozart's father, who was present, "Before God and as
an honest man, your son is the greatest composer I know, either
personally or by name." Yet through his mismanagement of money and
the documented incidences of his tactless, impulsive, and at times
childish behavior in an era of powdered wigs and courtly manners, Mozart
seemed to find it difficult to make a successful living. By 1790 he was
writing letters to friends, describing himself and his family (he and
Constanze had six children, only two of which survived) in desperate
circumstances and begging for money. He was also by this time seriously
ill, and had been intermittently for some time, with what was most
likely disease of the kidneys. With the success of The Magic Flute and a
newly granted yearly stipend, Mozart was just beginning to become
financially stable when his illness brought an end to his life and
career at the age of thirty-six. He was buried, like most Viennese in
those days by the decree of Emperor Joseph, in a common grave, the exact
location of which remains unknown. Back To List |
Ludwig van Beethoven Born to a drunkard father and an unhappy mother,
the young Beethoven was subjected to a brutal training in music at the
hands of his father, who hoped that the boy would prove to be another
prodigy like Mozart. Failing in this, the young Beethoven nevertheless
embraced music and studied for a short time in 1792 with Franz
Joseph Haydn in Vienna. Hailed as a genius and a master of
improvisation at the piano, Beethoven soon made a name for himself, and
by 1794 was known throughout Europe. He faithfully learned the Classical
Viennese styles and traditions in music, and then proceeded throughout
his career to completely revolutionize them. By 1800, Beethoven had
become aware of his advancing deafness -- surely a most horrible fate
for a musician and unendurable to a composer. Agonizing over his fate,
Beethoven contemplated suicide, but in the end embraced life, determined
to go on composing, if no longer performing. Unhappy with his
compositions up to that time and stating that he would now be
"making a fresh start," Beethoven began composing music such
as had never before been heard. The idea of universal freedom, equality,
and the brotherhood of man was one the composer cherished. Beethoven's
only opera, Fidelio, is on this very subject, and the
theme is nowhere expressed more powerfully or beautifully than in the
final movement of the monumental Symphony no. 9 in D minor, composed in 1824 when Beethoven was completely
deaf. With plans for the future and sketches of a tenth symphony begun,
Beethoven contracted a chill which led to a long illness. In and out of
consciousness for weeks, Beethoven succumbed on March 26, 1827. Some
10,000 people lined the streets of Vienna at his funeral to pay homage
to the composer who had forever changed the musical climate of Western
Europe. With Beethoven's passing, the stage was set for the onslaught of
Romanticism in western music. |
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