BIOS Reporter – Volume 28, No.1 – January 2004

It is generally assumed that the basso continuo simply disappeared by c. 1790 but its demise was part of a complex process. The Classical period (the preserve of mature Mozart and Haydn, Beethoven and Schubert) embraced the French Revolution; this had many consequences, including the imposition, on the continent, of the metric system, and the regrettable rule of driving on the wrong side of the road, apart from the panic produced among the British monarchy and government, partly occasioned by the foolish French foray of 1797. The general fear of French ambitions and
achievement must have influenced British musicians and fortified their insular distrust of continental equal temperament…