Romantic Period

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Romantic Period
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Principles of the Romantic Era

• Form rules relaxed (not eliminated)
• Emotion rather than reason
• Nationalism
• Stories depicted
• Nature viewed mystically (Rousseau)
• Exotic (foreign culture)
• Love of the past versus the future

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The Romantic Artist/Composer/Writer

• Personal feelings of the artist became critically
  important
• The artist needed to suffer to be fully empowered
• The starving artist became idealized
• And then satirized

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Characteristics of Music

• Departure from Classical era
• Message in the music
• Give a word description for each piece
• Haydn vs. Beethoven
• Beethovens 5th in minor/major key
• Loss of power in the major
• Beethovens 5th in style of Haydn
• Loss of power
• Romantic music is felt not reasoned

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Characteristics of Music

• Underlying themes carried throughout the symphony
• Complete symphony viewed as a unit
• Folk songs incorporated for nationalism
• Longer symphonies
• Orchestra grew in size
• Use of strong dynamics
• Virtuosos

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Discussion

• Is it important for a composer to communicate
  with the audience? Why?
• Example of communication baseball

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Romantic Music

• How does a composer communicate?
• Form
• Strength of the Classical Period
• Romanic Period strayed from strict form
• Story
• Beethovens 5th (symbolic story)
• Berliozs Symphonie Fantastique (story notes)
• Tchaikowskys Romeo and Juliet (well-known story)
• Uncomplicated (short length)
• Chopins works

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Beethoven

• Bridged Classical and Romantic periods
• Form used contextually
• Perfection was the goal (compare number of
  symphonies compared with Haydn)
• Motifs
• Short semi-melodies or rhythms carried out in
  modified form throughout work

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Motifs

• Musical Domain
• Note
• Motif
• Melody

• Chemical Domain
• Atom
• Molecule
• Bulk Polymer

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Beethoven

• Manifested Romantic ideal
• Nature depicted (symbolic story)
• Pastoral, Symphony No. 6

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Franz Schubert

• Wrote liedersongs with emotional theme
• Told stories in the music
• Erlkönig
• Note the horse rhythm
• Note the ominous feeling
• Note the voice differences (narrator, father and
  son)
• Note the sad conclusion

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Frederic Chopin

• Born in Poland,lived in Paris
• Short pieces in small rooms to allow
  communication
• Minute Waltz
• Virtuosity
• Etude Opus 10
• Nationalistic (Polish) music shown in his
  mazurkas, preludes and polonaises
• Polonaise in A flat major

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Franz Liszt

• Hungarian child prodigy
• Greatest showman
• Hungarian Rhapsody 2

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Franz Liszt
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Richard Wagner

• German nationalism
• Not a prodigy
• Immoral life
• Ludwig II
• Opera
• Leitmotif
• Depicted myths and heroes
• Die Walküre (Ride of the Valkyries)
• Tristan and Isolde (Unresolved Liebestod)

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Russian Composers

• Moussorgsky,Balakirev, Borodin, Cui,
  Rimsky-Korsakov (Then "Handful")
• Used Russian themes
• Russian Easter Overture
• Flight of the Bumble Bee
• Night on Bald Mountain

Almaty, Kazakhstan
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Peter Ilych Tchaikovsky

• Russian
• Used French style
• Ballets are most famous
• Nutcracker, Sleeping Beauty
• Romeo and Juliet
• Love theme
• Fight theme
• End theme
• Deep emotion for his sad life
• Symphony No. 6 Pathètique

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Discussion

• The hand-full of Russian composers criticized
  Tchaikovsky because he didnt use Russian
  melodies. Should music be nationalistic?

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Giuseppe Verdi

• Greatest Italian style opera
• Excellent librettos
• Orchestra an important component
• Aida
• La Traviata
• Rigoletto
• La Donna e Mobile

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Discussion

• Why has Romantic music remained so popular?

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Principles of Art

• Abandoned strict rules of neoclassical
• Conveyed personal feeling of artist
• Used nationalism
• Depicted the exotic
• Landscapes became important

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"If you want to do art you must first study the
rules, second study the great masters, third
forget the rules, because genius begins where
trite rules end but you can't get there until
you've obeyed the rules first." Sir Joshua
Reynolds (1723-1792)
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Francisco Goya -Classical Period
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Franciso Goya Romantic Period3rd of May 1808
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Eugene DelacroixLiberty Leading the People
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DelacroixThe Death of Sardanapalus
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Joseph Mallord William TurnerThe Fighting
"Temeraire"
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Joseph Mallord William TurnerThe Slave Ship
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"From the early 16C to the end of the 18C common
opinion held that religious and history painting
were the highest genres. The one edified, the
other reminded both decorated. Portraits came
next, landscapes lagged behind. For nature was
not yet loved for itself alone. In the early
Renaissance it served as a background only, and
even then it was 'humanized' by the presence of
temples, columns, or other architectural
fragments, along with actual figures."
Barzun, Jacques, From Dawn to Decadence,
Perennial, 2000, p71.
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John ConstableHay Wain
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Literature

• Romantic Period

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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

• Raised the level of German literature
• The Sorrows of Young Werther
• Dr. Faustus

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Discussion

• Why did Goethes writings have such a profound
  effect on the population?

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Sir Walter Scott

• Historical novels
• Ivanhoe
• Lady of the Lake

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Leo Tolstoy

• Russian
• War and Peace
• Anna Karenina
• Born to nobility but lived on simple farm
• Freed the serfs

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Victor Hugo

• Son of Napoleonic general
• Involved in French politics
• Hunchback of Notre Dame
• Les Miserables

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Les Miserables
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Alexandre Dumas

• Imitated style of Scott
• Novels supported extravagant life
• Employed several people
• Count of Monte Cristo
• The Three Musketeers
• The Man in the Iron Mask

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Discussion

• What was the principal message of Scott, Tolstoy,
  Hugo, and Dumas?

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William WordsworthSamuel Taylor Coleridge

• English
• Lyrical ballads

Five years have past five summers, with the
lengthOf five long winters! and again I
hearThese waters, rolling from their
mountain-springsWith a soft inland murmur. Once
againDo I behold these steep and lofty
cliffs,That on a wild secluded scene
impressThoughts of more deep seclusion and
connectThe landscape with the quiet of the sky.
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William WordsworthSamuel Taylor Coleridge

• English
• Lyrical ballads
• Suspension of disbelief
• Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Water, water, every where,And all the boards did
shrink Water, water, every where,Nor any drop
to drink.
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Lord Byron

• Art was an inner expression
• Childe Harold
• The Flying Dutchman
• The Wandering Jew

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Percy Bysshe Shelley

• English
• Strongly liberal
• Friends with Lord Byron
• Married Mary Wollstonecraft
• Frankenstein

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Discussion

• Which is more difficult, creativity within the
  form or ignoring the form?

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Thank You

• Creativity in emotion