1. Music of the Classical Period
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2. Classicial Historical Highlights
Age of Enlightenment; using reason to solve social problems
Age of violent upheavals - French & American Revolutions, Napoleonic Wars
Political power shifts from noble courts and church to the newly empowered middle class
Composers move from high-class servants to free-lance, self-employed artists

3. “Classical” Defined
A “classic” is any supreme accomplishment of lasting appeal (for example a movie classic or classic rock song)
“classical” music (lowercase “c”) usually refers to any music that is NOT rock , jazz, folk, or popular
“Classical” music (uppercase “C”) refers to music written between , which exhibits some of the artistic ideas found in “Neoclassic” visual art and architecture
In visual art and architecture, “Classical” Art refers to Greek and Roman antiquity
Baroque period, era in the history of the Western arts roughly coinciding with the 17th century. Its earliest manifestations, which occurred in Italy, date from the latter decades of the 16th century, while in some regions, notably Germany and colonial South America, certain of its culminating achievements did not occur until the 18th century. The work that distinguishes the Baroque period is stylistically complex, even contradictory. In general, however, the desire to evoke emotional states by appealing to the senses, often in dramatic ways, underlies its manifestations. Some of the qualities most frequently associated with the Baroque are grandeur, sensuous richness, drama, vitality, movement, tension, emotional exuberance, and a tendency to blur distinctions between the various arts.
A term used in the literature of the arts with both historical and critical meanings and as both an adjective and a noun. The word has a long, complex and controversial history (it possibly derived from a Portuguese word for a misshapen pearl, and until the late 19th century it was used mainly as a synonym for `absurd' or `grotesque'), but in English it is now current with three principal meanings.

4. Classical Artistic Highlights
New emphasis on balance and clarity of structure
Neoclassic Architecture and Painting
firm lines & clear structure
balance & symmetry
moralistic subject matter
Greek & Roman references
Arts meant to please and entertain rather than instruct: new emphasis on naturalness & pleasing variety
Rococo artists: Watteau; Fragonard

5. Upper Belvedere, Vienna 1721-22

6. Karlskirche, Vienna

7. Petite Trianon at Versailles, 1726-68

8. Temple of Love at Versailles, 1775

9. David, Mars disarmed by Venus, 1824 on next page Paris & Helen, 1788

11. Fragonard
The Bathers
The Reader
Watteau
Pierrot

15. Classical Musical Highlights
New emphasis on pleasing variety
Highly flexible rhythms (i.e. all different lengths of short and long notes)
More difference between musical ideas within a single movement or piece
Introduction of crescendo and diminuendo into varied dynamic changes
New emphasis on naturalness
Demand for simplicity and clarity in melody and harmony
Use of secular pop/folk “tunes” in art music
More melody & accompaniment (homophonic) textures
New emphasis on morality, common people, and everyday life in OPERA
Example:
W.A. Mozart’s Act 1, Scene 1 from Don Giovanni

16. Opera Sung theatrical work Staged with costumes and sets
Example: WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART Act 1, excerpt from Opening Scene from Don Giovanni

17. Classical Music Genres
Vocal Music Genres
Opera
Instrumental Music Genres
Orchestral Music
Symphony
Concerto
Chamber Music
String Quartet
Serenade

18. Classical Music Style Characteristics
Timbre
End of basso continuo; evolution of standard orchestra with all four “choirs”; strings, woodwinds, brass, percussion; transition from harpsichord to piano
Rhythm
Emphasis on flexibiliy and naturalness; unexpected pauses; syncopations; frequent changes from long to short note patterns
Melody
Tuneful, easy to remember; folk-like, often “borrowed”; balanced and symmetrical phrase lengths; tend to be rounded
Form
New emphasis on symmetrical structures and clear formal designs; new emphasis on rounding; new emphasis on multi-movement instrumental works; widespread use of Sonata form
Dynamics
Widespread use of gradual dynamic changes (I.e.crescendos & diminuendos); transition from harpsichord to piano
Texture
Basically HOMOPHONIC MELODY & ACCOMPANIMENT but flexible; sudden appearances of small bits of imitative polyphony
Harmony
Less dense; simpler and more stretched out harmonic progressions; gradual abandonment of basso continuo
Mood
Emphasis on variety and contrast

19. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

20. Ludwig Van Beethoven