Skip to Main Content

Music (Western/Classical): Romantic Period

About

The composition of Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 in 1812 is often regarded as the start of the Romantic period in the early years of the 19th century-with Beethoven straddling it and the preceding classical period. Romanticism in music, which survived through until the early 20th century, is closely related to romanticism in the other arts, such as literature, painting and sculpture. The romantic movement believed that not all truth could be deduced from established principles but that there were inescapable realities that could only be appreciated through emotion, feeling and intuition.

The age was one of contradictions: a harkening back to the music of an earlier age combined with experimentation in terms of harmony and form.

There were also new instruments to compose for and developments in earlier instruments that increased their range. Many composers of this era worked outside their discipline; both Schumann and Berlioz were noted writers and critics. Indeed, the former was influential in promoting the music of both Chopin and Brahms through the journal Neue Zeitschrift für Musik (New Journal of Music). An awareness of landscape and nature, essential parts of the romantic overview, played an important role in the work of many composers.

The Romantic era was also marked by an increased domesticity-the piano, although developed in the late 17th or early 18th centuries, was becoming an instrument of choice for the homes of the growing numbers of the increasingly prosperous middle class throughout the continent. Family entertainment regularly involved piano playing, or singing accompanied by the piano, and most of the great Romantic composers produced small-scale pieces that were, and remain, central to the piano's repertoire. Moreover, many larger scale pieces were themselves transcribed for use by pianists.

The romantic era. (2017). In M. Swift (Ed.), Latin American History and Culture: Classical music: an introduction. Greene Media. Credo Reference: https://ezproxy.southern.edu/login?url=https://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/gmclassical/the_romantic_era/0?institutionId=2258

Books

Chopin

(Unlocking the Masters). Frederic Chopin died a famous man with his place in the musical pantheon secure. Yet the works that were once most popular tended to be his lightest and least challenging, leading many listeners and critics to view him as a miniaturist and composer for the salon. The bold pieces now revered as his masterpieces-the epic and tragic structures of the ballades, scherzos, polonaises, and sonatas, and the compact but daring preludes and mazurkas-were rarely played and poorly understood. In fact, a larger proportion of Chopin's pieces are now in the active repertory than that of any composer. Chopin A Listener's Guide to the Master of the Piano takes a detailed tour through the life and oeuvre of the sovereign master of the keyboard. The composer's metabolic adaptation of the melodic structures of Italian opera and the folk music of his native Poland for the resources of the piano are examined in detail, as are the originality and boldness he displayed throughout his tragically short, astonishing career. The book is accompanied by a CD containing 15 complete compositions (and one full movement from his Piano Sonata No. 2) performed by pianist Idil Biret, from her complete survey of the composer's music on the Naxos label.

Strauss

Richard Strauss is an outlier in the context of twentieth century music. Some consider him a composer of the late romantic period, while others declare him a traitor of modernity for his role in National Socialism. Despite the controversy surrounding him, Strauss's works--even beyond his most well-known operas Elektra and Rosenkavalier--are present in the repertories of concert halls worldwide and continue to enjoy large audiences. The details of the composer's life, however, remain shrouded in mystery and gossip. Laurenz Lütteken's Strauss presents a fresh approach to understanding this elusive composer's life and works. Dispensing with stereotypes and sensationalism, it reveals Strauss to be a sensitive intellectual and representative of modernity, with all light and shade of the turn of the twentieth century.

Mahler in Context

Mahler in Context explores the institutions, artists, thinkers, cultural movements, socio-political conditions, and personal relationships that shaped Mahler's creative output. Focusing on the contexts surrounding the artist, the collection provides a sense of the complex crosscurrents against which Mahler was reacting as conductor, composer, and human being. Topics explored include his youth and training, performing career, creative activity, spiritual and philosophical influences, and his reception after his death. Together, this collection of specially commissioned essays offers a wide-ranging investigation of the ecology surrounding Mahler as a composer and a fuller appreciation of the topics that occupied his mind as he conceived his works. Readers will benefit from engagement with lesser known dimensions of Mahler's life. Through this broader contextual approach, this book will serve as a valuable and unique resource for students, scholars, and a general readership.

Dvorák and His World

Antonin Dvorák made his famous trip to the United States one hundred years ago, but despite an enormous amount of attention from scholars and critics since that time, he remains an elusive figure. Comprising both interpretive essays and a selection of fascinating documents that bear on Dvorák's career and music, this volume addresses fundamental questions about the composer while presenting an argument for a radical reappraisal. The essays, which make up the first part of the book, begin with Leon Botstein's inquiry into the reception of Dvorák's work in German-speaking Europe, in England, and in America. Commenting on the relationship between Dvorák and Brahms, David Beveridge offers the first detailed portrait of perhaps the most interesting artistic friendship of the era. Joseph Horowitz explores the context in which the "New World" Symphony was premiered a century ago, offering an absorbing account of New York musical life at that time. In discussing Dvorák as a composer of operas, Jan Smaczny provides an unexpected slant on the widely held view of him as a "nationalist" composer. Michael Beckerman further investigates this view of Dvorák by raising the question of the role nationalism played in music of the nineteenth century. The second part of this volume presents Dvorák's correspondence and reminiscences as well as unpublished reviews and criticism from the Czech press. It includes a series of documents from the composer's American years, a translation of the review of Rusalka's premiere with the photographs that accompanied the article, and Janácek's analyses of the symphonic poems. Many of these documents are published in English for the first time.

Listen to a Sergei Rachmaninoff Symphony

Videos-Mendelssohn's Elijah

Listen to an Aria from a Giacomo Puccini Opera