Discover Music of the Classical Era

Book excerpt: In music, the period from the middle of the eighteenth century to the beginning of the nineteenth is usually referred to as the 'Classical' Era. This was a period in which the art, literature and architecture of Ancient Greece and Rome were being rediscovered and re-evaluated, which in turn strongly influenced the 'modern' art of the time. But this was also a period of immense social change and political unrest, with challenges to the old established order culminating in the French Revolution of 1789. Discover Music of the Classical Era shows how all this was reflected in the music written during those turbulent but also intensely creative years.