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• Major Operas
• Classical Era
• Opera

and Amaranta and the Count. As a punishment for his scheming, Melibeo is taken as her victim, but the curse on Cumae has been lifted. Personalities | Joseph Haydn | Classical Era | Opera ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Classical Era
• Composer

(Fränts Yo’-sef Hi’-dan) 1732–1809 Austrian composer Joseph Haydn was the most celebrated musician of the late-eighteenth century and the first of the great triumvirate (Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven) of Viennese classical composers. A tireless explorer and innovator, he did more than anyone to develop the dramatic potential of the sonata style. When he composed his cheerful F major Missa brevis ...

• Personalities
• Classical Era
• Opera

1732–1809, Austrian The operatic career of Joseph Haydn spanned four decades, from his lost German Singspiel Der krumme Teufel (‘The Crooked Devil’, 1753) to his Orpheus opera L’anima del filosofo (‘The Philosopher’s Soul’), composed for London in 1791 but not performed there (or anywhere else) during the composer’s lifetime. In between, he composed some 20 operas (several lost) ...

• Instruments
• Classical
• Classical Era

of the few surviving examples suggests they may largely have been owned by aristocratic amateurs. Haydn’s patron Prince Nikolaus I Esterházy was such a one, and as a result Haydn wrote chamber music for the instrument. Styles & Forms | Classical Era | Classical Instruments | The Classical Orchestra | Classical Era | Classical ...

• Instruments
• Ensembles

An ensemble also needs a supply of quality music that exploits its particular strengths and that ‘sells’ that particular combination of instruments to audiences and performers. The music of Joseph Haydn (1732–1809), Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–91) and Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827), for example, used the string quartet so well that it became one of the central mediums of classical music. ...

• Instruments
• Classical
• Classical Era

on a harpsichord, thelater sonatas cannot. They include markings such as sforzando (‘accented, forced’) and crescendo (‘gradually getting louder’), effects which were impossible on a harpsichord. Certainly, Haydn would have been pleased with the developing fortepiano. Styles & Forms | Classical Era | Classical Instruments | Glass Armonica | Classical Era | Classical ...

• Instruments
• Keyboards

home. It provided a vital degree of rhythmic incisiveness and harmonic foundation in virtually every instrumental combination from the trio sonatas of the early Baroque to the earlier symphonies of Haydn two centuries later. Well before the 1820s, though, the instrument had all but disappeared, overtaken by the rapidly developing and increasingly powerful piano. Construction The definitive element ...

• Instruments
• Brass

available to the horn, revolutionizing the instrument. By the middle of the eighteenth century, hand horn playing was the standard in orchestras across Europe. The horn concerti of Haydn and Mozart, along with Beethoven’s horn sonata all use this technique. In fact, it became so popular that players, conductors and composers were reluctant to leave it ...

• Instruments
• Classical
• Classical Era

and the piano was to return to the orchestra as a regular member only in the modern age. In the early classical period, the orchestra was still not standardized. Haydn wrote a part for the oboe da caccia (‘oboe of the hunt’, an ancestor of the modern English horn) in his Symphony No. 22, first played by the orchestra ...

• Instruments
• Classical
• Modern Era

The most widely used tuned percussion in early twentieth-century classical music are the timpani. These instruments, often called ‘kettledrums’, are metal hemispheres with a tense membrane (formerly leather, now plastic) across the top and are tuned to play a single note. An instrument with military origins (as the timpani/trumpets combination in Monteverdi’s Orfeo, 1607, reminds us), timpani ...

• Instruments
• Brass

, there were between four and six keys on a keyed trumpet, which opened up the entire chromatic range. In spite of concerti by such eminent composers as Joseph Haydn (1732–1809), however, the keyed trumpet failed to catch on. The Addition of Valves The real revolution in trumpet-making came in the 1820s, when valves were added. Development in ...

• Instruments
• Classical
• Early Romantic

Baroque brass music was written for natural horns and trumpets. The classical period saw experiments with introducing keys into trumpets: the concertos for trumpet by Haydn and Hummel were both written with a keyed trumpet in mind. Trumpeters and horn players also experimented with using one hand in the bell to affect pitch. However, in the early Romantic period valves ...

• Keyboards
• Instruments

successful, popular and versatile of all keyboard instruments is the piano. Its repertoire is vast, incomparably nourished by the works of Mozart, Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750), Joseph Haydn (1732–1809), Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827), Franz Schubert (1797–1828), Robert Schumann (1810–56), Frédéric François Chopin (1810–49), Franz Liszt (1811–86), Felix Mendelssohn (1809–47), Johannes Brahms (1833–97), Claude Debussy (1862–1918), Maurice Ravel (1875–1937), ...

• Personalities
• Modern Era
• Opera

1885–1935, Austrian The composer of just two operas, Berg was a man who took atonality and stretched it to its expressionistic limits. While Joseph Haydn (1732–1809), Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) are often referred to as the First Viennese School, the so-called Second Viennese School consists of Berg together with fellow student Anton Webern (1883–1945) and their ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Composer
• Contemporary Classical

Russian composer The most striking aspect of Schnittke’s music is its combination of a multitude of styles. His Symphony No. 1 (1972) contains quotations from many composers – from Joseph Haydn (1732–1809) to Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840–93). The Concerti grossi parody Baroque styles with a degree of wit. Unlike other exponents of collage style, Schnittke retains a personal voice, ...