Classical music

This is a tough question to answer, because these categories are arbitrary and that means you’re going to get loads of different answers. I’ll take a crack at it, though; just note that this is my own perspective and I know other opinionated folks will find things to disagree with me on. Because the categories are arbitrary, defining the boundaries of each era is similarly arbitrary, usually connected to the work of a specific figure. In general, we consider the Baroque era to have begun with the creation of opera, and to have ended when Bach died. During this time, there was an emphasis on contrapuntal textures, which were an extension of the counterpoint featured in liturgical music from Medieval times. Around Bach’s death, Haydn began writing music in a style that was distinct from the heavily-ornamented music of the Baroque era, instead favoring clearer textures and homophony, as well as more strict forms like sonata-allegro form. For the Classical era, we usually mark the end of that as being the death of Beethoven in 1827. Defining the Romantic era is a bit more challenging, as it coincided with a broader artistic movement that began and ended at different times in different parts of the world. We roughly consider the Romantic era to span from around 1800 to the end of World War I. While Classical-era music was very focused on emotional restraint through adherence to strict compositional rules, the Romantic era emphasized emotional expression and expanding the musical language that was relatively limited by Classical-era rules. Tempos and dynamics varied much more, imagery and story became an explicit inspiration for the music, and the harmonic language expanded to include more frequent and dissonant chromaticism, enharmonic modulation, and extended chords. All of these tools helped to create new “colors” of dissonance and consonance in music. Beyond this, distinct eras of music become not very useful. Chromaticism was extended further after World War I to include atonality and serialism. Some can make a case for specific eras such as an Impressionist era, a Modernist era, and a Postmodernist era, each with their distinct textures and forms, but these distinctions are much more nuanced and debatable. I generally attribute this to an emphasis on individuality in music that really focuses on “plowing new ground” that other composers have not yet touched. With the rise of the modern university and then the internet, it’s become much more common for composers since ~1960 to develop an eclectic musical language that borrows from the counterpoint and ornamentation of the Baroque era, the precision and restraint of the Classical era, the nuanced harmonies of the Romantic era, and the individuality of the postwar aesthetic. Personally, I would argue that the distinction between eras boils down to the harmonic language that is commonly used. The Baroque era was more concerned about counterpoint, with harmony being something that emerges out of interacting voices. The Classical era was very focused on harmonies of triads and seventh chords organized in a rigid way. The Romantic era took this a step further with extended chords and chromaticism. Finally, post-Romantic music challenged traditional notions of harmony as being built on thirds and involved harmonies based on other rules that resulted in things like quartal harmonies and tone clusters. More on reddit.com

Beethoven's music is commonly divided into three distinct periods. Early Beethoven is most restrictly confined within the Classical style. Middle is interesting because this is when radical innovations (as well in his late era) were being made on Beethoven's part which then later opened the doors to Romanticism. And then there's Late Beethoven... Well, what can I say? it's Late Beethoven - this is when Beethoven began to enter into unknown territory, bearing on the transcendent, and the mystical. Late Beethoven in some cases is undefinable. All in all, it depends what perspective you are looking at these things. But I generally do not entertain the issue whether he belonged to either era, because it goes either way and doesn't change anything about his music in itself. More on reddit.com

The Mulliner Book, the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book and the My Ladye Nevells Book are books containing english keyboard music from the Renaissance and very early Barock periods. In my understanding, at least some of the pieces in these books are transcripts of vocal music. An important figure for english keyboard music was William Byrd. You could also check out the Susanne van Soldt manuscript and Jan Sweelinck for Dutch keyboard music of the same time period. Also check out Terpsichore by Michael Praetorius. More on reddit.com

Can Anyone explain why it seems today no-one can replicate the works of Bach, Mozart and the like. Lots of people could, but it would be pointless. There were already Bach and Mozart. More on reddit.com