(western) classical music discussion

[Alex K]

The classical element mainly seems to be the repeating violin notes. I wouldn't call it classical music because I miss the structure, presentation of themes and their variation or something similar. The string part would probably fall in line with what is sometimes called minimalist music. Not to be confused with our Minimalist, who I strongly suspect hates minimalist music

This is semantics to a degree.  Many people think of any orchestral western art music as "classical," as in: "Oh, I like Mozart well enough, but this NEW classical music is quite boring."  Certainly, most of Bach cannot be considered classical: it is far too ornamented and showy: virtuosic harpsichord solos and the like (gasp!), and with a much more fluid tonality than Mozart.

And in particular, loads of counterpoint and/or basso continuo would place him clearly outside the viennese classical school.

But would you call the harpsichord solo in Brandenburg 5 (to name the prototypical example) more showy than a Mozart piano concerto? For the time, it was revolutionary, but once the concerto genre was established, was anything by Bach really showy by classical period standards?