Romantic Era

1
Romantic Era

• 1820-1900

2
Historical Background

• The Industrial Revolution (just one of the 19thC
  revolutionary movements) entirely changed the
  face of society
• Country people left their rural environment to
  work in the growing cities.
• The middle class standard of living rose as
  technology and machines replaced handworkand
  production greatly increased but the lower
  classes suffered from the exploitation in the
  factories, mills, and sweatshops created by the
  Industrial Revolution.

3
Historical Background

• It was a cultural movement that stressed emotion,
  imagination and individuality.
• It was partly a rebellion against the
  neoclassicism of the 18th Century and the age of
  reasonand their dissatisfaction with the real
  world.
• The movement was very diverse and complex because
  its aim was to broaden horizons and encompass the
  totality of human experience.
• It was international and influenced all of the
  arts.
• Romantic writers broke away from conventionand
  emphasized freedom of expression. The term was
  actually adopted from literatureand the literary
  romantics themselves
• Beethoven is credited for elevating the awareness
  level of the people with regard to music as a
  major art formbecause now music was treated with
  a new respect in certain cultivated circles and
  was taken more seriously than it had been in the
  past.

4
Nationalism

• Nationalism became an important movement in the
  latter part of the 19thC, as European countries
  sought to establish their political and stylistic
  identities.
• Nationalistic writers, painters, and musicians
  turned to the colorful folk tales, legends, and
  sounds of their own countries.
• The term romantic comes from romance, actually
  the word for a medieval story or poem of a heroic
  nature in one of the Latin-derived, or romance,
  languages.
• Term implies appreciation of the distant, the
  mythical, the ideal, the heroic, and the
  supernatural.
• The future as well as the past, intrigued the
  romantic imagination, and science fiction became
  an important genre during this period.
• Distant places were also considered fascinating
  and exoticism was one characteristic of Romantic
  art.

5
Music Overview

• Composers of this period continued to use the
  forms of the preceding classical period.
• There are many differences between the twonamely
  that the composers, or genuine artists were
  expected to have a personal style, yet they were
  united by common interests with regard to the
  characteristics.

6
Composer Overview

• Composers worked to break down the barriers of
  harmony and form
• They experimented with chords, chord progressions
  (that had previously been forbidden by the
  textbooks).
• Music had special prestige and status because
  people felt that music could express inner
  experience more deeply than the other arts
  because the musicians imagination is not tied
  down to the meaning of the words (as in the
  poets) or to the representation of things (like
  the painters)
• It had depth, freedom of emotional expression and
  that continuous infinite quality.

7
General Characteristics

• Romantic works
• Have greater range of tone color, dynamics and
  pitch.
• Broader harmonic vocabulary
• Emphasis on colorful, unstable chords
• Music is linked more closely to the other arts,
  esp. literature
• New forms developed
• Greater tension, less emphasis on balance and
  resolution
• CHARACTERISTICS
• Individuality of style
• Emphasis on self-expression
• Their sound reflects their personalities
• Wrote for the middle class.
• Expressive aims and subjects
• Composers explored a universe of feeling
  (flamboyance, intimacy, unpredictability,
  melancholy, rapture longing).
• Countless works glorify romantic love

8
Nationalism Exoticism

• Important political movement that influences 19th
  century music.
• Composers deliberately created music with a
  specific national identity (using folk songs,
  dances, legends and history of their homelands.)
• Drew on colorful materials from foreign lands.
  Frenchman, BizetCarmen set in Spain Italian
  Puccinievoked Japan in Madam Butterfly
  Russian Rimsky-KorsakovArabian atmosphere in
  Scheherazade.

9
Orchestra

• Larger (both symphony and opera were more varied
  in tone color than classical orchestra) up to 100
  musicians (20-60 in classical)
• Brass, woodwind and percussion sections took on a
  more active role.
• New sounds for all of the instruments, new
  instruments (English horn, contrabassoon and bass
  clarinet became regulars)
• The piano was the favorite instrument of the
  romantic age and it became improved during
  1820-1830s.

10
Characteristics

• Tone Color
• Rich and sensuous sound.
• Used tone color to obtain variety of mood and
  atmosphere.
• Never before had it been so important.
• For the first time, the sheer sensuous quality of
  sound assumed major artistic importance on a
  level with rhythm, melody, and musical form.
• New combinations of instruments. (Composers are
  mixing instrumental colors with freedom.)

11
Characteristics

• Melody
• Is more emotional, effusive and demonstrative.
• Melodic lines cover a wider range than the
  restrained melodies of the Classical era.
• Build to more sustained climaxes
• More irregular in rhythm and phraseologyrendered
  them sounding more spontaneous.
• Shades of feelings dreamy, passionate, ecstatic,
  passionate, etc.
• Melodies inseparable from harmonies.

12
Characteristics

• Harmony
• Made the greatest technical advances
• Explored with new chords
• Use of chromatic harmony (uses chords containing
  tones not found in the prevailing major and minor
  scales.) Chromaticismis a term for a style that
  employs all twelve tones of the chromatic scale.
• Wide variety of keys
• Rapid modulations
• Feeling of tonal gravity less strong

13
Characteristics

• Dynamics
• Expanded range of dynamics
• Sharp contrast from whispers to sonorities of
  unprecedented power
• Dynamic extremes fff-ppp
• Used frequent crescendos and decrescendos and
  sudden dynamic shifts.

14
Characteristics

• Pitch
• Expanded range.
• Composers reached for extremely high and low
  sounds
• Increased brilliance and depth of sound
• Exploited instruments like the piccolo and
  contrabassoon
• Mood
• Underlined by accelerando and ritardandos.
• Fluctuations in tempo.
• Use of rubato (a slight holding back or pressing
  forward of the tempo)

15
FORMS-Miniature Monumental

• Miniatures
• Piano pieces by Chopin and art songs by Schubert,
  last a few minutes
• Short forms were meant to be heard in intimate
  settings (salon or home)
• Growing number of people owned pianos
• Composers created a tense mood through a melody,
  a few chords or unusual tone

16
FORMS

• Monumental
• Gigantic works by Berlioz and Wagner.
• Call for a huge number of performers.
• Compositions more extended and lasted for several
  hours.
• Designed for large opera houses or concert halls.
• Symphonies, sonatas, string quartets, concertos,
  operas and choral worksindividual movements were
  longer (19th century symphony were 45 minutes
  18th century were 25 minutes)

17
New Techniques

• New techniques used to unify long works (same
  theme or themes might occur in several different
  movements of symphony).
• WHEN A MELODY RETURNS IN A LATER MOVEMENT OR
  SECTION OF A ROMANTIC WORK, ITS CHARACTER MAY BE
  TRANSFORMED BY CHANGES IN DYNAMICS,
  ORCHESTRATION, OR RHYTHMA TECHNIQUE KNOWN as
  THEMATIC TRANSFORMATION.
• Short themes are freely varied at relatively wide
  and unpredictable intervals of time.
• Use of thematic transformation occurs in
  Berliozs Symphonie Fantastique (1830) where a
  lyrical melody from the opening movement becomes
  a grotesque dance tune in the finale

18
Role of Composers

• Role in society changed radically
• They became freelance or free artists.
• They often composed to fulfill an inner need
  rather than a commission.
• They were interested in pleasing their
  contemporaries and being judged favorably by
  posterity.
• They wrote primarily for Middle class audiences.

19
Composers and New Forms

• Franz Schubert (1797-1828) Vienna
• Earliest master of the lied or art song
• Never held an official music position, or a
  regular job.
• Not a conductor, nor virtuoso.
• His income came from his compositions, teaching
  and publicationsand also contributions from a
  circle of friends (who called themselves the
  Schubertians)they saw him as a genius and
  promoted his songs and helped pay his bills
• Composed an extraordinary amount of masterpieces
  while in his teens
• Composed close to 700 songs symphonies, string
  quartets, chamber music, sonatas and short pieces
  for piano operas.
• He died in a typhoid fever epidemic at age 31,
  and never heard a performance of his late
  symphonies. We learned about most of his music
  after his death.

20
Schubert

• Art Song A composition for solo voice and piano.
  
• The Lied is a particular type of German song that
  evolved in the late 18th century and flourished
  in the 19th, and one of the most important
  miniature genres of Romanticism.
• The melodies of lieder share three
  characteristics
• (1) Accompaniment The lied is always
  accompanied by a piano and the accompaniment is
  an integral part of the composers conception.
  The pianist serves as a partner, rather than an
  accompanist.

21
Schubert

• (2) Poetry The text of a lied is usually a
  Romantic poem of some merit (The art of the lied
  depends upon the sensitivity of the composers
  response to the poetic imagery and feeling.)
• (3) Mood The intimacy of expression that is
  captured by these pieces. The singer pianist
  appear to be sharing an emotional insight with
  younot with the entire audience.
• Composers intended lieder to be sung and enjoyed
  in a salon or at homenot in the concert hall.

22
Schubert

• The Erlking the poem is by Johann Wilhelm
  Goethe, the greatest literary figure of the day.
  Though the poem consists of 8 parallel stanzas,
  they are not set to the same music. So it is
  called through-composed---different music for
  different stanzas. Strophic is a song that uses
  the same music for each stanza of the poem.
• Song cycle A group of songs with a common poetic
  theme or actual story connecting all the poems.
• 1 ERLKÖNIG
• Art Song-(P. 225)

23
Robert Schumann (1810-1856) Germany

• Embodied musical romanticism.
• His works are intensely biographical, have
  descriptive titles, texts or programs
• Original piano pieces and songs
• Writer and critic At age 23 he founded a music
  magazine (he inherited from his father a great
  flair for literature) to campaign for a higher
  level of music Die Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik
  (The New Music Journal)and it is still being
  published!
• Worked as a teacher and conductor
• Married Clara a famous pianist at 15 when they
  met (daughter of his piano teacher) had to wait
  until she was 23. He wrote around 150 love songs
  for Clara the year in which they were married
  1840prior to that his early compositions had
  been almost entirely for the piano.

24
Schumann

• He suffered mood swings and breakdowns
• In 1845 he was tormented by voices and
  hallucinations and loss of memory and tried to
  drown himself in the River Rhinewas committed to
  an asylum. He died two years later.
• 2 Carnaval Estrella, N0. 13 Reconnaissance,
  No. 14 (Page 229) Carnaval is a cycle of 21 brief
  pieces with descriptive titles evoking a festive
  masked ball.

25
Clara Wieck Schumann, Germany (1819-1896)

• Acclaimed child prodigyVirtuoso and leading 19th
  C pianist who composed her own works to play at
  her own concerts
• Premiered many of her husbands works, she was a
  better pianist
• Renowned as a teacher, edited his collected works
• Stopped composing at age 35.
• She relied on performing and teaching because she
  had to support 8 children after her husband died
  when she was 37.
• Works songs, piano pieces, piano concerto, trio
  for piano violin and cello and Three Romances
  for Violin and Piano
• 3-Schumann, C - Liebst du um Schönheit (If you
  love for beauty) joint song cycle. (P. 232)

26
Frederic Chopin (1810-1849) Polish/French

• He had a personal and original style.
• Made his living as a highly fashionable piano
  teacher and by selling his music to publishers.
• Mostly wrote exquisite miniatures, among them are
  over 50 Mazurkas and Polonaises which are
  stylized Polish dances
• They evoke a variety of moods
• Always elegant, graceful and melodic
• Made the piano sound beautiful (as no one else
  did)
• He was a frail and fastidious personality, and
  the major event of his personal life was a
  10-year romance with Madame Aurore Dudevant (an
  early feminists and a famous novelist under the
  pen name George Sand). They were introduced by
  Franz Liszt. They had a rocky relationship and
  when the affair ended in 1847, his health
  declined with his spirits
• In 1848 he toured England and Scotland and died
  the next year at age 39 of tuberculosis, a major
  killer of the 19th century.
• 4 CHOPIN Nocturne in E Flat Major, Op. 9, No.
  2 (P. 234)
• 5 CHOPIN Etude in C Minor, Op. 10, No. 12 (P.
  236)

27
Franz Liszt Hungary (1811-1886)

• Virtuoso, superhuman feats at the piano, and
  irresistible to women.
• Abandoned his career as a traveling virtuoso (age
  36) to become a court conductor and to compose.
• Conducted works by his contemporaries Berlioz,
  Schumann, Wagner(a strong advocate of the music
  of Wagner and the two men learned from each
  other)
• Taught hundreds of gifted pianists free of
  charge.
• He went to Rome for religious studies, took minor
  holy orders (1861) and became an Abbéand stunned
  his contemporaries because he was known as a
  notorious Don Juan and diabolical virtuosoand
  now he is a churchman composing oratorios and
  masses.
• He found new ways to exploit the piano (his
  melodies are sometimes surrounded by arpeggios
  that create the impression of three hands
  playing.)
• Liszt wrote transcriptions so that people could
  play operas and symphonies at their pianos.
• He created the Symphonic Poem, or tone poem. (A
  one movement orchestral composition based on to
  some extent on literary or pictorial ideas.)
  Listening

28
Felix Mendelssohn Germany (1809-1847)

• He may be the only great composer who has ever
  come from an upper class family of converted Jews
  who made their fortune in banking.
• Was a romantic whose music was rooted in the
  classical.
• Brilliant pianist by the age of 9.
• At age 15 he was conducting the family orchestra
  (home performances in their mansion) in his own
  music.
• He was a successful composer, pianist, organist,
  conductor, educator, musicologistand he found
  the Leipzig Conservatory of Music
• His older sister Fanny was also a great composer
  (all kinds of music including oratorios).
  Unfortunately, her compositions never left the
  mansion because the cultivated upper
  middle-class family that encouraged Felix,
  adhered to the middle class social values which
  would not allow the women-folk to lower herself
  by becoming a professional musician
• Her sudden death at age 42 devastated her brother
  so much so that it hastened his own death, less
  than six months later. Concerto for Violin and
  Orchestra in E Minor (P. 242)

29
PROGRAM MUSIC

• Instrumental music associated with a story, poem,
  idea or scene.
• Depict emotions, characters and events of the
  sounds of naturethese nonmusical ideas are
  usually specified by the title or by the
  composers explanatory comments (the program)
• The story is the program.
• It wasnt new, but gained new importance and
  prestige during this time.
• The aim is expression more than description

30
New Forms

• A Program symphony is a composition in several
  movements. (a symphony with a program). Entire
  symphonies with programs spelled out movement by
  movement. Each movement has a descriptive title
  (See Berlioz, Fantastic Symphony)
• A Symphonic Poem, or Tone Poem is in one
  movement. Takes many traditional forms sonata
  form, rondo theme and variationas well as
  irregular forms
• Absolute Music Non program music.

31
Hector Berlioz France (1803-1869)

• The first great composer to play no standard
  instrument at all. He did play the guitar.
• He was also one of the first great conductors and
  toured extensively as a conductor of his own
  music, where he was welcomed with open arms in
  Germany.
• Daring creator of new orchestral sounds. He
  thought the unthinkable. His grandiose
  program symphonies had no precedent and were not
  matched in ambition until Mahler. He had an
  incredible imagination when it came to tone
  color.
• He was inspired by literary models, especially
  Shakespeare.
• His unconventional music irritated the opera and
  concert establishment.
• He had to arrange concerts at his own
  expensejust to get people to listen to them
• Had a faithful following, but not enough to
  support him, so he turned to music
  journalismbecoming a brilliant music critic.
• He received constant ridicule from the musical
  establishment and he ultimately managed to get
  most of his enormous compositions performed and
  to attain favorable recognition in Paris, which
  was musically conservative.

32
Berlioz

• Music is unique in its abrupt contrast,
  fluctuating dynamics and many changes in tempo.
• Imaginative orchestrator (assembled more players
  than the average size to achieve new power).
• Created the idée fixe (fixed idea) use of a
  single melody to represent the beloved.
• 6 Symphonie Fantastique Fourth Movement -
  March to the Scaffold
• (P. 248)

33
Bedrich Smetana Czech (1824-1884)

• Founder of Czech Nationalism. Bohemia was trying
  to gain their independence from Austria.
• He returned from Sweden where he was working and
  dived into a self-appointed task of establishing
  a Czech brand of Opera. That meant the libretto
  had to be in Czech (the language issue was
  central in Bohemian politics)and Smetana had to
  teach himself Czech because he had grown up
  speaking German.
• Works are steeped in folk music and legends of
  Bohemia
• Active composer, pianist, conductor and teacher.
• Bartered Bride, his most famous opera. Tells the
  story of peasant life in Bohemia.
• 7 The Moldau (P. 254)

34
Antonin Dvorák Czech (1841-1904)

• Followed Smetana as the leading composer of Czech
  national music.
• He infused his symphonies with the spirit of
  Bohemian folk song and dance.
• Was a little known composer until Brahms
  recommended Dvorak to his own publisherand then
  his fame spread.
• Came to New York in 1892, encouraged American
  composers to write nationalistic music.
• He was head of the New York National Conservatory
  of Music (ancestor of Juilliard).
• The music of African Americans got a powerful
  boost from this first major European composer to
  spend time in America. He announced his special
  admiration for spirituals, and advised his
  American colleagues to make use of them in
  concert musicas he did himself.
• He incorporated the essence of spirituals so
  skillfully in his ever-popular New World
  Symphonythat one of his tunes was actually
  adapted to made-up folk song words, --Goin
  Home.
• 8 Dvorak Symphony No. 9 in E Minor (P. 257)

35
Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky Russian (1840-1893)

• Most famous Russian Composer. He attended the new
  St. Petersburg Conservatory. Once he got started
  he composed prolifically. (6 symphonies, 11
  operas, symphonic poems, chamber music, songs and
  some of the most famous ballet scores Swan
  Lake, Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker.
• He fused national and international elements to
  produce intensely subjective and passionate
  music, and his pieces may sound Russian, but he
  was not considered a devoted nationalist
• His famous Piano Concerto No. 1 was premiered in
  Boston in 1875, and then he toured America in
  1891.
• He was a depressive personality who attempted
  suicide several times.
• He was subsidized by a remarkable woman (Madame
  von Meck), a wealthy widow. They never met but
  exchanged letters for 13 years She eventually
  terminated the relationship with no explanation.
• He died after drinking unboiled water during a
  cholera epidemic.
• His music was widely admired and his Romeo
  Juliet (concert overture) is one of the best
  loved orchestral works.

36
Johannes Brahms Germany (1833-1897)

• A Romantic who breathed new life into classical
  forms. Considered to be the most Romantic of
  composers.
• He devoted a great effort to traditional genres
  such as string quartets, and other chamber works,
  symphonies and concertos. The typical romantic
  genre he cultivated was the miniaturethe lied
  and the characteristic piano piece.
• Created masterpieces in all of the traditional
  forms except opera.
• He declared his ideal music to be folk songs,
  and he composed sensitive arrangements of folk
  songs.
• He wrote rhythmically exciting, contrasting
  patterns and syncopations (2 against 3, one of
  his trademarks-one instrument plays two even
  notes to a beat, while another instrument plays
  3)
• The German Requiem established Brahms (at age
  34), as a leading composer of his day.
• 9 Brahms Symphony 3 in F Major,
• Third Movement (P. 264)

37
Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901) Italy

• Considered the greatest of Italian opera
  composers and most popular of all opera
  composers.
• He was the dominant figure in the 19th century
  opera houses.
• He had a staunch commitment to the human voice
  and the bel canto principals (a style of singing
  that brings out the sensuous beauty of the
  voice). He never allowed the voice to be
  overshadowed by the orchestraeven though the
  orchestra plays a much richer role than in those
  of his predecessors.
• His name actually became a patriotic acronym for
  the popular choice for KingVittorio Emmanuele,
  re dItalia long live Victor Emmanuel, King of
  Italy)and after independence was achieved the
  was made an honorary deputy in the 1st Italian
  parliament.

38
Verdi

• Composed for a mass public whose main
  entertainment was opera.
• Expressive vocal melody is the soul of a Verdi
  opera.
• His last three opera are his greatest Aida,
  Otello, and Falstaff. (Falstaff considered the
  greatest and a comic masterpiece). The last two
  on Shakespearian subjects were written when he
  was in his 70s
• He died a national institution at age 88, and
  mourned throughout Italy.
• His operas remain the most popular of all in the
  international repertory.
• He wrote 24 operas including Aida, La Traviata
  and Rigoletto a requiem mass, choral works and a
  string quartet.

39
Giacomo Puccini Italy (1858-1924)

• Worked under the shadow of Verdi. He was the only
  composer of his time whose melodies could stand
  comparison to Verdis.
• Created some of the best-loved operas.
• His Marvelous sense of theater and gift of the
  theatrical has given his operas lasting
  appealthey impressed the international audiences
  in his day and still today.
• He is especially moving in his depiction of
  afflicted woman (the abandoned woman, Cio-Cio
  san in Madame Butterfly the woman dying of
  consumption (Mimi) in La Boheme and the woman
  (Floria Tosca) who fights off a lecherous police
  chief in Tosca. It appears that their stories are
  know everywhere and have resurfaced on Broadway
  (as Miss Saigon and Rent.)
• Melodies have short, memorable phrases and are
  intensely emotional.

40
Puccini

• He used the orchestra to reinforce the vocal
  melody and to suggest mood
• Some of this operas, (Tosca), reflect a
  verismo?realism, or the quality of being true to
  life.
• Or they reflected exoticism Madame Butterfly
  (set in Japan), and Turandot (China). He made a
  careful study of non-Western music for use in
  these operas.
• 10 Puccini La Boheme, Act 1
• (P. 271)

41
Richard Wagner Germany (1813-1883)

• Made a powerful impact on his time. After
  Beethoven he was the most influential of all the
  19th century composers.
• He worked as an opera conductor as a young man in
  Paris.
• He married his second wife Cosima (who was the
  daughter of Franz Liszt).
• His early operasThe Flying Dutchman, Tannhauser,
  and Lohengrin although in the tradition of early
  Romantic opera, began to hint at his
  revolutionary ideal he had for opera

42
Wagner

• He started this new music drama after being
  exiled (for 13 years) from Germany because of the
  role he played in the Revolution of 1848-49.
• He was supported by the mad King Ludwig II of
  Bavaria and was able to produce his music
  dramasand then promoted the building of a
  special opera house in Bayreuth, Germany for
  these music dramasand to this day, the opera
  house performs only Wagner.
• Called his works music dramas, rather than
  operas. It was a new kind of opera in the
  1850s, Music shares the honor with poetry, drama
  and philosophyall furnished by Wagneras well
  as the stage design and acting.
• He coined the word, Gesamtkunstwerk (meaning
  total work of art) for his powerful concept, and
  made that distinction between his workswhich
  were music dramasand ordinary operas.

43
Wagner

• His operas and artistic philosophy influenced
  musicians, poets, painters and playwrights.
• Wrote his own librettos (based on medieval
  Germanic legends myths)
• His strictly musical innovations, in harmony and
  orchestration, revolutionized instrumental music
  as well as opera. Tension of his music is
  heightened by chromatic and dissonant harmonies.
• Uses brief recurrent musical themes called
  leitmotifs (guiding or leading motives.)
• A leitmotif is a short musical idea associated
  with a person, an object, or a thought in the
  drama.
• He created a storm of controversy in his
  lifetime, which has not died down today. (He
  wrote endless articles expounding all of his
  ideas and unfortunately his anti-Semitic remarks
  (50 years after his death) were taken up by the
  Nazis.
• .

44
Wagner

• It is said that he was half con man, half
  visionary, a bad poet and a very good musician.
• He was a major figure in the intellectual life of
  his time whose ideas were highly influential not
  just in music but also in other artsand in this
  sense he was the most important of the Romantic
  composers.
• 11 Die Walküre (The Valkyrie) Act I (P. 280)
  Is the second and most widely performed of the
  four music dramas in Wagners gigantic cycle, Der
  Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of
  Nibelung)Wagners view of 20th century society.

45
Encapsulation

• In a nutshell
• Romantics had enthusiasm for fantasy, nature
  and the Middle Agesand Romantic music puts
  unprecedented emphasis on self-expression and
  individuality of stylewhich reflects their
  personalities.