Classical music

Classical music is a genre of music, developed in Europe, controlled from the start by the Saturn cult (Roman Empire, Holy Roman Empire of the Habsburgs and jesuits, the Catholic Church) as music of the elite, the highest class.

In the 9th century Gregorian chant was developed. Development of monophony of Hildegard von Bingen, polyphony, Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Aeolian and Lydian scales.
Baroque (use of harpsichord, pipe organ): Johann Sebastian Bach (fugue technique, Goldberg Variations), Antonio Vivaldi, Henry Purcell, Jean-Baptiste Lully (jesuit Louis XIV as patron), ...

Classical period (1730-1820, use of violin, classical orchestra, counterpoint): Joseph Hayden, Wolfgang Mozart (41 symphonies, 27 piano concertos, 5 violin concertoes, 37 violin sonates, 20 string quartets, opera Don Giovanni, Requiem), Ludwig van Beethoven (op 27 Moonlight Sonata, 3d symphony Napoleon, 16 string quartets, 32 piano sonates Moonlight, Hammerklavier, Fur Elise, Fidelio, 9th symphony),..

Mozart had the daughter of Daniel Itzig as patron. Beethoven had Joseph von Sonnenfels as teacher and Rudolf Habsburg as patron. He also played a role in the Romanticism movement with Franz Schubert, Pyotr Tchaikovsky, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Robert Schumann, Frederic Chopin, Franz Liszt (Unity lodge in Frankfurt, pop star phenomenon), Dvorak Grieg, deliberately using emotional effect. Bela Bartok's teacher was a student of Liszt.


Moses Mendelssohn, father of composer Felix Mendelssohn who helped popularizing the works of Bach,
played a role in the Haskalah movement, the jewish Enlightenment like the Itzig family (Mozart's patrons).
In the works of Gustav Mahler the classical orchestra was expanded. Alma Mahler was transferred to the US through Varian Fry' Emergency Rescue Committee.

Opera: German opera Richard Wagner (married to the daughter of Franz Liszt, the Ring Cycle, friend of Friedrich Nietzsche), Italian opera with Giacomo Rossini, Giuseppe Verdi. Niccolo Paganini was one of the first violin virtuoso's with a celebrity culture comparable to modern pop stars. Richard Strauss composed an opera based on Oscar Wilde's Salome and Also Sprach Zarathustra based on book of Friedrich Nietzsche.

In the 20th century the program Modernism was implemented and classical music was commercialised in the music industry.
Modernism: Claude Debussy (influenced by the Symbolists), Eric Satie (salon of jesuit Joséphin Péladan), Arnold Schoenberg, Igor Stravinsky (Russian Ballets), Philip Glass (Minimalism, Julliard School of Music, Koyaanisqatsi, opera Akhenaten), John Cage (student of Schoenberg, The New School)..

Hollywood film scores: Hans Zimmerman, Jerry Goldsmith,...

Columbia Records signed a contract with Canadian pianist Glenn Gould (Alberto Guerrera as teacher) for his Bach: the Goldberg Variations albums.

Ludwig van Beethoven

Wolfgang Mozart

back