Page 117 - (DK) The Classical Music Book - Big Ideas Simply Explained

CLASSICAL 1750–1820 115

Inventor of the string Muzio Clementi In London, the Czech
quartet, Joseph Haydn publishes his Piano piano virtuoso and
composes his Opus 54, Sonata in F-Sharp composer Jan Ladislav
three string quartets minor, Op. 25, No. 5, Dussek publishes an
whose originality introducing innovations influential treatise on
transforms chamber music. to the sonata form. piano playing.

1788 1790 1793

1788 1791 1803

Wolfgang Amadeus Singspiel reaches Beethoven releases his
Mozart composes its zenith with “Eroica” Symphony to
Symphony No. 40 in the highly successful widespread acclaim,
G minor, the high point premiere of Mozart’s paving the way for
of the symphony in the The Magic Flute the music of the
Classical period. in Vienna. Romantic period.

director) at the Esterházy family’s style as he toured Europe. Realizing did not make it as a child prodigy,
rural estate in Hungary, producing he was not suited to life as a court at the age of 13 he got a job as a
music for twice-weekly concerts. musician, he decided to try to earn a court musician in Bonn and then
Isolated from the wider musical living as a freelance composer—one became a freelance composer,
world, Haydn developed his own of the first to do so—in Vienna. Here performer, and teacher in Vienna.
particular style. He had a staff of he met Haydn on one of his trips to He settled there in 1792, too late
talented musicians (who referred the capital from Esterházy, and the to meet his hero, Mozart, who had
to him as “Papa Haydn”) and was two became friends. Mozart was died the year before, but he took
able to both hone his skills and inspired to develop his symphonies lessons in composition from Haydn.
refine musical forms, such as the and string quartets along the same Beethoven’s early compositions,
symphony, string quartet, sonata, lines as Haydn had, but he also symphonies, piano sonatas,
and solo concerto. Despite the made a living—and a reputation— and chamber music were in the
remoteness of the Esterházy estate, as a composer and performer of style established by Haydn and
news of his music spread to Vienna piano music. He later became Mozart but showed signs of a
and beyond, once it was published. known as the foremost opera more passionate temperament
As Haydn was starting his composer of the period. that differed from the Classicism
career as a court musician, a young of his elders. In 1803, Beethoven’s
musical prodigy from Salzburg was Enter Beethoven Third Symphony, the “Eroica,”
being paraded around the courts While Haydn and Mozart were extended the form of the symphony,
and concert halls by his ambitious at the height of their fame in the developing and expanding
father. A precocious genius, 1770s, another ambitious father expressive musical language and
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart learned had aspirations for his gifted son. heralding the beginning of a new
the elements of the new Classical Although Ludwig van Beethoven period of musical history. ■

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