The First Viennese School is a name mostly used to refer to three composers of the Classical period in Western art music in late-18th-century to early-19th-century

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Joseph Haydn Franz Joseph Haydn ( , ; 31 March 173231 May 1809) was an Austrian composer of the Classical period. He was instrumental in the development of chamber music such as the string quartet and piano trio. His contributions to musical form have le ...

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 17565 December 1791), baptised as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period. Despite his short life, his rapid pace of composition r ...

and

Ludwig van Beethoven Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classic ...

. Sometimes,

Franz Schubert Franz Peter Schubert (; 31 January 179719 November 1828) was an Austrian composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras. Despite his short lifetime, Schubert left behind a vast ''oeuvre'', including more than 600 secular vocal wor ...

is added to the list. In German-speaking countries, the term ''Wiener Klassik'' (lit. ''Viennese classical era/art'') is used. That term is often more broadly applied to the Classical era in music as a whole, as a means to distinguish it from other periods that are colloquially referred to as ''classical'', namely Baroque and

Romantic Romantic may refer to: Genres and eras * The Romantic era, an artistic, literary, musical and intellectual movement of the 18th and 19th centuries ** Romantic music, of that era ** Romantic poetry, of that era ** Romanticism in science, of that e ...

music. The term "Viennese School" was first used by Austrian musicologist Raphael Georg Kiesewetter, in 1834, although he only counted Haydn and Mozart as members of the school. Other writers followed suit and eventually Beethoven was added to the list. The designation "first" is added today to avoid confusion with the

Second Viennese School The Second Viennese School (german: Zweite Wiener Schule, Neue Wiener Schule) was the group of composers that comprised Arnold Schoenberg and his pupils, particularly Alban Berg and Anton Webern, and close associates in early 20th-century Vienna ...

. These composers sometimes encountered each other: Haydn and Mozart were even occasional chamber-music partners. Beethoven for a time received lessons from Haydn, probably heard Mozart play, and met Schubert a few times (see Beethoven and his contemporaries). However, they did not form a school in the sense of a deliberate co-operation associated with 20th-century schools, such as the Second Viennese School, or

Les Six "Les Six" () is a name given to a group of six composers, five of them French and one Swiss, who lived and worked in Montparnasse. The name, inspired by Mily Balakirev's '' The Five'', originates in two 1920 articles by critic Henri Collet in '' ...

. Nor is there any evidence (other than Haydn teaching Beethoven) that one composer was "schooled" by another, in the way that Berg and Webern were taught by Schoenberg. Attempts to extend the First Viennese School to include such later figures as Anton Bruckner,

Johannes Brahms Johannes Brahms (; 7 May 1833 – 3 April 1897) was a German composer, pianist, and conductor of the mid- Romantic period. Born in Hamburg into a Lutheran family, he spent much of his professional life in Vienna. He is sometimes grouped wit ...

, and Gustav Mahler are merely journalistic, and never encountered in academic musicology.

Notes

{{Authority control Classical-period composers Classical period (music) Composition schools Culture in Vienna

See also

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