classical music - traditional genre of music conforming to an established form and appealing to critical interest and developed musical tastechamber music - serious music performed by a small group of musicians opera - a drama set to music; consists of singing with orchestral accompaniment and an orchestral overture and interludes cantata, oratorio - a musical composition for voices and orchestra based on a religious text concerto - a composition for orchestra and a soloist fugue - a musical form consisting of a theme repeated a fifth above or a fourth below its first statement rondeau, rondo - a musical form that is often the last movement of a sonata sonata - a musical composition of 3 or 4 movements of contrasting forms |