{
  "name": "Western Classical Music",
  "description": "Broad range of art music associated with the aristocracy that originated in Europe around 500 AD.",
  "url": "https://rateyourmusic.com/genre/western-classical-music/",
  "parent": "Classical Music",
  "level": "sub",
  "children_count": 45,
  "children": [
    {
      "name": "Art Song",
      "url": "https://rateyourmusic.com/genre/art-song/",
      "description": "Vocal music with text often set to Poetry, typically for single vocalist with instrumental accompaniment, distinguished by its design for concert recital and high artistic demands requiring classically trained musicians.",
      "level": "sub-2",
      "parent": "Western Classical Music"
    },
    {
      "name": "Bagatelle",
      "url": "https://rateyourmusic.com/genre/bagatelle/",
      "description": "Brief composition with an unpretentious, playful sound.",
      "level": "sub-2",
      "parent": "Western Classical Music"
    },
    {
      "name": "Ballet",
      "url": "https://rateyourmusic.com/genre/ballet/",
      "description": "Western art music, often Orchestral Music, written to accompany classical dance productions of the same name.",
      "level": "sub-2",
      "parent": "Western Classical Music"
    },
    {
      "name": "Baroque Music",
      "url": "https://rateyourmusic.com/genre/baroque-music/",
      "description": "Constant rhythmic flow, or a steady motion throughout, generally focusing on a single melodic idea and including some form of counterpoint.",
      "level": "sub-2",
      "parent": "Western Classical Music"
    },
    {
      "name": "Baroque Suite",
      "url": "https://rateyourmusic.com/genre/baroque-suite/",
      "description": "Collection of varied dance pieces, usually in the same key, structured on the music of European courtly dances.",
      "level": "sub-2",
      "parent": "Western Classical Music"
    },
    {
      "name": "Brazilian Classical Music",
      "url": "https://rateyourmusic.com/genre/brazilian-classical-music/",
      "description": "Originated in the late 19th century, taking the European music that had been brought to the country by colonists and brought in parts of Brazilian Music.",
      "level": "sub-2",
      "parent": "Western Classical Music"
    },
    {
      "name": "Byzantine Music",
      "url": "https://rateyourmusic.com/genre/byzantine-music/",
      "description": "Music from Byzantine era.",
      "level": "sub-2",
      "parent": "Western Classical Music"
    },
    {
      "name": "Cantata",
      "url": "https://rateyourmusic.com/genre/cantata/",
      "description": "Vocal style for solo singers with instrumental & Choral accompaniment comparable to Oratorio, though often smaller in scale, more songlike, and with less focus on dramatic narrative.",
      "level": "sub-2",
      "parent": "Western Classical Music"
    },
    {
      "name": "Canzona",
      "url": "https://rateyourmusic.com/genre/canzona/",
      "description": "Song-like structures and a contrapuntal texture technique known as imitation.",
      "level": "sub-2",
      "parent": "Western Classical Music"
    },
    {
      "name": "Capriccio",
      "url": "https://rateyourmusic.com/genre/capriccio/",
      "description": "Typically short and loosely structured, characterized by spontaneity, humor, and technicality.",
      "level": "sub-2",
      "parent": "Western Classical Music"
    },
    {
      "name": "Chamber Music",
      "url": "https://rateyourmusic.com/genre/chamber-music/",
      "description": "Western Classical Music performed by a small ensemble, usually only a few performers.",
      "level": "sub-2",
      "parent": "Western Classical Music"
    },
    {
      "name": "Character Piece",
      "url": "https://rateyourmusic.com/genre/character-piece/",
      "description": "Broad instrumental genre, usually for solo piano, written to evoke an extramusical concept or mood.",
      "level": "sub-2",
      "parent": "Western Classical Music"
    },
    {
      "name": "Choral",
      "url": "https://rateyourmusic.com/genre/choral/",
      "description": "Choir-sung classical works covering periods from medieval music (an early form being Gregorian Chant) up to present day.",
      "level": "sub-2",
      "parent": "Western Classical Music"
    },
    {
      "name": "Cinematic Classical",
      "url": "https://rateyourmusic.com/genre/cinematic-classical/",
      "description": "Orchestral compositions generally associated with soundtracks to modern high-budget films, games, and other non-live media.",
      "level": "sub-2",
      "parent": "Western Classical Music"
    },
    {
      "name": "Classic Ragtime",
      "url": "https://rateyourmusic.com/genre/classic-ragtime/",
      "description": "Draws on the complexity and formal structures of Western Classical Music, cycling through multiple strains (themes); emerged from Missouri's Sedalia school.",
      "level": "sub-2",
      "parent": "Western Classical Music"
    },
    {
      "name": "Classical Period",
      "url": "https://rateyourmusic.com/genre/classical-period/",
      "description": "Refers to the phase in Western Classical Music history occurring from roughly 1750 to 1820, characterized by its emphasis on clarity, simplicity, and balance.",
      "level": "sub-2",
      "parent": "Western Classical Music"
    },
    {
      "name": "Concerto",
      "url": "https://rateyourmusic.com/genre/concerto/",
      "description": "Multi-movement classical works for one or more soloists and an ensemble.",
      "level": "sub-2",
      "parent": "Western Classical Music"
    },
    {
      "name": "Divertissement",
      "url": "https://rateyourmusic.com/genre/divertissement/",
      "description": "Straightforward tuneful music historically written to serve as light entertainment for events or as interstitial movements within larger theatrical works.",
      "level": "sub-2",
      "parent": "Western Classical Music"
    },
    {
      "name": "English Pastoral School",
      "url": "https://rateyourmusic.com/genre/english-pastoral-school/",
      "description": "Early 20th-century English classical composers turning to English folk and pastoral influences.",
      "level": "sub-2",
      "parent": "Western Classical Music"
    },
    {
      "name": "Fantasia",
      "url": "https://rateyourmusic.com/genre/fantasia/",
      "description": "Free-form, improvisational, and with contrasting sectional writing, sometimes based on preexisting melodies and generally meant to evoke a sense of imaginative exploration.",
      "level": "sub-2",
      "parent": "Western Classical Music"
    },
    {
      "name": "Fugue",
      "url": "https://rateyourmusic.com/genre/fugue/",
      "description": "Contrapuntal composition and technique for a fixed numbers of musical voices; following the imitations of one main theme.",
      "level": "sub-2",
      "parent": "Western Classical Music"
    },
    {
      "name": "Impromptu",
      "url": "https://rateyourmusic.com/genre/impromptu/",
      "description": "Composition written to sound like a spur-of-the-moment improvisation.",
      "level": "sub-2",
      "parent": "Western Classical Music"
    },
    {
      "name": "Latin American Classical Music",
      "url": "https://rateyourmusic.com/genre/latin-american-classical-music/",
      "description": "Western Classical Music with influences from Hispanic American Music.",
      "level": "sub-2",
      "parent": "Western Classical Music"
    },
    {
      "name": "Light Music",
      "url": "https://rateyourmusic.com/genre/light-music/",
      "description": "Instrumental, typically through-composed style performed by an orchestra or small ensemble, with simpler arrangements and an emphasis on strong melodies.",
      "level": "sub-2",
      "parent": "Western Classical Music"
    },
    {
      "name": "Madrigal",
      "url": "https://rateyourmusic.com/genre/madrigal/",
      "description": "Secular polyphonic music based around poetry and generally performed by unaccompanied vocal ensembles of two to eight persons.",
      "level": "sub-2",
      "parent": "Western Classical Music"
    },
    {
      "name": "Medieval Classical Music",
      "url": "https://rateyourmusic.com/genre/medieval-classical-music/",
      "description": "Composed during the Medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries.",
      "level": "sub-2",
      "parent": "Western Classical Music"
    },
    {
      "name": "Modern Classical",
      "url": "https://rateyourmusic.com/genre/modern-classical/",
      "description": "Multitude of different compositional approaches beginning in the 20th century that deviate significantly from the previously-held tenets.",
      "level": "sub-2",
      "parent": "Western Classical Music"
    },
    {
      "name": "Motet",
      "url": "https://rateyourmusic.com/genre/motet/",
      "description": "Extremely diverse form of vocal music, usually written as a style of Polyphonic Chant for A cappella soloists or choir.",
      "level": "sub-2",
      "parent": "Western Classical Music"
    },
    {
      "name": "Neoclassicism",
      "url": "https://rateyourmusic.com/genre/neoclassicism/",
      "description": "Return to the more formal and less expansive structures and forms, beginning shortly after World War I as a reaction to what some composers perceived as excesses of Romanticism.",
      "level": "sub-2",
      "parent": "Western Classical Music"
    },
    {
      "name": "Opera",
      "url": "https://rateyourmusic.com/genre/opera/",
      "description": "European tradition which combines drama and distinctive vocal style in the context of Western Classical Music, usually performed as a theatrical work on stage.",
      "level": "sub-2",
      "parent": "Western Classical Music"
    },
    {
      "name": "Oratorio",
      "url": "https://rateyourmusic.com/genre/oratorio/",
      "description": "Composition for vocal soloists, choir, and orchestra, often making use of a comprehensive textbook of contemplative nature.",
      "level": "sub-2",
      "parent": "Western Classical Music"
    },
    {
      "name": "Orchestral Music",
      "url": "https://rateyourmusic.com/genre/orchestral-music/",
      "description": "Western Classical Music performed by an orchestra.",
      "level": "sub-2",
      "parent": "Western Classical Music"
    },
    {
      "name": "Overture",
      "url": "https://rateyourmusic.com/genre/overture/",
      "description": "Typically single-movement form akin to the Tone Poem written as the prelude to a larger work or in association with a programmatic concept.",
      "level": "sub-2",
      "parent": "Western Classical Music"
    },
    {
      "name": "Passion",
      "url": "https://rateyourmusic.com/genre/passion/",
      "description": "Musical re-enactment of the suffering and crucifixion of Christ, typically based on one of the four canonical Gospels.",
      "level": "sub-2",
      "parent": "Western Classical Music"
    },
    {
      "name": "Prelude",
      "url": "https://rateyourmusic.com/genre/prelude/",
      "description": "Brief work with an improvisatory feeling, usually for keyboard, that serves either as a standalone piece or an introduction to a complimentary work of music.",
      "level": "sub-2",
      "parent": "Western Classical Music"
    },
    {
      "name": "Renaissance Music",
      "url": "https://rateyourmusic.com/genre/renaissance-music/",
      "description": "Encompasses Western Classical Music from the 15th to 16th centuries.",
      "level": "sub-2",
      "parent": "Western Classical Music"
    },
    {
      "name": "Ricercar",
      "url": "https://rateyourmusic.com/genre/ricercar/",
      "description": "Early instrumental genre, usually for solo lute or keyboard, written either as a brief introductory work or imitative contrapuntal piece.",
      "level": "sub-2",
      "parent": "Western Classical Music"
    },
    {
      "name": "Roman School",
      "url": "https://rateyourmusic.com/genre/roman-school/",
      "description": "Composers of primarily Christian Liturgical Music active in Rome in the 16th and 17th centuries, developing a musically conservative compositional style seen as appropriate for church performance.",
      "level": "sub-2",
      "parent": "Western Classical Music"
    },
    {
      "name": "Romanticism",
      "url": "https://rateyourmusic.com/genre/romanticism/",
      "description": "Expressive and emotional qualities, especially in terms of melody.",
      "level": "sub-2",
      "parent": "Western Classical Music"
    },
    {
      "name": "Serenade",
      "url": "https://rateyourmusic.com/genre/serenade/",
      "description": "Light, tuneful, and relatively straightforward music historically associated with outdoor entertainment for evening gatherings.",
      "level": "sub-2",
      "parent": "Western Classical Music"
    },
    {
      "name": "Sonata",
      "url": "https://rateyourmusic.com/genre/sonata/",
      "description": "Broad instrumental genre for one to three soloists that has changed significantly throughout its history, now typically a suite of four or fewer contrasting movements, at least one of which is written in sonata form.",
      "level": "sub-2",
      "parent": "Western Classical Music"
    },
    {
      "name": "Spanish Classical Music",
      "url": "https://rateyourmusic.com/genre/spanish-classical-music/",
      "description": "Incorporation of Spanish Music within the context of Western Classical Music, particularly characterized by the use of the classical guitar.",
      "level": "sub-2",
      "parent": "Western Classical Music"
    },
    {
      "name": "Theme and Variation",
      "url": "https://rateyourmusic.com/genre/theme-and-variation/",
      "description": "Main theme followed by a number of variations on the theme.",
      "level": "sub-2",
      "parent": "Western Classical Music"
    },
    {
      "name": "Toccata",
      "url": "https://rateyourmusic.com/genre/toccata/",
      "description": "Virtuoso piece, usually for solo keyboard or plucked string instrument, characterized by its free rhythm, rapid fingerwork, and contrasting sectional writing.",
      "level": "sub-2",
      "parent": "Western Classical Music"
    },
    {
      "name": "Étude",
      "url": "https://rateyourmusic.com/genre/etude/",
      "description": "Composition written to both showcase & sharpen a particular playing or compositional technique, often requiring great skill from its performers.",
      "level": "sub-2",
      "parent": "Western Classical Music"
    }
  ]
}