Romantic Period

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Romantic Period
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Romantic Period

• Suppressed revolution
• French emotional reaction
• Middle class dominance
• Underclass causes adopted
• Frustrations caused by Napoleon
• Revolution of 1848

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Principles of the Romantic Era

• Restriction no longer important
• Emphasis on emotion rather than reason
• Nationalism
• Stories depicted
• Nature in a mystical way
• Exotic

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"The use of romantic in English goes back to the
17C when it was used to denote imagination and
inventiveness in storytelling and, soon after, to
characterize scenery and paintings. It served as
a synonym to harmonious, picturesque. At the
core of the epithet, obviously, is a proper name
Rome, Roman. From the start, the image is
many-sided. Centuries after the fall of the
empire, the vernacular spoken along the
Mediterranean was no longer vulgar Latin but a
variable dialect called roman. From it came
French, Spanish, Italian, and other romance
languages.. After a time, roman was applied to
tales written in that dialect as spoken inn
southern France. These tales were often about
love and adventure, as contrasted with epic
narratives or satires. In French today the word
for novel is still roman, while in English a
romance is one kind of novel and by further
extension one kind of love affair... In the last
years of the 18C, Romantic generated the -ist
form to designate those dissatisfied with the
neo-classic style and enthusiastic about new
forms in art and thought... The one link between
the temper of the period and the original meaning
of the word is that Romanticism validated passion
and risk. The two are inevitably connected but
as we shall see, they neither exclude reason, nor
overlook the real. On the contrary, the spirit
of adventure in Romanticism aims at enlarging
experience by exploring the real." Barzun,
Jacques, From Dawn to Decadence, Perennial, 2000,
p467-8.
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Characteristics of Music

• Departure from Classical era
• Message in the music (One word description?)
• Haydn vs. Beethoven
• Beethovens 5th in minor/major key
• Loss of power in the major
• Beethovens 5th in style of Haydn
• Loss of power
• Use of dynamics
• Orchestra grew in size

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Characteristics of Music

• Emotional directions
• Folk songs
• Longer symphonies
• Virtuosos
• Underlying themes carried throughout the symphony
  
• Beethovens 5th
• 1st Theme (dark)
• 2nd Theme (light)
• 3rd Movement (theme revisited)
• Triumph of light

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Beethoven

• Bridged Classical and Romantic periods
• Form used contextually
• Motifs
• Works as attempts for perfection
• Manifested Romantic ideal
• Pastoral, Symphony No. 6
• Symphony 9, Ode to Joy
• Eroica
• Piano Sonata No. 8 in C minor, Pathetique

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Hector Berlioz

• French composer
• Story printed in program
• Symphonie Fantastique
• Requiem

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Franz Schubert

• Vienna Austria
• Child prodigy
• Wrote liedersongs with emotional theme
• Erlkönig
• Song cycle
• Wrote for fewer instruments
• Unfinished Symphony
• Symphony in C major
• Many works were lost

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Felix Mendelssohn

• Early life
• Tried to preserve Classical style
• Brought Bach out of obscurity
• Symphonies were classical form and romantic tone
• Midsummer Nights Dream

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Nicolo Paganini

• Italian
• Violin virtuosos
• Ghoulish appearance
• The Cannon

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Frederic Chopin

• Child prodigy
• Sickly his whole life
• Made money by giving piano concerts
• Composed mazurkas, preludes and polonaises
• Etude Opus 10
• Polonaise in A flat major
• Minute Waltz

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Franz Liszt

• Hungarian child prodigy
• Greatest showman
• Kind to other musicians
• Several love affairs
• Les Preludes
• Hungarian Rhapsody 2
• Wilde Jagd

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Richard Wagner

• German nationalism
• Not a prodigy
• Immoral life
• Ludwig II
• Opera
• Leitmotif
• Depicted myths and heroes
• Die Walküre (Ride of the Valkyries)
• Tannhäuser (end of the overture)
• Tristan and Isolde (Unresolved Liebestod)

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Giuseppe Verdi

• Greatest Italian style opera
• Aida
• La Traviata
• Rigoletto
• La Donna e Mobile
• Innovation
• Focus on human emotion
• De-emphasis on bel-canto style
• Rossini Barber of Seville
• Excellent librettos
• Orchestra an important component

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Bedrich Smetana

• Czech
• Bartered Bride
• Die Moldau
• River running through Prague

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Johann Strauss

• Father was excellent composer
• Played in fathers orchestra
• More popular than his father
• Waltzes
• Embodiment of Viennese life
• Blue Danube Waltz
• Tales of the Vienna Woods

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Johann Brahms

• German
• Imitated Beethoven
• Mentored by Robert and Clara Schumann
• Hungarian Dance 5

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Russian Composers

• Moussorgsky,Balakirev, Borodin, Cui,
  Rimsky-Korsakov
• Russian Easter Overture
• Used Russian themes
• Helped each other
• Flight of the Bumble Bee
• Night on Bald Mountain

Almaty, Kazakhstan
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Peter Ilych Tchaikovsky

• Russian
• Used French style
• Ballets are most famous
• Nutcracker, Sleeping Beauty
• Romeo and Juliet
• Deep emotion for his sad life
• Symphony No. 6 Pathètique

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Edvard Grieg

• Norwegian
• Peer Gynt
• Hall of the Mountain King

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Antonin Dvorak

• Czech
• Inspired by Smetana
• Head of Conservatory in Prague
• Director of a NY music conservatory
• 3 years
• Composed New World Symphony

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Gustav Mahler

• Jewish
• The Hunters Funeral Procession

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Principles of Art

• Abandoned strict rules of neoclassical
• Conveyed personal feeling of artist
• Used nationalism
• Depicted the exotic
• Landscapes became important

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"If you want to do art you must first study the
rules, second study the great masters, third
forget the rules, because genius begins where
trite rules end but you can't get there until
you've obeyed the rules first." Sir Joshua
Reynolds (1723-1792)
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Francisco Goya -Classical Period
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Franciso Goya Romantic Period3rd of May 1808
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Goya
Saturn Devouring One of His Sons
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Eugene DelacroixLiberty Leading the People
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DelacroixThe Death of Sardanapalus
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Joseph Mallord William TurnerThe Fighting
"Temeraire"
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Joseph Mallord William TurnerThe Slave Ship
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"From the early 16C to the end of the 18C common
opinion held that religious and history painting
were the highest genres. The one edified, the
other reminded both decorated. Portraits came
next, landscapes lagged behind. For nature was
not yet loved for itself alone. In the early
Renaissance it served as a background only, and
even then it was 'humanized' by the presence of
temples, columns, or other architectural
fragments, along with actual figures."
Barzun, Jacques, From Dawn to Decadence,
Perennial, 2000, p71.
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John ConstableHay Wain
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Literature
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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

• Raised the level of German literature
• The Sufferings of Young Werther
• Dr. Faustus

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Sir Walter Scott

• Scotland
• Historical novels
• Influenced by Goethe
• Popular in his own life
• Ivanhoe
• Lady of the Lake

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William WordsworthSamuel Taylor Coleridge

• English
• Lyrical ballads
• Rime of the Ancient Mariner
• Themes relationship between humans and nature

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Lord Byron

• Art was an inner expression
• Participation in revolutions
• Strong personality
• Italy and Switzerland
• Childe Harold
• The Flying Dutchman
• The Wandering Jew

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Percy Bysshe Shelley

• English
• Strongly liberal
• Friends with Lord Byron
• Married Mary Wollstonecraft
• Frankenstein

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Leo Tolstoy

• Russian
• War and Peace
• Anna Karenina
• Born to nobility but lived on simple farm
• Freed the serfs

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Victor Hugo

• Son of Napoleonic general
• Involved in French politics
• Les Miserables
• Hunchback of Notre Dame

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Alexandre Dumas

• Imitated style of Scott
• Novels supported extravagant life
• Employed several people
• Count of Monte Cristo
• The Three Musketeers
• The Man in the Iron Mask

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Thank You