Jean-Baptiste Masse
(c1700 - c1756)
Michel Blavet
(1700 - 1768)
Johan Agrell
(1701 - 1765)
Giovanni Battista Sammartini
(1701 - 1775)
Johann Ernst Eberlin
(1702 - 1762)
Johann Gottlieb Graun
(c1702-1771)
Carl Heinrich Graun
(c1703-1759)
Giovanni Battista Pescetti
(c1704 - c1766)
Antonio Domenico Viraldini
(1705 - 1741)
Baldassare Galuppi
(1706 - 1785)
Georg Reutter
(1708 - 1772)
Michel Corrette
(1709 - 1795)
Giovanni Battista Pergolesi
(1710 - 1736)
Domenico Alberti
(1710 - 1740)
Thomas Arne
(1710 - 1778)
Wilhelm Friedemann Bach
(1710 - 1784)
William Boyce
(1711 - 1779)
John Stanley (1712 - 1786)
Johann Ludwig Krebs
(1713 - 1780)
Per Brant
(1714 - 1767)
Gottfried August Homilius
(1714 - 1785)
Christoph Willibald Gluck
(1714 - 1787)
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach
(1714 - 1788)
Georg Christoph Wagenseil
(1715 - 1777)
Hinrich Philip Johnsen
(1716 - 1779)
Johann Wenzel Anton Stamitz
(1717 - 1757)
Leopold Mozart
(1719 - 1787)
William Walond
(1719 - 1768)
Johann Philipp Kirnberger (1721 - 1783)
Sebastián Ramón de Albero y Añaños
(1722 - 1756)
Karl Friedrich Abel
(1723 - 1787)
Armand-Louis Couperin
(1727 - 1789)
Florian Leopold Gassmann
(1729 - 1774)
Giuseppe Sarti
(1729 - 1802)
Antonio Soler
(1729 - 1783)
Joseph Haydn
(1732 - 1809)
François-Joseph Gossec
(1734 - 1829)
Johann Gottfried Eckard
(1735 - 1809)
Johann Christian Bach
(1735 - 1782)
Johann Georg Albrechtsberger
(1736 - 1809)
Michael Haydn
(1737 - 1806)
Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf
(1739 - 1799)
Johann Baptist Vanhal
(1739 - 1813)
André-Ernest-Modeste Grétry
(1741 - 1813)
Giovanni Paisiello
(1741-1816)
Luigi Boccherini
(1743 - 1805)
Franz Nikolaus Novotny
(1743 - 1773)
Carl Stamitz
(1745 - 1801)
Joseph Schuster
(1748 - 1812)
Domenico Cimarosa
(1749 - 1801)
Antonio Salieri
(1750 - 1825)
Antonio Rosetti
(c1750 - 1792)
Dmytro Bortniansky
(1751 - 1825)
Muzio Clementi (1752 - 1832)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
(1756 - 1791)
Joseph Martin Kraus
(1756 - 1792)
François Devienne
(1759 - 1803)
Luigi Cherubini (1760 - 1842)
Franz Danzi
(1763 - 1826)
Franz Xaver Süssmayr (1766 - 1803)
Wenzell Muller (1767 - 1835)
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 - 1827) (Classical/Romantic bridge)
Antoine Reicha (1770 - 1836)
Johann Nepomuk Hummel (1778 - 1837) (Classical/Romantic bridge)
Fernando Sor (1778 - 1839)
John Field (1782 - 1837) Carl Maria von Weber (1786 - 1826)
(Classical/Romantic bridge)
Franz Schubert (1797 - 1828) (Classical/Romantic bridge)
The early Classical style (1760-1775)
By the late 1750's there are flourishing centers of the new style in
Italy, Vienna, Mannheim and Paris, dozens of symphonies are
composed, and there are "bands" of players associated with theatres.
Opera and vocal music is the feature of most musical events, with
concerti and symphonies acting as instrumental interludes and
introductions, for operas, and even church services. The norms of a
body of strings supplemented by winds, and of movements of
particular rhythmic character are established by the late 1750's in
Vienna. But the length and weight of pieces is still set with some
baroque characteristics: individual movements still focus on one
affect, their length is not significantly greater than baroque
movements and there is not, yet, a theory of how to compose in the
new style which is clearly enunciated. It was a moment ripe for a
breakthrough.
Many attribute this breakthrough to be made by C.P.E. Bach, Gluck,
and several others. In addition, C.P.E. Bach and Gluck are often
considered to be founders of the classical style.
The composer who was the first great master of the style was Joseph
Haydn. In the late 1750's he began composing symphonies, and by
1761, and composed a triptych "Morning", "Noon" and "Evening" which
were solidly in the "contemporary" mode. As a "vice-kapellemeister"
and later "kapellemeister", his output expanded, he would compose
over 40 symphonies alone in the decade. And while his fame grew, as
his orchestra was expanded and his compositions were copied and
disseminated, his voice was only one among many.
While overshadowed by Mozart and Beethoven, it is difficult to over
state Haydn's centrality to the new style, and the future of Western
concert music, at the time, before Mozart and Beethoven, with Johann
Sebastian Bach known primarily to connoisseurs of keyboard music,
Haydn reached a place in music which set him above all other
composers except perhaps George Friedrich Handel. Some have pointed
out that he occupied a place equivalent to perhaps the Beatles in
the history of Rock and Roll. It was he who, more than any other
single individual, realized that the new style which had evolved,
needed to be written according to new ideas and principles. He took
existing ideas, and radically altered how they functioned — earning
him the nicknames "father of the symphony" and "father of the string
quartet". One might truly say that he was the father of the sonata
form — which, in its classical incarnation, relied on dramatic
contrast, tension of melody against harmony, rhythm, and required
the audience to follow a dramatic curve over a larger span of time
than was previously necessary.
Strangely enough, one of the forces that worked as an impetus for
his pressing forward was the first stirrings of what would later be
called "romanticism" - the "sturm und drang", or "storm and
struggle" phase in the arts, a short period where obvious
emotionalism was a stylistic preference, which was the fad of the
1770's. This caused him to want more dramatic contrast and
emotionally appealing melodies which had more character, more
individuality. This period faded away in music and literature —
however, it would color what came afterward, and eventually be a
component of aesthetic taste in coming decades.
The "Farewell" Symphony, No. 45 in F# Minor, exemplifies Haydn's
integration the differing demands of the new style, with sharp
surprising turns, and a long adagio which ends the work. In 1772,
Haydn completed his Opus 20 set of 6 string quartets, where he uses
the polyphonic techniques he gathered from the previous era to
provide enough structural coherence to hold together his melodic
ideas. For some this marks the beginning of the "mature" classical
style, where the period of reaction against the complexity of the
late Baroque begins to be replaced with a period of integration of
elements of both Baroque and classical styles.
