The Baroque period of classical music lasted from 1600 to 1750. Music was written for and heard only by kings and the church. 
Few common people had the chance to hear this new sensation. Venice, Italy was an important centre for Baroque music. 
The famous St. Mark’s Cathedral in Piazza San Marco is a good example of how the art and architecture of the period inspired the music. 
The Church wanted to dazzle everyone with the splendour of its art – the paintings, sculptures and the architecture of its buildings – and the music heard within had to be just as awesome as the buildings themselves. 

But Italy was not the only place where music was being made during the Baroque period. Johann Sebastian Bach lived in Germany, and even though he is one of the most important composers of all time, the music he composed was mostly unknown until after his death. 
Listen to the first prelude from Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier. Much of the music that Bach wrote, perhaps including this piece, was intended to be practice exercises for his students but it’s such beautiful music, people enjoy it still. 
And you’ll notice that as hard as you may try, you can never hum it!

The Classical Era lasted for about 60 years, from 1770 until 1830. 
Composers started writing music that was simpler to play and intended to be beautiful to common people, not just kings and queens. 
This, after all, was the period in which electricity was discovered and the music heard from the orchestras reflected what would come to be known as the Age of Reason. 
Common people began to attend concerts and this meant that composers like Mozart and Beethoven were able to work for rich people who wanted to patronise the arts.

Mozart was a child prodigy, a musical genius. He played the violin well by the age of five and even composed small musical works. 
He mastered the piano and wrote orchestral music at a very young age. 
He could even sit down and write from memory a work that he had composed entirely in his head! 
Listen to the second movement from Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. The title means “a little night music” in German. 
Imagine, as you listen, that you are in a garden in the moonlight – and remember that Mozart wrote this music imagining just that.

While Mozart was certainly important to the music of his time, Ludwig van Beethoven was important not only because of his talents but because his music reflected the reasonable art of the Classical Era. 
Beethoven fit the description of the eccentric composer perfectly with his flashing eyes and wild hair. 
And he was totally deaf by the time he wrote his last symphony. 
You’ll hear part of one of his most famous pieces of music ever written. 
You might recognise it. It’s the first movement of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. 

The Romantic Era rolled around from 1805 until 1910. Composers in the Romantic Era took music in a totally new direction, filling it with  passion and exciting drama. 
They used music to overwhelm their listeners with emotion, writing sad, sweeping pieces about love and heartbreak and magical fantasies about fairies, witches and swans. 
Russian composer Pyotr Ilich Tchaikovsky wrote music about fanciful stories. Listen to part of Tchaikovsky’s Sleeping Beauty. 
Along with the ‘Nutcracker’ and the ‘Swan Lake’, this music was written for the ballet. 

The Modern Era is a mix of many kinds of music. It borrows from popular music like jazz, blues and folk but also creates new ideas and techniques that did not exist before the turn of the century. 
Frenchman Claude Debussy is one of the first modern composers. 
His work was inspired by the work of impressionist painters like Monet and Renoir, the poetry of his friend Edgar Allan Poe and the exotic music from a tropical island in Indonesia. 
Debussy invented an entirely new musical language. The pianist plays every other key from start to finish. 
Although the music is played on the piano, it creates a harp-like sound. 
This music is often used on TV when a character is having a dream. 
Listen to Debussy’s romantic Arabesque No. 1 to get this feeling.