Developments in Romanticism
to 1850
Composers after the end of
aristocratic patronage
Ways to live independently
• Composition for the popular market — songs, piano
pieces, etc.
• Performance
– touring virtuosos
– conductors
• Literary activities
– criticism
• Teaching
Italian Romantic opera
• Topics from Romantic literature (often transalpine
sources)
• Enriched orchestral sound, harmony
• Bel canto singing — virtuosity
• Scena form
– recitative to establish situation
– primo tempo (sometimes called cavatina) to express
emotion
– tempo di mezzo to initiate change
– secondo tempo (sometimes called cabaletta) to express new
emotional response
French grand opera
• Highly charged situations
– politically epic settings
– supernatural events
• Spectacular staging
– sets and costumes
– special effects
– large numbers of personnel on stage
• Spectacular music
– large, colorful orchestra
– chorus
– virtuosic singing
Performers and venues in the
nineteenth century
• On the stage
– opera singers
– solo virtuosos — Nicolò Paganini
– pianists
• as showmen — Franz Hünten, Henri Herz
• as musical poet — Franz Liszt
• In the salon — sophisticated gatherings of invited
guests, often with highly skilled players
– e.g., Frédéric Chopin
• In parlors and drawing rooms — family-oriented
gatherings, amateur singers and players
New nineteenth-century genres
• Piano character pieces
– song-based — romance, nocturne, song without words
– dance-based — waltz, mazurka, polonaise
– narrative — ballade
• Orchestral works
– concert overture
– program symphony
• Cycles
– songs
– piano pieces
Some characteristics of Romantic
musical style
• Scoring
– large orchestras
– new instrumental sounds
• Dynamics
– extension of dynamic range
– profusion of expressive instructions
• Melody
– long-breathed, songlike melodies
– pervasive brief motives
• Harmony
– overloading; increased chromaticism
– modulations to distant keys
• Form
– idiosyncratic variants of conventional forms explicated by programs
– cyclically unified structures
Questions for discussion
• How is it that Romantic composers seem to have had
multiple talents and careers more often than composers
of earlier periods?
• Why did Romanticism affect music in Italy more slowly
than in other countries?
• How should we distinguish between the “characteristic”
and the “programmatic” in nineteenth-century music?