Classical music

Classical music is a word that most often refers to the formal musical heritage of the Western world, which is regarded to be different from the Western folk and popular music traditions. Alternatively, the word may apply to music from non-Western civilizations that has comparable formal characteristics to Western music in a broader sense. Its origins can be traced back to Western Europe during the Middle Ages, and it can be divided into several eras, including the Medieval (500–1400), Renaissance (1400–1600), Baroque (1600–1750), Classical (1750–1820), Romantic (1800–1910), Modernist (1890–1975), and Postmodern/Contemporary (1950–present). These time periods and their associated dates are all approximate generalisations, and they reflect progressive stylistic changes that varied in intensity and importance across the Western world throughout the period under consideration.

After Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven, the term "classical music" was coined in an effort to distinguish between them as a golden era of composition. It did not become widely accepted until the early nineteenth century. Classical music was first mentioned in the Oxford English Dictionary in approximately 1829, according to the dictionary's online version.