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This is indeed one of the classical period's most defining features. Baroque music tended to be right around half and half major and minor, but when the new classical style began to emerge, the taste for clear and simple structures and harmonies also engendered a strong preference for major keys. Minor keys, with their higher degrees of dissonance, chromaticism, and ingredients for pathos and tragedy, became quite rare in this era, something to be reserved only for times when composers felt they really had to say something profound. Compare, for example, the works of Vivaldi with those of Haydn, since both wrote huge numbers of pieces. When Vivaldi published a set of concerti, usually at least half would be in minor keys. By contrast, only 11 of Haydn's 106 symphonies are in minor keys, most of them concentrated in the late 1760s and the early 1770s, the so-called "Sturm und Drang" period, when minor-key works were briefly in vogue for their dramatic associations. Mozart tended to avoid minor keys even more than most classical-era composers--of his nineteen piano sonatas, his twenty-seven piano concerti, his twenty-three string quartettes, and his forty-one symphonies, only two of each genre is in a minor key.

Beethoven, with his rather wild and rebellious spirit, wrote in minor keys rather more often than any classical-era composer, as nine of his thirty-two piano sonatas are in minor keys, as are five of his sixteen string quartettes. This unusual penchant for the minor mode naturally carried over into the Romantic period, when, with even composer attempting to emulate and be inspired by Beethoven's extreme power, minor keys gradually came to be even more common. Look at Tchaikovsky's symphonies--six out of seven are in minor keys (although every one of them but the suicidal tragic Pathétique Symphony ends in major!). Go even a little further to find Rachmaninoff, who did not write a single symphony or concerto in a major key.

TL;DR: Yes.

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Q: Was most of the music in the classical era in a major key?
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What style of music was played during the classical era?

Mainly classical music


What distinguishes music of the classical era?

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While the term "absolute music" is most commonly applied to the classical era (and also to the Romantic period), the classical period was not defined by being absolute music. Absolute music is music that is not created for an outside purpose, not to be accompanied by a dance, or a play, but to exist on its own, to be performed alone, perhaps in a concert hall. Unlike program music, it does not tell a story, or represent anything. The term was usually applied to instrumental music without vocals. To define Classical Music by one of its many types of music would be absurd, so while the classical era included many pieces of absolute music, it also included program music, and Opera; the Classical era is not exclusively made up of absolute works.


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