Generating page narration, please wait...
section_4_romantic

Learning Objectives

Be ready to...
  • Relate how Romantic poets and artists abandoned traditional subjects, turning instead to the passionate and the fanciful.
  • Relate how the Industrial Revolution impacted the technological development and affordability of musical instruments.
  • Analyze how the orchestra grew in size and sound as new instruments were introduced and composers demanded greater levels of expression.
  • Illustrate how Romantic composers explored nationalistic folklore and exotic subjects.
  • Identify the form of romantic period songs, including strophic, through-composed, and the modified strophic forms.
  • Examine the German art song (or Lied) as a favored romantic period genre.
  • Discuss how the music of Franz Schubert impacted romantic period music.
  • Discuss how the music of Frédéric Chopin impacted romantic period music.
  • Trace the ascendance of program music in relation to absolute music.
  • Summarize how political unrest throughout Europe stimulated the formation of schools of musical nationalism in Russia, Scandinavia, Spain, England, and Bohemia among other countries.
  • Differentiate between the distinct national styles of romantic opera in France, Germany, and Italy.
  • Discuss how the Italian nationalist composer Giuseppe Verdi impacted romantic period music.
  • Trace how choral music became a popular artistic outlet for the middle classes.
  • Discuss how the Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky impacted romantic period music.

Romantic Period (1820–1910)

Romantic Music: A First Look

Romantic Rhythm

In Schubert’s “Erlkönig,” you heard how the rhythm in the piano implied a horse galloping through the night. Composers in the Romantic period explored new ways to use rhythm to make their music emotionally expressive. They also tried faster tempos and often changed tempos within a piece. For example, there are many tempo changes in the final two and a half minutes of the “Triumphal March” from Verdi’s opera Aida (1871).

Composer: Giuseppe Verdi

  • "Aida: Act II: Triumphal March"

Rubato—slight variations in tempo that performers use to add expression to the music—was used to a much greater degree than in previous periods. Rubato is often described as a “push and pull” of the tempo. You can hear it in this excerpt from Chopin’s Waltz in C-sharp Minor, Op. 64, No. 2.

Composer: Frédéric Chopin

  • "Waltzes, Op. 64: Waltz No. 7 in C-Sharp Minor, Op. 64, Op. 2" [ 00:00-00:54 ]00:54

Romantic composers also created complex and irregular rhythm patterns oftentimes adopted from folk rhythms. Fast tempo with accented rhythms based on folk dances may be heard in the following excerpt from the Slavonic Dance No. 8 by Antonìn Dvořák.

Composer: Antonín Dvořák

  • "Slavonic Dances, Op. 46: No. 8 in G Minor"

The excitement of an increasing tempo (accelerando) may be heard in this excerpt from the familiar In the Hall of the Mountain King, by the Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg.

Composer: Edvard Grieg

  • "Peer Gynt Suite No. 1, Op. 46: IV. In the Hall of the Mountain King" [ 01:41-02:22 ]00:41