Classical period

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

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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

Shame I don't have more time to explain these periods... With all these periods there's the issue of using one term to try and describe trends across different countries and over long periods of time, plus the overlap of styles and composers. All the dates are just rough points that have some collective agreement, but they aren't solid and you can find exceptions for them. Baroque - around 1580 (I think?) to 1750 [I'm using J.S.Bach's death year for convenience, but some other baroque composers outlived him] The Baroque era was generally full of multiple voices at the same time (counterpoint), with a lot of emphasis on performers decorating and improvising. This is the time opera is invented (1600 exactly I think). The biggest names of the early Baroque are Monteverdi and Gesualdo, both wrote madrigals, and Monteverdi was famous for operas and church music. Their music is dense with interesting modulations. The other biggest names of the period come near the end; Corelli, Vivaldi, Handel, Rameau, Couperin, D. Scarlatti, and J.S. Bach. Instrumentation includes lots of string instruments (including some that have since fallen out of fashion such as the viola d'amore), flutes, oboes, recorders, horns, trumpets, organs, harpsichords, clavichords, timpani, and lutes Classical - around 1720-1827 (Beethoven's death year, again for convenience). The early half of the 18th century is the beginning of the 'Galant' style, early Classical (about 1720-1770), and is more about dialing back on the extravagance of the Baroque era with more simplicity and clarity. Galant composers include a few of Bach's sons, Quantz, Stamitz, Tartini, among others. The mature Classical style (1770 and after) shows the solidification of "sonata form" as a defining structural framework for music, and becomes a method that integrates melodies into the structure and creates a "logic" to modulations. It also gave music a stronger sense of balance and cohesion than the less structured "mannerist" pieces the Galants were writing. The names that dominate this mature style are Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. Instruments are now refined versions of the baroque orchestra, (minus the harpsichord and clavichord, recorders, and lutes) while adding clarinets, trombones, and early versions of the piano Romantic - around 1820(?)-1915(?) dates are getting more tricky because there is disagreement over when Romanticism "ends" and when Modernism "begins". Where Classical music was about clarity and logic, Romanticism turned toward ambiguity, and detaching/abstracting things like harmony and rhythm. Composers start modifying sonata form, and try to find new free-form ways of structuring music so they could do all kinds of harmonic modulations that wouldn't make sense from a Classical standard. Composers started looking for scales other than major and minor, so we get more use of modes (old, medieval 'scales') and new organizations of pitches. There is also a major shift where composers are writing more for public concert halls than for private aristocratic houses. And there's also the general nationalism of the 19th century meaning that more composers try to include folk themes from their home cultures (this also introduces new scales to base melodies and harmony on). Big names at the beginning include Schubert (a bridge between Classical and Romantic, leans more Romantic imo) Chopin, Schumann, Liszt, Berlioz, Mendelssohn, Bellini, Meyerbeer. Later names include Verdi, Brahms, Wagner, Dvorak, and Grieg. The orchestra now adds more percussion instruments like tambourines and cymbals, bass and snare drums, the triangle, and we also get more modified instruments so horns have valves. The harp also gets solidified in the family, and the contrabassoon. Later in the century we get the oboe d'amore, the cor anglais, bass clarinets, the glockenspiel, xylophone, celesta, and bells. And a bunch of new horns, trombones, and tubas. This is basically the average orchestra today (give or take some percussion) Modernism - 1880(?)-1950(?) again, fuzzy dates. But Modernism can be summed up by Ezra Pound's "Make it New!". More abstraction of harmony and rhythm. Finding new ways to organize pitches. An even stronger emphasis on tone-color than previous eras. A lot of new art movements were happening at the same time. This is also the largest the orchestra gets, and music doesn't usually get written for greater numbers than the standard family. Big names include: Debussy, Ravel, Mahler (late-Romantic bridge), Richard Strauss (also late-Romantic, then "post-Romantic"), Schoenberg, Webern, Berg, Stravinsky, Scriabin (late-Romantic then Modernist w his own style), Sibelius, Holst, Bartok, Varese, Hindemith, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Messiaen, and a whole enchilada of names I love <3 that's my shortest summary, kind of rushed it so there might be mistakes. The main gist is there at least lol to the second part, your question of loudness...really depends on individual pieces. Overall, I think music gets "loudest" with the giants of Romantic music (check out Berlioz' Grande Messe de Morts, and Te Deum, Wagner's Die Walkure, and Verdi's Requiem), and then the even greater giants of the 20th century. But that doesn't mean that a classical symphony is good for getting ready for sleep. Every era has its 'adagios', or other terms for slower, calmer, etc. If you like calm baroque music, you'll probably also like Mozart's quieter moments, which has a lot of great inner-part writing and a kind of classical counterpoint where melodies blend in together more More on reddit.com