DO YOUR OWN THING!

Be an individual!

Live and express yourself freely and loudly!

Write music for the popular culture!

Sounds like the U.S. today right?

Yes, but it is also a good description of artistic life in the great capitals of Europe from about 1820 to about 1900.

1820- 1900

“Romantic” as a style does not mean mushy love scenes on TV or in movies.

The Romantic style was marked by

A lot of individual freedom

New ways of building music (form)

ROMANTIC PERIOD

Strong emotional appeal

A sense of the dramatic

A love for soaring melody

Large orchestras with new instrumental colors as well as the old perfected to our modern standards

ROMANTIC PERIOD

While the Classical composers loved order and form and wrote music that was only about music itself……Romantic

composers often wrote in forms that were rather loose, and the music was often about nonmusical subjects,

such as nature, heroic travels or events pertaining to nationalism.

ROMANTIC PERIOD

The subjects of music often dealt with fantastic or dream- like characters.

Program music, in which a specific story, idea, or scene was portrayed through music, was popular.

“Flight of the Bumble Bee” by Rimsky Korsakov is a prime example of this.

ROMANTIC PERIOD

Sharp clashes of dynamics and tempo, as well as abrupt changes in mood were common.

Composers were able to compose music more for their own individual purposes.

But they couldn’t make as much money as the earlier composers who had job security working for the aristocracy.

ROMANTIC PERIOD

Because of this, Romantic composers often worked as on the side as teachers, conductors, music critics, or soloists.

Most of the music of the Romantic period was written for the middle class by middle class composers

ROMANTIC PERIOD

The Romantic stressed emotion, imagination, and individualism.

Many of the composers and writers loved nature, were very devout, patriotic and had a deep interest in the supernatural.

ROMANTIC PERIOD

It’s no accident that two of the greatest horror novels, later made into movies were

Romantic novels.

Frankenstein DraculaBy Mary Shelley by Bram Stoker

ROMANTIC PERIOD

Some major figures and events of the Romantic period were

Abraham Lincoln (1809- 1865)

16th President of the United States (1861-1865)

WHAT IS GOING ON IN THE WORLD?

Thomas Edison (1847-1931)

American inventor

WHAT IS GOING ON IN THE WORLD?

George Elliot

(Mary Ann Evans)

(1819-80)

English Novelist

WHAT IS GOING ON IN THE WORLD?

Karl Marx(1818-1883)

German political Philosopher and Revolutionist whoWrote CommunistManifesto and Das

Kapital.

WHAT IS GOING ON IN THE WORLD?

Transcontinental Railroad Construction

WHAT IS GOING ON IN THE WORLD?

California Gold Rush

(1848-1856)

WHAT IS GOING ON IN THE WORLD?

Born in Germany in 1810Studied law at Leipzig

University, but actually

wanted to study music and

literature.At 20 yrs old he decided

to become a pianist, but ended up injuring his hand trying to stretch his fingers.

ROBERT SCHUMANN

He became a composer and music critic, founding the New Journal of Music. In this journal he wrote

of his appreciation of Chopin and Berlioz.Schumann composed art songs, and many piano pieces. They are usually in cycles. i.e.- Carnaval

(Carnival), Kinderscenen (Scenes from Childhood) Nachtstuke (Night Pieces), Dichterliebe ( Poet’s

love), etc.

ROBERT SCHUMANN

A cycle of 21 short pieces that have descriptive titles.Schumann called it a musical picture gallery.

It has musical images of the young women in his life.It was inspired from his brief engagement to Ernestine

von Fricken, a student of Clara Wieck’s father.Estrella- marked with con affecto (with feeling) is the

image of his fiance Ernestine. Reconnaissance- (Reunion) A little longer than Estrella.

It is a more lyrical piece.

CARNAVAL

•Clara Wieck Schumann was a virtuoso pianist, composer, and leading interpreter of the music of

Brahms, Chopin, and Robert Schumann, her husband

She is known for her songs, piano music, and chamber music.

Her works are technically difficult and also deeply introspective.

CLARA SCHUMANN

Liebst d um Schonheit (If you love for beauty; 1841)

- Song written by Clara shortly after her wedding

- Sung in German by a man-part of a joint song cycle written by

Robert and Clara.

-for Piano and voice to be done with affection

CLARA SCHUMANN CONT.

•In the Romantic era, the piano was both a popular instrument for home use and for virtuosos such as Liszt, Chopin, and the American pianist Louis Moreau Gottschalk.

•Technical improvements to the nineteenth century piano led to the development of the modern concert grand piano.

•The short lyric piano piece, often with a fanciful title, was a favorite Romantic genre.

PIANO MUSIC

•Frédéric Chopin dedicated his entire compositional output to the piano; he is said to have originated the modern piano style.

•Chopin lived and worked in Paris among the leading intellectuals and artists of France.

•His output includes études—highly virtuosic and technical study pieces—meditative nocturnes, preludes, and dances (including Polish mazurkas and polonaises), as well as sonatas and concertos for piano.

CHOPIN

Etude in C Minor, Op.10, No. 12(Revolutionary; 1831?)

-An etudeetude is designed to help a performer master is designed to help a performer master specific technical difficulties.specific technical difficulties.-The The RevolutionaryRevolutionary Etude is designed to help Etude is designed to help pianist develop speed and endurance for the left pianist develop speed and endurance for the left hand.hand.

- The tempo is marked - The tempo is marked apassionato (impassioned)apassionato (impassioned)…………IT IS VERY FAST.IT IS VERY FAST.

CHOPIN CONT.

•Romantic composers cultivated program music— instrumental music with a literary or pictorial association supplied by the composer—over absolute music.

•The four main types of program music include the concert overture, incidental music to a play, the program symphony (a multimovement work), and the symphonic poem (a one-movement work).

PROGRAM MUSIC

French composer and conductor Hector Berlioz wrote Symphonie fantastique, a five-movement program symphony, while living in Italy.

The program for the work drew on his personal life and on his infatuation and courtship with the actress Harriet Smithson.

Berlioz was an innovative writer for orchestra, introducing new colors and instrumental techniques to the ensemble.

The five movements of Symphonie fantastique are unified by a recurring theme (idée fixe) representing his beloved.

BERLIOZ

IV- March to the Scaffold-This part of the dream, he dreams he killed his beloved and is walking to the scaffold to be hung.-Intensity builds through out-At the end you hear the idee fixe in the clarinet alone, then a big boom (him falling and hanging)-Ends on a major chord because justice is served.

SYMPHONIE FANTASTIQUE

•Romantic opera developed distinct national styles in France, Germany, and Italy.

•In France, lyric opera represented a merger between grand opera (serious historical dramas with spectacular effects) and opéra comique (comic opera with spoken dialogue).

•In Germany, the genre of Singspiel (light, comic drama with spoken dialogue) gave way to more serious works, including Richard Wagner's music drama, which integrated all elements of opera.

ROMANTIC OPERA

•Both opera seria (serious opera) and opera buffa (comic opera) were favored in Italy; they marked the peak of the bel canto (beautiful singing) style.

•Many Romantic composers turned to exotic plots for their operas, looking to faraway lands or cultures for inspiration.

ROMANTIC OPERA

•The Italian nationalist composer Giuseppe Verdi is best known for his twenty-eight operas; they embody the spirit of Romantic drama and passion.

•Many of Verdi's operas draw on well-known literary sources, including several from Shakespeare plays (Macbeth, Otello, and Falstaff from Merry Wives of Windsor).

•Rigoletto, Verdi's opera based on a play by Victor Hugo, is one of the most performed works in the repertory today.

ITALIAN OPERA

•The German composer Richard Wagner revolutionized opera with his idea of the Gesamtkunstwerk— a total work of art unifying all elements.

•Wagner's operas—called music dramas—are not sectional (in arias, ensembles, and the like) but are continuous; they are unifed by leitmotifs, or recurring themes, that represent a person, place, or idea.

•The emotional quality of Wagner's music is heightened by his extensive use of chromatic dissonance.

•Wagner's most famous work is his four-opera cycle, The Ring of the Nibelung.

GERMAN OPERA

•The post-Romantic composer Giacomo Puccini wrote some of the best-loved operas of all time, including La bohème and Madame Butterfly.

•In Madame Butterfly, Puccini combines verismo (realism) and exoticism (Japanese music and culture), both popular at the end of the nineteenth century.

•The libretto for Madame Butterfly reflects end-of-the century European-American interest in geisha culture.

PUCCINI

•Previously part of lavish entertainments, ballet was established as an independent art form in the eighteenth century, particularly in France and Russia.

•The Russian choreographer Marius Petipa created the pas de deux (dance for two), which became central to classical ballet.

•The three ballets of Russian composer Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky—Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, and The Nutcracker—remain favorites today.

TCHAIKOVSKY AND THE BALLET