In the music of this period there was again what amounts to a revolution against the musical trends of the preceding (or Baroque) era. To be sure, there is not a set date on which one might remark that here the revolution began. But one can see its beginnings in the music of the great transitional composer Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, the emergence of the Galant style, as well as in the products of the musicians who came to be known as the Mannheim School (Johann Stamitz, etc.).

Briefly, the characteristics of classicism are a concern for musical form with a greater emphasis on clarity with more concise melodic expression and clarity of instrumental color. The compositions of Franz Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, in particular, exemplify the concepts of Classicism. This era culminated in the early music of Ludwig van Beethoven.