Variety and flexibility were also introduced into dynamics. Passages were now conceived more specifically than before as loud, soft, very loud, and so on, and marked f, p, ff, etc,. by composers accordingly. Composers made variety in dynamics clearly perceptible and, we must suppose, “pleasing.”

Furthermore, instead of using the steady dynamics of the previous period, composers now worked extensively with gradations of volume. The words for growing louder (crescendo) and growing softer (diminuendo) first came into general use in the Classical period. Orchestras of the mid-eighteenth century were the first to practice long crescendos, which, we are told, caused audiences to rise up from their seats in excitement.

A clear sign of the times was the rise in popularity of the piano, at the expense of the ever-present harpsichord of the Baroque era. The older instrument could manage only one sound level (or at best a few sound levels, thanks to more than one set of strings). The new pianoforte could produce a continuous range of dynamics from soft to loud; the name means “soft-loud” in Italian. It attracted composers because they wanted their keyboard instruments to have the same flexibility in dynamics that they were teaching to their orchestras.