German Classical Music

German classical music has a long history that dates back to the earliest years of the Classical period. Since the then, many of the most noteworthy composers and musicians have been ethnic Germans. Oswald von Wolkenstein, a diplomat, poet, and composer, traveled across Europe in the early fifteenth century, learning different classical music traditions from countries like France and Italy. When he returned to his native country, he created a revolution in German classical music. He introduced new styles and techniques that he had acquired during his travels, which influenced the works of generations of German classical composers, many of whom went on to fame and fortune.

One of the earliest German classical composers was Conrad Paumann, an organist and composer who was a blind virtuoso and improviser who never wrote down any of his music. Born in Nuremberg in 1410, Paumann began to show signs of musical talent from childhood, and received an excellent musical education. He moved to Munich in 1450, and was supported by his patron, Duke Albrecht III. He toured Europe, performing for the nobility and occasionally taking on students. Paumann’s surviving composition influenced German classical music for centuries to come, including Johannes Sebastian Bach.

Bach, often considered to be one of the big three composers of German classical music, was born into a family of musicians in 1685. His father, uncles, and siblings were all practicing musicians, and he learned many valuable lessons from them. In 1694, when both of his parents died eight months apart from one another, he moved in with his older brother Johann Christoph Bach, who gave his ten year-old brother lessons on the clavichord. He studied for two years at the St. Michael’s School, during which he tasted the wider culture of Europe. Bach experimented with contrapuntal technique, the simultaneous interaction of two or more melodies, and is well known for his secular as well as his religious compositions.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is perhaps the best known composer of German classical music. Born in Salzburg in 1756, Mozart learned to play the clavier at age three, taught himself to play the violin at four, and was composing his own pieces by the time he was five. Mozart’s father, the court musician to the archbishop of Salzbury, decided to take young Wolfgang and his older sister Maria Anna on a European tour for the crowned heads of Europe. In 1781, Mozart moved from Munich to Vienna to live as a freelance composer and performer. There, he wrote operas, symphonies, concertante, chamber music, and choral music.

One of the final composers of the Classical era whose work borders on the Romantic period was Ludwig van Beethoven. Beethoven was born in Bonn in 1781, and, like Mozart, was also musically talented from an early age. He had his first public performance at the age of seven. In his early twenties, he moved to Vienna to study under composer Joseph Haydn. Beethoven also worked in a number of musical genres, such as piano, opera, concerti, and symphony. He was one of the composers who transformed the German classical music tradition into the new Romantic tradition, and his work is still widely enjoyed today.