AUTHORITATIVE | CURATED | First 500 words Free

• Arts & Culture
• Classical
• Classical Era

The dominant style in art at the start of the classical era was the Rococo (from rocaille, ‘shellwork’). Created in early eighteenth-century France, its leading figures in the graphic arts were Antoine Watteau and François Boucher. The closest musical analogue is not Mozart (as once was traditionally argued) but François Couperin (1668–1733) – the late Baroque generation, in ...

• Instruments
• Brass
• Electric & Electronic
• Keyboards
• Percussion
• Stringed
• Woodwind

and with the compositions of Bach reached the height of its influence. 1750–1800 The Baroque style gave way to the Classical style (1750–1830), which had developed from the Galant and Rococo styles that had spread across Europe from the 1740s. It played on features that were not part of the Baroque style, such as subtle contrasts of volume, musical ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Composer
• Late Romantic

peace and consolation in Mozart’s music,’ he declared shortly after the great crisis of his life in 1877. By then he had already composed the charming Variations on a Rococo Theme (1876) for cello and orchestra. He was to go on to pay direct homage to his idol in the arrangements of the Suite No. 4, ‘Mozartiana’ (1887), and ...

• Personalities
• Classical
• Composer
• Late Romantic

Strauss embarked on a series of operas on more beguiling themes. Their second, and possibly greatest, success was Der Rosenkavalier (‘The Knight of the Rose’), with its extravagant Rococo world of the silver rose, the mature married princess and her young lover. Other notable works followed, including Ariadne auf Naxos (‘Ariadne on Naxos’), Die Frau ohne Schatten ...

• Styles & Forms
• Electronic
• Krautrock

Kieran Hebden’s Fridge and Four Tet bands, which embraced the same freeform approach to composition and arrangement that Can pioneered. The angular, difficult work of Tortoise, To Rococo Rot and Mouse On Mars gave way to Andy Votel and the Twisted Nerve label’s skewed, lo-fi approach, while indietronica acts like Lali Puna, Dntel, Tarwater ...

• Classical
• Classical Era

to guide the tastes of those who read his words. A Short History | Classical Era | Classical Styles & Forms | Classical Era | Classical Arts & Culture | Rococo | Classical Era | Classical Influences | Storm & Stress | Classical Era | Classical Performance | Mannheim | Classical Era | Classical Women in Music | Keyboard Players | ...

• Styles & Forms
• Classical
• Early Romantic

classical composers still served a liturgical function, most Masses in early nineteenth-century Germany and Austria were written for concert performance or special occasions. In a departure from the decorative rococo of the previous century, sacred music acquired a new solemnity and grandeur. The Requiem Mass Mozart was the first to set the Requiem Mass on a large scale with ...

• Arts & Culture
• Classical
• Late Baroque

question is, do these publications reflect what Baroque string players were actually doing, or what their authors hoped to persuade them to do ? Arts & Culture | Rococo | Classical Era | Classical ...