History and Culture of Europe during the Romantic Period

1. R O M A N T I C I S M
R O M A N T I C I S M I N M U S I C
R O M A N T I C C O M P O S E R S A N D T H E I R P U B L I C
The Romantic Period
(1820-1900)

2. THE WORLD DURING THE ROMANTIC PERIOD
HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL EVENTS
 1837-1901 Queen Victoria reigns in England
 1848 Revolutions in Europe
Marx and Engles, The Communist
Manifesto
 1859 Charles Darwin, Origin of Species
 1876 Bell invents Telephone
 1898 Spanish-American War

3. THE WORLD
DURING THE
ROMANTIC
PERIOD
Delacroix, Dante and
Virgil in Hell

4. THE WORLD
DURING THE
ROMANTIC
PERIOD
Caspar David Friedrich,
The Wanderer above a
Sea of Mist

5. THE WORLD
DURING THE
ROMANTIC
PERIOD
Vincent van Gogh, The
Starry Night

6. THE WORLD
DURING THE
ROMANTIC
PERIOD
Munch, The Scream

7. ROMANTICISM

8. ROMANTICISM
 A cultural movement that stressed emotion,
imagination, and individuality.
 In Literature, Romantic Period writers broke away from time-
honored conventions and emphasized freedom of expression.
 In Art, Romantic Period painters used bolder, more brilliant
colors and preferred dynamic motion to gracefully balanced
poses.
 Emotional Subjectivity was a basic quality of
romanticism in Art.

9. ROMANTICISM
 Romantics were especially drawn to the realm of
fantasy; the unconscious, the irrational, the world of
dreams.
 Romanticism coincided with the Industrial
Revolution, which caused vast social and economic
changes.
 Subjectivity, fantasy, and enthusiasm for nature and
the Middle Ages are only a few aspects of
romanticism in literature and painting.

10. ROMANTICISM in
MUSIC

11. Romanticism in Music
 Significant Romantic musicians: Franz Schubert,
Robert Schumann, Frederic Chopin, Franz Liszt,
Felix Mendelssohn, Hector Berlioz, Peter Ilyich
Tchaikovsky, Bedrich Smetana, Antonin Dvorak,
Johannes Brahms, Giuseppe Verdi, Giacomo
Puccini, Richard Wagner, and Gustav Mahler

12. Romanticism in Music
CLASSICAL MUSIC
 Musical works have
definite and predictable
ranges, limited to fixes
dynamics and pitch
 Harmonic vocabulary is
structured, with chords
dwelling on major/minor
quality
 Classical music is often
commissioned, or
composed according to
occassions.
ROMANTIC MUSIC
 Musical works have greater
ranges in tone color,
dynamics and pitch
 Harmonic vocabulary is
broader, with more
emphasis on colorful,
unstable chords
 Romantic music is linked
more closely to the other
arts, particularly to
literature.

13. Romanticism in Music
CHARACTERISTICS OF ROMANTIC MUSIC
1. Individuality of Styles – romantic music puts
unprecedented emphasis on self-expression and
individuality of style.
 Many romantics created music that sounds unique and
reflect their personalities.
2. Expressive Aims and Subjects – the romantics
explored a universe of feeling that include
flamboyance and intimacy, unpredictability and
melancholy, rapture and longing.
 Berlioz’s Symphony Fantastique – Dream of a Witches’
Sabbath and Schubert’s Erlking

14. Romanticism in Music
3. Nationalism and Exoticism – Musical nationalism
was expressed when romantic composers deliberately
created music with a specific national identity using
folk songs, dances, legends and history of their
homelands. Fascination with national identity also led
composers to draw on colorful materials from foreign
lands, a trend known as musical exoticism.
 Bizet’s Carmen, Puccini’s Madame Butterfly, Rimsky-Korsakov’s
Scheherazade.
4. Program Music – instrumental music associated with a
story, poem, idea or scene. A programmatical
instrumental piece can represent the emotions,
characters, and events of a particular story, or it can
evoke the sounds and motion of nature

15. Romanticism in Music
5. Expressive Tone Color – Romantic composers
reveled in rich and sensuous sound, using tone
color to obtain a variety of moods and atmosphere.
 The romantic orchestra was larger and more varied in tone
color than the classical orchestra (almost 100 musicians)
 Composers increased the power of the brass section for
spectacular sound effects
 Woodwind sections made the piccolo, contrabassoon, bass
clarinet and English horn regular members of the orchestra
 Cast-iron frame was introduced to the piano for holding the
strings under great tension, hammers used felt, and use of
the damper (“loud”) pedal

16. Romanticism in Music
6. Colorful Harmony – the romantics explored new
chords and novel ways of using familiar chords.
 Chromatic Harmony – chromatic chords add color and
motion to romantic music. dissonant, unstable chords were
also used more freely than during the classical era. These
chords create feelings of yearning, tension and mystery when
used as a delayed resolution to a stable chord.
7. Expanded Range of Dynamics, Pitch and Tempo –
the classical dynamic extremes of ff and pp didn’t
meet the needs of romantics, who sometimes
demanded ffff and pppp.

17. Romanticism in Music
8. Form: Miniature and Monumental – Romantic
composers characteristically expressed themselves
both in musical miniatures and monumental
compositions.
 Piano pieces by Chopin and Schubert last for a few minutes.
Berlioz and Wagner’s symphonies call for huge performers
and last for several hours.

18. ROMANTIC COMPOSERS and
their PUBLIC

19. ROMANTIC COMPOSERS and their PUBLIC
 The composers’ role in society changed radically
during Beethoven’s lifetime. In earlier periods, part
of a musician’s job had been the composition of
works for a specific occasion and audience.
 The image of Beethoven as a “free artist” inspired
romantic musicians, who often composed to meet an
inner need rather than fulfill a commission.
 Romantic composers were interested not only in
pleasing their contemporaries but also in being
judged favorably by posterity.

20. ROMANTIC COMPOSERS and their PUBLIC
 Romantic composers wrote primarily for middle-
class audience whose size and prosperity had
increased because of the industrial revolution
 The needs of the urban middle class led to the
formation of many orchestras and opera groups
during the romantic era. Public concerts had
developed during the 18th century, but not until the
19th century did regular subscription concerts
become common.
 The 19th century public was captivated by virtuosity
 Franz Liszt and Niccolo Paganini

21. ROMANTIC COMPOSERS and their PUBLIC
 Romantic composers came from the social class that
was their main audience.
 Few romantic composers were able to support
themselves through composition alone.