The First Viennese School is a name mostly used to refer to three composers of the Classical period in

Western art music Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical music, as the term "classical music" also ...

in late-18th-century to early-19th-century

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

: Joseph Haydn,

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 17565 December 1791), baptised as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period. Despite his short life, his rapid pace of composition r ...

and

Ludwig van Beethoven Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classic ...

. Sometimes,

Franz Schubert Franz Peter Schubert (; 31 January 179719 November 1828) was an Austrian composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras. Despite his short lifetime, Schubert left behind a vast ''oeuvre'', including more than 600 secular vocal wo ...

is added to the list. In German-speaking countries, the term ''Wiener Klassik'' (lit. ''Viennese classical era/art'') is used. That term is often more broadly applied to the Classical era in music as a whole, as a means to distinguish it from other periods that are colloquially referred to as ''classical'', namely Baroque and Romantic music. The term "Viennese School" was first used by Austrian musicologist Raphael Georg Kiesewetter, in 1834, although he only counted Haydn and Mozart as members of the school. Other writers followed suit and eventually Beethoven was added to the list. The designation "first" is added today to avoid confusion with the Second Viennese School. These composers sometimes encountered each other: Haydn and Mozart were even occasional chamber-music partners. Beethoven for a time received lessons from Haydn, probably heard Mozart play, and met Schubert a few times (see

Beethoven and his contemporaries During the course of his lifetime, Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) enjoyed relationships with many of his musical contemporaries. Beethoven was famously difficult to get along with, and the history of his relationships with contemporaries is l ...

). However, they did not form a school in the sense of a deliberate co-operation associated with 20th-century schools, such as the Second Viennese School, or

Les Six "Les Six" () is a name given to a group of six composers, five of them French and one Swiss, who lived and worked in Montparnasse. The name, inspired by Mily Balakirev's '' The Five'', originates in two 1920 articles by critic Henri Collet in ' ...

. Nor is there any evidence (other than Haydn teaching Beethoven) that one composer was "schooled" by another, in the way that Berg and Webern were taught by Schoenberg. Attempts to extend the First Viennese School to include such later figures as Anton Bruckner, Johannes Brahms, and Gustav Mahler are merely journalistic, and never encountered in academic musicology.

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{{Authority control Classical-period composers Classical period (music) Composition schools Culture in Vienna

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