The period of classical music spans from 1740 to 1810, and includes the music of Haydn, Mozart, and the early period of Beethoven. The classical music period combined harmony, melody, rhythm, and orchestration more effectively than previous musical periods. With the natural evolution of music slowly changing with culture, the Baroque era was over. That era had left a structure, an articulation and a periodic phrasing of music that would shape classical music. Of the many musical types of the period, the Classical period is best known for the symphony, a form of large orchestral ensemble. Symphonic pieces generally had three movements, the sonata, the minuet and the finale. Building on the achievements of previous composers, Haydn and Mozart, the symphony reached its peak in the last twenty years of the 18th century. Haydn excelled at rhythmic drive and the development of theme-based music. Mozart also enriched the symphony by contrasting memorable lyric themes with full-sounding orchestral settings. “The elements in the formation of the early classical style are short, periodic and articulated sentences. The articulated and periodic phrasing brought about two fundamental alterations in the nature of eighteenth-century music: one was an increased sensitivity to symmetry, the second was a rhythmic pattern of great variety, with the different rhythms not contrasting or overlapping, but passing logically and easily. into each other” (Rosen 58). Classical characteristics did not appear one by one, but at different times during this important historical period. The classical era, with the advancement of classical music, was, at times, uneven. The end result, however, was a logical order that made sense. Once… midway through the paper… when music had become a series of clear events and not simply a cumulative flow, powerful emotion or dramatic intensity could no longer rely on the High Baroque ( Rosen 154). Haydn learned from opera a style capable of concentrating that force as he had never been able to do in the 1760s. Mozart, raised in a more comfortable style and already a composer of music whose beauty equaled his genius, arrived at the same point. form the opposite direction (Rosen 154). If the works of Haydn or Mozart were to be lost, we would not have the same structure achieved by Haydn or the soft, feminine, playful and graceful music that has shaped the evolution of music in our musical history since Mozart. The style of both of them would not have been there, and we would have lost two extraordinary composers who impacted music not just in one way, but in many ways..