6. Chapter Summary

As we have seen, around the 75 years that span the musical compositions of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven were rife with innovations in musical genre, style, and form. In many ways, they shaped music for the next 200 years. Composers continued to write symphonies and string quartets, using forms such as the sonata form, theme and variations form, and rondo form. A large portion of late 18th- and early 19th-century society continued playing music in the home, and going to theaters for operas and to concerts at which orchestral compositions, such as concertos and symphonies, were performed. Although that live performance culture may not be as prevalent at the beginning of the 21st century, we might ask why it was so important for Western music culture for so long. We also might ask if any of its elements inform the music of today.