There's got to be atleast some classical music aficionados on this forum. If you do love it like I do, post it here.
Classical music is basically defined as all music that was written from the 1600s to 1920. Orchestrated music after that is mostly bad though.
There are four main periods of classical music: the Baroque period from the 1600s to about 1750 (think Bach and Vivaldi), the Classical period from 1750 to around 1820 (think Haydn and Mozart), the Romantic period from 1820 to around 1900 (think Beethoven and Tchaikovsky), and everything after that you could call neoclassical or contemporary. (not all contemporary composers were bad, some were very good such as Maurice Ravel and especially Soviet composers such as Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Shostakovitch etc.)
You can see from that brief summary of the history of classical music is that it's been written for a long, long time. Comparing two time periods is like comparing two genres of music; just because they use the same instruments, doesn't mean they sound the same. The main difference is that overtime, composers tried to add new instrumentation and styles to their music, and eventually tried to write longer music such as symphonies and operas. Did you know that Bach never wrote a symphony? Symphonies only started becoming popular in the late 18th century. In my opinion, this genre of music should not be just all labeled as classical, because it has changed so much and there are so many different styles. You don't just call both metal and pop rock rock n' roll, because they are too totally different forms of rock music. It's the same way when you are comparing the Romantic period and the Baroque period or something. Listen to these pieces of music that I think symbolize the change in time of "classical music":
This is Minuet from Bach's 2nd Orchestral Suite.
Spoiler
(The shades are not shopped
)
This is the Blue Danube Waltz by Johann Strauss II.
What''s similar about these two pieces? They are both dances in 3/4 time. But what is different? Even if you have never heard of J.S Bach or Johann Strauss Jr. you could tell that Johann Strauss wrote music in a later time period. There are more instruments, specifically horns, more articulation (such as the changes in speed and the different bow stylings used), and you can just tell that it sounds more modern. I'm definitely not saying that Strauss Jr. was a better composer than Johann Sebastian Bach, who is probably the single greatest writer of music in history.
I guess the reason for me writing this novella is that maybe you have heard one piece of classical music in the past that you didn't like, or you just haven't really exposed yourself to classical music at all before. There is so much of it though, and there are so many styles and even though there's so much variation, it's easily the 'purest' form of music and once you understand the genius of it and
superiority of it compared to other musical genres, you will discover an entire realm of 400 years of fantastic music that you will listen to for the rest of your life. I've only discovered classical music recently, and it saddens me because I will probably not get to listen to it as much as I want before I die.
