- Here starts the long version: The high ideals (standards) of classical music were inherited from the Greek philosophers of the Classical Period, whose debates about nature, science and beauty were preserved in writing and revived first by the Roman Catholic Church in Europe about 900 years ago and then during the Greek Revival period kicking off the Age of Enlightenment after J. S. Bach’s death. Studying ancient texts, neo-classical scholars (eg. Sir Isaac Newton) emulated Greek scientific thought leading to grand architecture, democracy, mathematics, philosophy, scientific proofs, technology, and eventually the Olympics.Today we enjoy relative peace and prosperity because of this preserved ancient wisdom. There were also classical ideas about the study of art and beauty (aesthetics). The Greek philosophers argued that music should ideally reflect the natural flow of human emotions, dance, sing and induce pathos and catharsis. Some urged that balanced music required mathematical proportions rather than be an improvised form. These ideas let our composers and performers extend and shape music in imaginative and transformational ways.
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Based in part on this Classical Tradition, Voltaire, Locke, Newton among others around 1750 began to codify the democratic principals we enjoy today. Around the same time, composers with advanced music writing skills and new instruments like the piano, suddenly began writing music that juxtaposed TWO themes. This encouraged much more contrast, extension and development creating intense dramas with imagination, expression and beauty.
Thank J. S. Bach for revolutionary possibilities in counterpoint during the Baroque Era. Soon after, super-musicians like Haydn and Mozart (in the Classical Era of classical music) refined the large, new instrumental form called a symphony. Beethoven in turn built on their work, amplifying the charming symphonic expression into a fully dramatic adventure, largely establishing what became known as the Romantic Era of classical music, which lasted 100 years. The words symphony and orchestra accordingly are of ancient Greek (classical) origin, although the very first orchestras, large groups of single instruments, were reported in ancient Egypt.