Classical Music

Classical Music is usually thought of as one style of music by most people but similarly to Pop Music it actually covers many styles as it covers a span of hundreds of years from around 1150 to the present! The main periods of Classical Music from furthest back to the present are normally classed as Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic and 20^th-21^st Century.

In the earlier periods, the saxophone and the clarinet didn’t exist though there were early types of flute and keyboard. The clarinet was in existence from around 1700 so was used from the Baroque period onwards and the saxophone wasn’t in existence until around 1840! – so was used from the Romantic period onwards.

Vast amounts of music were written in the Baroque period for piano by composers such as Bach, Handel, Couperin, Purcell and Scarlatti and also for flute for composers such as Bach, Handel, Vivaldi, Telemann and Quantz. There are a few works for early types of clarinet and there are arrangements of music for clarinet and saxophone of music from this time period which sound amazing – if these instruments were invented at this time these composers would surely have written for them also. In the Baroque period music was mainly played by small groups and small orchestras as well as soloists. Also, a lot of music was played for dancing to, so a lot of the music is based around dance rhythms. 

In the Classical period the orchestra became bigger and more standardised – this contained flutes and clarinets. The solo instrument piece the sonata was more established here, thousands were written and Chamber Music was also established in this period with standard trios, quartets quintets etc being written for by many composers, e.g. the string quartet. The best known composer in the Classical Period is Mozart who wrote beautiful Concertos for Piano, Clarinet and Flute as well as many symphonies and piano sonatas.

Other important composers in the Classical period were Haydn, C.P.E Bach, Clementi and Schubert. Beethoven also wrote music in the late Classical style and transitioned into the Romantic Style so is classed as both.

In the Romantic period, music became more complex in harmony and structure and the orchestra became bigger with pieces often being more dramatic, flamboyant or atmospheric. There is a huge amount of music, again, from this period for flute, piano, clarinet.

The saxophone was also now written for and included in some orchestral pieces. Important composers from this period are Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Brahms, Chopin, Debussy, Rachmaninov, Mussorgsky and Weber. 

In the 20^{th –} 21^st Century Classical Music was developed further as composers experimented with dissonance in harmony and unusual structure, pushing the boundaries of convention. The saxophone become widely written for and the piano, clarinet and flute also remained popular with composers.

Composition for Film also came into existence, often with the use of the standard large Orchestra established in the Romantic Period. Important composers in the 20^{th –} 21^st century include Stravinsky, Britten, Schoenberg, Shostakovich, Cage, Copland, Gershwin, Bernstein, Glass and Poulenc.

Important 20^{th –} 21^st Century film composers include John Williams, Bernard Herrmann, Ennio Morricone, Hans Zimmer, John Barry, Danny Elfman and James Horner.