Editing Classical period (music) (section)

=== 1750–1775 ===
{{unreferenced section|date=February 2021}}
{{See also|Symphony}}
[[File:Haydn portrait by Thomas Hardy (small).jpg|thumb|left|Haydn portrait by [[Thomas Hardy (English painter)|Thomas Hardy]], 1792]]

By the late 1750s there were flourishing centers of the new style in Italy, Vienna, Mannheim, and Paris; dozens of symphonies were composed and there were bands of players associated with musical theatres. Opera or other vocal music accompanied by orchestra was the feature of most musical events, with concertos and symphonies (arising from the [[overture]]) serving as instrumental interludes and introductions for operas and church services. Over the course of the Classical period, symphonies and concertos developed and were presented independently of vocal music.
[[File:Divertimento in E-flat major - KV 113 - 2nd movement.oga|thumb|right|200px|Mozart wrote a number of divertimentos, light instrumental pieces designed for entertainment. This is the 2nd movement of his Divertimento in E-flat major, K. 113.]]
The "normal" orchestra ensemble—a body of [[String section|strings]] supplemented by winds—and movements of particular rhythmic character were established by the late 1750s in Vienna. However, the length and weight of pieces was still set with some Baroque characteristics: individual movements still focused on one "affect" (musical mood) or had only one sharply contrasting middle section, and their length was not significantly greater than Baroque movements. There was not yet a clearly enunciated theory of how to compose in the new style. It was a moment ripe for a breakthrough.

The first great master of the style was the composer [[Joseph Haydn]]. In the late 1750s he began composing symphonies, and by 1761 he had composed a triptych (''[[Symphony No. 6 (Haydn)|Morning]]'', ''[[Symphony No. 7 (Haydn)|Noon]]'', and ''[[Symphony No. 8 (Haydn)|Evening]]'') solidly in the contemporary mode. As a vice-[[Kapellmeister]] and later Kapellmeister, his output expanded: he composed over forty symphonies in the 1760s alone. And while his fame grew, as his orchestra was expanded and his compositions were copied and disseminated, his voice was only one among many.

While some scholars suggest that Haydn was later overshadowed by Mozart and Beethoven, it would be difficult to overstate Haydn's centrality to the new style, and therefore to the future of Western art music as a whole. At the time, before the pre-eminence of Mozart or Beethoven, and with Johann Sebastian Bach known primarily to connoisseurs of keyboard music, Haydn reached a place in music that set him above all other composers except perhaps the Baroque era's [[George Frideric Handel]]. Haydn took existing ideas, and radically altered how they functioned—earning him the titles "father of the [[symphony]]" and "father of the [[string quartet]]".

One of the forces that worked as an impetus for his pressing forward was the first stirring of what would later be called [[Romanticism]]—the ''[[Sturm und Drang]]'', or "storm and stress" phase in the arts, a short period where obvious and dramatic emotionalism was a stylistic preference. Haydn accordingly wanted more dramatic contrast and more emotionally appealing melodies, with sharpened character and individuality in his pieces. This period faded away in music and literature: however, it influenced what came afterward and would eventually be a component of aesthetic taste in later decades.

The ''[[Symphony No. 45 (Haydn)|Farewell Symphony]]'', No. 45 in F{{music|sharp}} minor, exemplifies Haydn's integration of the differing demands of the new style, with surprising sharp turns and a long slow adagio to end the work. In 1772, Haydn completed his [[String Quartets, Op. 20 (Haydn)|Opus 20 set]] of six string quartets, in which he deployed the polyphonic techniques he had gathered from the previous Baroque era to provide structural coherence capable of holding together his melodic ideas. For some, this marks the beginning of the "mature" Classical style, a transitional period in which reaction against late Baroque complexity yielded to integration of Baroque and Classical elements.