Classical fencing is the style of modern fencing as it existed during the 19th and early 20th century. According to the 19th-century fencing master Louis Rondelle,
- "A classical fencer is supposed to be one who observes a fine position, whose attacks are fully developed, whose hits are marvelously accurate, his parries firm and his ripostes executed with precision. One must not forget that this regularity is not possible unless the adversary is a party to it. It is a conventional bout, which consists of parries, attacks, and returns, all rhyming together."
Used in this sense, classical fencing is a style of historical fencing focussing on the 19th and early-20th century national fencing schools, especially in Italy and France, i.e. the schools out of which the styles of contemporary sports fencing have developed. Masters and legendary fencing figures such as Giuseppe Radaelli, Louis Rondelle, Masaniello Parise, the Greco brothers, Aldo Nadi and his rival Lucien Gaudin are today considered typical practitioners of this period.
Classical fencing weapons included the standard foil, épée (with a variety of different tips, including pointes d'arret), and sabre (including both blunted dueling sabres and, beginning in the early 20th century, modern sporting sabres).
Famous quotes containing the word classical:
“The basic difference between classical music and jazz is that in the former the music is always greater than its performance—Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, for instance, is always greater than its performance—whereas the way jazz is performed is always more important than what is being performed.”
—André Previn (b. 1929)