Classical Music - A Concise History from Gluck to Beethoven

"The period of musical history from c. 1750 to c. 1830 gave birth to a body of works that has come to be regarded as the indestructible foundation of the modern repertory of Western music. It is the period of the masters: Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven; of Gluck and Rossini; and of fascinating and beautiful works of all kinds from such composers as C. P. E. Bach, Weber and Schubert. But, as Julian Rushton reminds us, there are many composers less celebrated today - Jommelli, Traetta, Hummel, Spontini, Méhul, to name a few - whose exciting contribution is still being evaluated. Integral to this account of the period's musical achievements is the intellectual and cultural background of the age of Rousseau and the Encyclopaedists, Goethe and Schiller, Neoclassicism and incipient Romanticism, and the French Revolution."