Light Music

Light music is a generic term applied to a mainly British musical style of "light" orchestral music, which originated in the 19th century and continues until the present day. Its heyday occurred during the mid‑20th century.

The style is a less "serious" form of Western classical music, featuring through-composed, usually shorter orchestral pieces and suites designed to appeal to a wider audience than more serious compositions. The form was especially popular during the formative years of radio broadcasting, with stations such as the BBC Light Programme featuring a playlist largely consisting of light compositions.

Occasionally known as mood music or concert music, light music is often grouped with the easy listening genre, albeit this designation is misleading. Although mainly a British phenomenon, light music was also popular in the United States and in continental Europe, and many compositions in the genre are still familiar through their use as film, radio and television themes.

Before Late Romantic orchestral trends of length and scope separated the trajectory of lighter orchestral works from the Western Classical canon, classical composers such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart or Joseph Haydn won as much fame for writing lighter pieces such as Eine Kleine Nachtmusik as for their symphonies and operas. Later examples of early European light music include the operettas of composers such as Franz von Suppé or Sir Arthur Sullivan; the Continental salon and parlour music genres; and the waltzes and marches of Johann Strauss II and his family. The Straussian waltz became a common light music composition (note for example Charles Ancliffe's "Nights of Gladness" or Felix Godin's "Valse Septembre"). These influenced the foundation of a "lighter" tradition of classical music in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

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