Haydn, Mozart, and C. P. E. Bach—the most eminent of J. S. Bach’s musical progeny—played key roles in the development of the Classical style, which was in full bloom by the time the 15 works to be heard tonight were composed in the late 1700s. Along with their lesser-known Italian contemporaries Galuppi and Cimarosa, these three northern European composers also incorporated into their music elements of the mid–18th-century galant style, whose playful elegance, transparent textures, and formal freedom offered an attractive alternative to the strict, intricately wrought, “learned” style of fugues and church music.

The emergence of the Classical style, predicated on clarity and formal symmetry, ran parallel to innovations in the design and technology of keyboard and other instruments. The so-called fortepiano was invented at the turn of the 18th century and soon rivaled the older harpsichord in popularity, but it wasn’t until the 1770s that it came into its own in the hands of such master craftsmen as Stein and Walter in Vienna and Broadwood in London. Although Galuppi and Cimarosa were chiefly associated with the opera house, the other three composers represented on this program testify to the piano’s increasing centrality in 18th-century musical life: C. P. E. Bach wrote a celebrated treatise on keyboard playing, Haydn habitually composed at the keyboard, and Mozart earned his living as a virtuoso pianist.