First Viennese School Timeline and Central Composers

The First Viennese School is not an academic movement but rather a descriptor for when the Classical period of Western music gave way to the Romantic period. It describes an era when Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Franz Joseph Haydn, and Ludwig van Beethoven were the leading composers in European classical music.

Music historians use the term "First Viennese School" to differentiate its composers and era from that of the Second Viennese School, a movement that took place in twentieth-century Vienna. The composers of the Second Viennese School—most notably Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg, and Anton Webern—introduced atonality and twelve-tone technique to the classical music lexicon. Music history courses often draw greater attention to the Second Viennese School. Rather than linger on the notion of a First Viennese School, they often group Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven with other composers of the Classical and Romantic periods.

The list of composers of the First Viennese School always includes Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Franz Joseph Haydn, and Ludwig van Beethoven. It is often expanded to include others—like Franz Schubert—who worked in the Austrian capital of Vienna in the late eighteenth century and early nineteenth century.

Some contemporary musicologists have listed Gustav Mahler, Anton Bruckner, and Johannes Brahms among the First Viennese School composers, but such categorization is controversial. These men worked exclusively during the Romantic era and do not bear the hallmarks of Classical-era music that defines the First Viennese School.

The term “First Viennese School” came about to describe a certain set of composers and became more clearly defined after the emergence of the Second Viennese School.

• First use of the term: The phrase "Viennese School" initially appeared in the 1834 writings of Austrian musicologist Raphael Georg Kiesewetter. Kiesewetter used the term to describe Mozart and Haydn, composers that today are linked to the Classical era (a notion that did not exist in Kiesewetter's day). Later, Ludwig van Beethoven—and sometimes Franz Schubert—would be added to the Viennese School.
• Defining qualities: The composers of the First Viennese School had two major common characteristics. The first was a connection to Vienna, Austria, where all worked at one point in their careers. The second was an innovative spirit, which transformed Baroque and early Classical-era music and established new forms that remain popular today.
• Second Viennese School: When another "Viennese school" emerged around the Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg in the early twentieth century, the terms "First Viennese School" and "Second Viennese School" were devised to distinguish the two eras.

First Viennese School compositions feature the traits that would make Classical and early Romantic period music distinct from all that preceded it. Such distinguishing traits include:

1. 1. Obbligato: True to its Italian name, the obbligato is an obligatory melody to which all harmony is subservient.
2. 2. More precise musical notation: In past eras of Western music—such as the Renaissance era and the Baroque era—some musical scores included parts for optional instruments, as well as a figured bass notation that encouraged a degree of improvisation. The composers of the First Viennese School wanted far more precision in their performances—from chamber music to symphonies. They achieved this not only through the idea of the obbligato but also through detailed musical scores in which no part was optional.
3. 3. Sonata form: While the composers of the First Viennese School did not invent the sonata form, they established a tradition of using it to structure symphony movements, string quartets, concertos, and instrumental sonatas (like the piano sonata).

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