Beethoven in the context of Music improvisation

Musical improvisation (also known as musical extemporization) is the creative activity of immediate ("in the moment") musical composition, which combines performance with communication of emotions and instrumental technique as well as spontaneous response to other musicians. Sometimes musical ideas in improvisation are spontaneous, but may be based on chord changes in classical music and many other kinds of music. One definition is a "performance given extempore without planning or preparation". Another definition is to "play or sing (music) extemporaneously, by inventing variations on a melody or creating new melodies, rhythms and harmonies". Encyclopædia Britannica defines it as "the extemporaneous composition or free performance of a musical passage, usually in a manner conforming to certain stylistic norms but unfettered by the prescriptive features of a specific musical text." Improvisation is often done within (or based on) a pre-existing harmonic framework or chord progression. Improvisation is a major part of some types of 20th-century music, such as blues, rock music, jazz, and jazz fusion, in which instrumental performers improvise solos, melody lines and accompaniment parts.

Throughout the eras of the Western art music tradition, including the Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, and Romantic periods, improvisation was a valued skill. J. S. Bach, Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, and many other famous composers and musicians were known especially for their improvisational skills. Improvisation might have played an important role in the monophonic period. The earliest treatises on polyphony, such as the Musica enchiriadis (ninth century), indicate that added parts were improvised for centuries before the first notated examples. However, it was only in the fifteenth century that theorists began making a hard distinction between improvised and written music.

A number opera (Italian: opera a numeri; German: Nummeroper; French: opéra à numéros) is an opera consisting of individual pieces of music ('numbers') which can be easily extracted from the larger work. They may be numbered consecutively in the score, and may be interspersed with recitative or spoken dialogue. Opera numbers may be arias, but also ensemble pieces, such as duets, trios, quartets, quintets, sextets or choruses. They may also be ballets and instrumental pieces, such as marches, sinfonias, or intermezzi. The number opera format was standard until the mid-19th century and most opera genres, including opera seria, opera buffa, opéra comique, ballad opera, Singspiel, and grand opera, were constructed in this fashion.

The replacement of numbers with more continuous music began in operas by Jommelli, Traetta, Gluck, and especially Mozart, whose late operas Le Nozze di Figaro and Don Giovanni contain several segments in which different numbers are unified by bridge passages to form a musical whole. This trend became even more striking in the operas of the German composers Beethoven, Weber, and Meyerbeer, while their Italian and French contemporaries Rossini, Donizetti, Bellini, and Auber retained the number opera style.

In music, a motif (/moʊˈtiːf/ ) or motive is a short musical idea, a salient recurring figure, musical fragment or succession of notes that has some special importance in or is characteristic of a composition. The motif is the smallest structural unit possessing thematic identity.

The European Anthem or Anthem of Europe, also known as Ode to Joy, is a piece of instrumental music adapted from the prelude of the final movement of Beethoven's 9th Symphony composed in 1823, originally set to words adapted from Friedrich Schiller's 1785 poem "Ode to Joy". In 1972, the Council of Europe adopted it as an anthem to represent Europe, and later in 1985 it was also adopted by the European Union.

Its purpose is to honour shared European values. The EU describes it as expressing the ideals of freedom, peace and solidarity. The anthem is played on official occasions such as political or civil events.

A fortepiano [ˌfɔrteˈpjaːno] is an early piano. In principle, the word "fortepiano" can designate any piano dating from the invention of the instrument by Bartolomeo Cristofori in 1700 up to the early 19th century. Most typically, however, it is used to refer to the mid-18th to early-19th century instruments, for which composers of the Classical era, such as Haydn, Mozart, and the younger Beethoven and Schubert, wrote their piano music.

Starting in Beethoven's time, the fortepiano began a period of steady evolution, culminating in the late 19th century with the modern grand. The earlier fortepiano became obsolete and was absent from the musical scene for many decades. In the later 20th century, the fortepiano was revived, following the rise of interest in historically informed performance. Fortepianos are built for that purpose, in specialist workshops.

In music, the opus number is the "work number" that is assigned to a musical composition, or to a set of compositions, to indicate the chronological order of the composer's publication of that work. Opus numbers are used to distinguish among compositions with similar titles; the word is abbreviated as "Op." for a single work, or "Opp." when referring to more than one work. Opus numbers do not necessarily indicate chronological order of composition. For example, posthumous publications of a composer's juvenilia are often numbered after other works, even though they may be some of the composer's first completed works.

To indicate the specific place of a given work within a music catalogue, the opus number is paired with a cardinal number; for example, Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 14 in C-sharp minor (1801, nicknamed Moonlight Sonata) is "Opus 27, No. 2", whose work-number identifies it as a companion piece to "Opus 27, No. 1" (Piano Sonata No. 13 in E-flat major, 1800–01), paired in same opus number, with both being subtitled Sonata quasi una Fantasia, the only two of the kind in all of Beethoven's 32 piano sonatas. Furthermore, the Piano Sonata, Op. 27 No. 2, in C-sharp minor is also catalogued as "Sonata No. 14", because it is the fourteenth sonata composed by Ludwig van Beethoven.

The Berlin Philharmonic (German: Berliner Philharmoniker) is a German symphony orchestra that is based in Berlin and was founded in 1882. It is one of the most popular, acclaimed and well-respected orchestras in the world. The orchestra is the recipient of numerous Grammy Awards, Gramophone Awards, Classic BRIT Awards, ECHO Music Prizes, Grand Prix Du Disque and Diapason d'Or.

The orchestra emerged from the Bilsesche Kapelle (“Bilse’s Band”) and rose to prominence under the leadership of pianist-conductor Hans von Bülow. During the 20th century, the orchestra was led by conductors Wilhelm Furtwängler (1922–45; 1952–54), Herbert von Karajan (1955–89), and Claudio Abbado (1989–2002). The orchestra’s early years, particularly during the later Nazi era, focused heavily on Classical music from the Austro-Germanic repertoire, featuring composers such as Beethoven, Brahms, Bruckner, Strauss, and Wagner. Under Furtwängler and Karajan, it became renowned for its distinctive sound and high-quality musicianship and toured widely. In the latter half of the 20th century, the orchestra broadened its repertoire to include more Classical, Romantic, and 20th-century works, as well as lesser-known compositions and music from outside the Austro-German tradition.

An allemande (French pronunciation: [almɑ̃d] , "German (dance)"; also allemanda, almain(e), or alman(d)) is a Renaissance and Baroque dance, and one of the most common instrumental dance styles in Baroque music, with examples by Couperin, Purcell, Bach and Handel. It is often the first movement of a Baroque suite of dances, paired with a subsequent courante, though it is sometimes preceded by an introduction or prelude. Along with the waltz and ländler, the allemande was sometimes referred to by the generic term German Dance in publications during the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

A quite different, later, Allemande, named as such in the time of Mozart and Beethoven, still survives in Germany and Switzerland and is a lively triple-time social dance related to the waltz and the Ländler.

Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía (Valencian: Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia; Spanish: Palacio de las Artes Reina Sofía; anglicised as "Queen Sofía Palace of the Arts") is an opera house, performing arts centre, and urban landmark designed by Santiago Calatrava to anchor the northwest end of the City of Arts and Sciences in Valencia, Spain. It opened on 8 October 2005; its first opera staging was of Beethoven's Fidelio on 25 October 2006. Tenor and conductor Plácido Domingo has maintained a special relationship with the Palau since its founding and has established a young singers training program there.

Symphonie fantastique: Épisode de la vie d'un artiste … en cinq parties (Fantastic Symphony: Episode in the Life of an Artist … in Five Sections) Op. 14, is a programmatic symphony written by Hector Berlioz in 1830. The first performance was at the Paris Conservatoire on 5 December 1830.

Berlioz wrote semi-autobiographical programme notes for the piece that allude to the romantic sufferings of a gifted artist who has poisoned himself with opium because of his unrequited love for a beautiful and fascinating woman (in real life, the Shakespearean actress Harriet Smithson, who in 1833 became the composer's wife). The composer, who revered Beethoven, followed the latter's unusual addition in the Pastoral Symphony of a fifth movement to the normal four of a classical symphony. The artist's reveries take him to a ball and to a pastoral scene in a field, which is interrupted by a hallucinatory march to the scaffold, leading to a grotesque satanic dance (Witches' Sabbath). Within each episode, the artist's passion is represented by a recurring theme called the idée fixe.

A fanfare (or fanfarade or flourish) is a short musical flourish which is typically played by trumpets (including fanfare trumpets), French horns or other brass instruments, often accompanied by percussion. It is a "brief improvised introduction to an instrumental performance". A fanfare has also been defined in The Golden Encyclopedia of Music as "a musical announcement played on brass instruments before the arrival of an important person", such as heralding the entrance of a monarch (the term honors music for such announcements does not have the specific connotations of instrument or style that fanfare does). Historically, fanfares were usually played by trumpet players, as the trumpet was associated with royalty. Bugles are also mentioned. The melody notes of fanfare are often based around the major triad, often using "heroic dotted rhythms".

By extension, the term may also designate a short, prominent passage for brass instruments in an orchestral composition. Fanfares are widely used in opera orchestral parts, notably in Richard Wagner's Tannhäuser and Lohengrin and Beethoven's Fidelio. In Fidelio, the dramatic use of the fanfare is heightened by having the trumpet player perform offstage, which creates a muted effect.

Enrique Bátiz Campbell (4 May 1942 – 30 March 2025) was a Mexican conductor and concert pianist. Trained as a pianist in Dallas, New York City and Warsaw, he focused on conducting from 1969. He co-founded the Orquesta Sinfónica del Estado de México in 1971 and conducted it until 2018, with a short interruption from 1983 to 1989 when he headed the Mexico City Philharmonic Orchestra. He made many recordings, of symphonies by Beethoven and Tchaikovsky as well as the complete orchestral works by Joaquín Rodrigo and music by Mexican composers.

Bettina von Arnim (born Elisabeth Catharina Ludovica Magdalena Brentano; 4 April 1785 – 20 January 1859) was a German writer, composer, and novelist.

Bettina (or Bettine) Brentano was a writer, publisher, composer, singer, visual artist, an illustrator, patron of young talent, and a social activist. She was the archetype of the Romantic era's zeitgeist and the crux of many creative relationships of canonical artistic figures. Best known for the company she kept, she numbered among her closest friends Goethe, Beethoven, Schleiermacher, and Pückler and tried to foster artistic agreement among them. Many leading composers of the time, including Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn, Robert and Clara Schumann, Franz Liszt, Johanna Kinkel, and Johannes Brahms, admired her spirit and talents. As a composer, von Arnim's style was unconventional, molding and melding favorite folk melodies and historical themes with innovative harmonies, phrase lengths, and improvisations that became synonymous with the music of the era. She was closely related to the German writers Clemens Brentano and Achim von Arnim: the first was her brother, the second her husband. Her daughter Gisela von Arnim became a prominent writer as well. Her nephews, via her brother Christian, were Franz and Lujo Brentano.

This is a list of music-related events in 1802.