Main Characteristics

• The way in which artists perceived, interpreted, and expressed the world was informed by a romantic aesthetic.

  • They were inspired by nature, mythology, folklore and the past.

  • There was a fascination with dreams, oppression, injustice, and political struggle.

• Music was used to express personal emotion, awakening nationalistic aspirations, and virtuosity.

• The requirements of composer’s orchestral scores led to the expansion of the orchestra, both in size, and in tones through the addition of trombones and tubas, piccolo and contrabassoon, harp, cymbals, triangle, and a variety of drums.

• The length or the concept of what constituted a single work, encompassed the extremes from the short, intimate songs for intimate surroundings, to large symphonies of the late romantic, written for large concert halls and demanding a lot of resources.

Frederik Chopin

• Polish composer and virtuoso pianist of the Romantic era, Chopin wrote primarily for solo piano.

• He composed his first Mazurkas and Polonaises at age 8. He grew up in Warsaw and exiled Poland at the age of 20, just before the November 1830 Uprising (the revolution against Russian domination.)

• He gave only 30 public performances and lived mostly by selling his compositions and by teaching the piano.

• Chopin preferred intimate settings mostly performing in salons.

• His style and compositions demand a high level of technique. His piano work includes the sonata, mazurkas, waltzes, nocturnes, polonaises, études, impromptus, scherzos, and preludes.

• His work was inspired by Polish folk music, J.S Bach, Mozart and Schubert. His inspiration to Polish folk songs and dances was part of the first wave movement of musical nationalism.

• His intimate work was the flip side of the concert hall experience. Chopin’s music is frequently played with rubato (the practice in performance of disregarding strict time, ‘robbing’ some note-values for expressive effect.)

Giuseppe Verdi

• Giuseppe Verdi was a famous Italian composer, and political and cultural icon.

• His first hit was Nabuco (1842) which included plots to whip up Italian’s desire for self government in a movement called Risorgimento.

• In 1850 his opera Stiffelio scandalized as much as it excited the audience with more up to date issues.

  • Its plot is about a married Protestant minister learning to forgive his adulterous wife.

• His most shocking work for the time is La Traviata or The Fallen Woman.

  • It was met with a moral outrage because the main character of the piece is a courtesan.

  • In this work, Verdi included up-to-date social issues putting into light the hypocrisy and misogyny at the heart of European societies.

  • La Traviata is an opera in three acts. Musicologists Catherine Clément and Susan McClary have analyzed the recurrent cliché of the madwoman, or the hysterical coloratura, female madness and revolts against social norms. In most operas, female revolt or desire of freedom ends with death. Violetta, an independent courtesan and the heroin in La Traviata dies of tuberculosis in the last scene.

Franz Liszt

• French speaking Hungarian composer, conductor and virtuoso pianist, Franz Liszt did justice to the century's obsession; death.

  • His harmonies conveyed unsettling emotions. His pieces were thrilling, all set for a sensation seeking audience.

• He started an extravagant Halloween style music. His dark, deep, clashing loud chords and abrasive strings are prominent in his macabre piece “Torentanz” or “Death Dance” (1849) for solo piano and orchestra. It is notable for being based on the plainchant melody “Dies Irae" as well as for daring stylistic innovations such as the intensely percussive use of the piano with techniques such as the toccata (fast moving notes, virtuosic piece).

• Liszt was specially requesting pianos with iron frames to replace the wood ones because they would simply break under his hammering on stage.

• During the romantic period, there was a fascination with everything Medieval. The aspect of fantastic or macabre irony replaced the original moral intent of the Middle Ages. Liszt was inspired by the fresco “Triumph of Death” by Francesco Traini for his “Danse Macabre.” You can hear techniques such as col legno (strike the strings with bow) sounding like clanking bones.