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Essay Classical Music

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Classical Music

n : traditional genre of music conforming to an established form and appealing to critical interest and developed musical taste [syn: serious music]

Classical music, as the name suggests, is a well-established kind of music, at least in the West. Classical music concerts take place in every cultural center, and they take many forms, from a solo to large symphonic orchestras, from a sonata to an opera. This kind of music has many fans, especially among circles of intellectuals. But how did this great kind of music start? What made the great composers compose? And how was this all used before the time of recorded music and portable mp3 players? These are the questions we are going to examine today. …show more content…

The wealthy family provided him with his own small orchestra, and this gave him the opportunity to produce very many compositions. He was inspired by every day events, such as the times of day to write the triptych "Morning, Noon and Evening", and by the seasons to compose "The Seasons". He also composed the well-known symphony "Farewell", to give the Esterhazy Prince a hint: that he was holding the musicians for too long, and he had to give them some time off.

All his music was for the ears of a small, privileged audience, primarily for their own amusement.

However, not all the great composers worked for wealthy families. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, a younger composer who Haydn considered as his only true peer in music wanted his music to last in time, and be heard by larger groups of people. This led him to produce many operas, and also religious music. He was inspired by ancient Greek and Roman history and mythology, but also by comic events of the every day life. However, he did not enjoy the same funding as Haydn, because of lack of a permanent (wealthy) audience, and also because of the war that broke out in Europe at the time.

Mozart's probably most famous composition is his unfinished "Requiem", which legend holds he wrote for his own death. Mozart's compositions were mainly played (and still are) either to amuse people (comic operas), or as religious music. Some of his

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