Romantic Period
Jul 27 '00
Beethoven was a pioneer in many ways, but one of the most important is that he worked independently, without the auspices of a benefactor. As a result, his music was less factory-produced in nature and more homegrown. This became more and more commonplace as time went on. It followed the entire basis of the romantic era's idealistic center in that it focused on the individual instead of the whole, on emotion instead of reason.
A great deal of the structure that was gradually built up during the previous two major eras in music began to decrease in use. Composers began to write subject pieces, music that portrays a story, painting, situation, etc. Also, works like etudes, rhapsodies, and fantasies--compromised of very little formal structure--became popular.
Perhaps the reason for this is the burgeoning concept of the solo performer. Up to this time, concerts used to be quite varied, eclectic events, due to the fact that monarchs and the like hosting the concert tended to have short attention spans, so hearing the same performer or type of performance for several hours would be too much to stomach. But as pieces became more difficult, varied, and flashier, and performers became better and better and better (leading up to Franz Liszt, perhaps the best pianist ever to have lived), they stole the show, and then just became the show. The solo recital was born.
Other important developments during this time include the finishing touches on the modern symphony orchestra and contemporary iterations of instruments, especially the piano, which has changed little at all for the past century. During the latter part of the Romantic era, a mini period, the French Impressionistic Period took place (it is sometimes referred to as its own period) which was based on the same principles as those the famous painters used. Blurring effects were used along with more unorthodox intervals such as 9ths and 10ths. Debussy and Ravel are two of the most popular composers of this movement.
I love music from all of the four major classical periods, but I particularly like Romantic music for two reasons: first, a lot of the best solo piano works were written during this time, partly for the reasons described above, so a lot of my repertoire comes from this time, and second, Rachmaninoff, my favorite composer, is usually classified as a Romantic, although he is somewhat borderline contemporary.
Many of people's favorite composers are from the Romantic era:
Chopin, Schumann, Brahms, Liszt, Dvorak, Rimsky-Korsakoff, Strauss, Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky, and Wagner.
Romantic era music is very easy to listen to and very approachable for people who have little musical knowledge. Often, the listener must know what is going on musically to appreciate the genius behind a piece. However, romanticism focuses on emotion, and that takes little more than a pulse to relate to.
**I couldn't choose just one period to write about, so I'm doing a whole series of these. Check them out!**
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