Music, Classical
Rosin up your bows and get to work on those sonatas! Classical music encompasses a wealth of different musical forms, including the symphony, concerto, and fugue, among many others. It can be written for musical instruments (such as an orchestra or a string quartet) or for vocal groups (as in choral music). Most of the best-known composers of classical music worked during the last 600 years in the Western tradition; even people disinclined to seek out classical music may recognize passages from some of these composers' standout works, such as Ludwig van Beethoven's Für Elise, Antonio Vivaldi's The Four Seasons, and Georges Bizet's Habañera (from the opera Carmen).
Music, Classical Encyclopedia Articles
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La traviata
La traviata, opera in three acts by Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi (libretto in Italian by Francesco Maria Piave) that premiered in Venice at La Fenice opera house on March 6, 1853. Based upon the 1852...
Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Verdi leading Italian composer of opera in the 19th century, noted for operas such as Rigoletto (1851), Il trovatore (1853), La traviata (1853), Don Carlos (1867), Aida (1871), Otello (1887),...
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Austrian composer, widely recognized as one of the greatest composers in the history of Western music. With Haydn and Beethoven he brought to its height the achievement of the Viennese...
symphony
Symphony, a lengthy form of musical composition for orchestra, normally consisting of several large sections, or movements, at least one of which usually employs sonata form (also called first-movement...
Boléro
Boléro, one-movement orchestral work composed by Maurice Ravel and known for beginning softly and ending, according to the composer’s instructions, as loudly as possible. Commissioned by the Russian dancer...
Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms German composer and pianist of the Romantic period, who wrote symphonies, concerti, chamber music, piano works, choral compositions, and more than 200 songs. Brahms was the great master...
The Marriage of Figaro
The Marriage of Figaro, comic opera in four acts by Austrian composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte), which premiered in Vienna at the Burgtheater on May 1, 1786. Based...
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky the most popular Russian composer of all time. His music has always had great appeal for the general public in virtue of its tuneful, open-hearted melodies, impressive harmonies,...
opera
Opera, a staged drama set to music in its entirety, made up of vocal pieces with instrumental accompaniment and usually with orchestral overtures and interludes. In some operas the music is continuous...
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach composer of the Baroque era, the most celebrated member of a large family of north German musicians. Although he was admired by his contemporaries primarily as an outstanding harpsichordist,...
sonata
Sonata, type of musical composition, usually for a solo instrument or a small instrumental ensemble, that typically consists of two to four movements, or sections, each in a related key but with a unique...
Night on Bald Mountain
Night on Bald Mountain, orchestral work by the Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky that was completed in June 1867. The work had not been performed in public at the time of the composer’s death in 1881;...
Claudio Monteverdi
Claudio Monteverdi Italian composer in the late Renaissance, the most important developer of the then new genre, the opera. He also did much to bring a “modern” secular spirit into church music. Monteverdi,...
Zadok the Priest
Zadok the Priest, the most popular of George Frideric Handel’s four coronation anthems for George II; the others of which are “Let Thy Hand Be Strengthened,” “The King Shall Rejoice,” and “My Heart Is...
Piano Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 47
Piano Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 47, quartet for piano, violin, viola, and cello by Robert Schumann, written in 1842. He wrote it with the gifted pianist Clara Wieck Schumann, his wife, in mind, but...
Three Places in New England
Three Places in New England, composition for orchestra by American composer Charles Ives, completed and much revised in the first decades of the 20th century and published in its best-known version in...
Isaac Albéniz
Isaac Albéniz, composer and virtuoso pianist, a leader of the Spanish nationalist school of musicians. Albéniz appeared as a piano prodigy at age 4 and by 12 had run away from home twice. Both times he...
George Gershwin
George Gershwin one of the most significant and popular American composers of all time. He wrote primarily for the Broadway musical theatre, but important as well are his orchestral and piano compositions...
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven German composer, the predominant musical figure in the transitional period between the Classical and Romantic eras. Widely regarded as the greatest composer who ever lived, Ludwig...
Joseph Haydn
Joseph Haydn Austrian composer who was one of the most important figures in the development of the Classical style in music during the 18th century. He helped establish the forms and styles for the string...
La campanella
La campanella, (Italian: “The Little Bell”) final movement of the Violin Concerto No. 2 in B Minor, Op. 7, by Italian composer and violinist Niccolò Paganini, renowned for its intricate and technically...
Franz Schubert
Franz Schubert Austrian composer who bridged the worlds of Classical and Romantic music, noted for the melody and harmony in his songs (lieder) and chamber music. Among other works are Symphony No. 9 in...
Richard Wagner
Richard Wagner German dramatic composer and theorist whose operas and music had a revolutionary influence on the course of Western music, either by extension of his discoveries or reaction against them....