What was classical music called when it first started?

Answer 1

In the 19th century, people began to distinguish "Classical Music" (Bach through say, Schubert) from the "new music", which we now call Romantic. Every period has something called the New Music. Mozart's friends called Bach the Old Music, and Stamitz/Haydn/Mozart were the New Music. Beethoven was a separate creature, considered a wild, uncontrollable element tolerated only because he had an enormous amount of talent. Romantic Music was, to oversimplify, taking up where Beethoven had left out, exploring new levels of harmony and rhythm, especially in the areas of narrative-type music, music which tells stories or evokes pictorial description. Post-Romantic music went through a kind of bubble-and-crash, except around 1908 instead of 2008. Inventiveness itself became a Value. Entire new forms of music were developed (classical music stemmed, ultimately, from traditional dance and vocal forms). These we tend to lump together as "20th-Century music", relegating everything previous to "Classical." Today we continue the lumping process, and label anything by dead composers or musicians that are more interested in making music ultimately musically interesting (as opposed to monetarily lucrative) as "Classical", as opposed to "Pop."

However, the Boston Pops perform lots of music that younger folk today would call Classical. Composers such as Gershwin or Duke Ellington, who used folk, ethnic and urban music and rhythms, are increasingly considered classical, as is the entire Jazz movement. Generally - if they teach it in a course in college, it's "Classical."

To confound this further, there is a period generally called "The Classic Period", which describes Haydnmozartbeethoven. (My professor, Karl Geiringer, used this as one word, pronouncing Haydn with a powerful "khhhh" at the start).

Answer 2

classical music.