Transcript Slide 1

Raindrop Prelude
Romantic Period
What do you see/hear?
The Romantic Period
 1800-1900
 Music, art and literature was focused on the expression
of intense but ordinary emotions of love, grief, death,
beauty etc
 Composers started to write programmatic pieces that
told stories through music
 Composers started to break away from traditional
forms in order to capture these emotions
Features of Romantic Music
Expansion and development of the
orchestra
Features of Romantic Music
 Expansion and development of the Orchestra
 String section doubled in size
 More woodwind and brass added
 Huge range of percussion instruments added
Features of Romantic Music
 Expansion and development of the Orchestra
 Listen to these examples of a classical and a romantic
orchestra. Can you hear the difference?
 Melody lines started to become longer and more
developed
Features of Romantic Music
 Use of extended Chords
 Triads with added notes:
 Dominant 13th: Chord 5 with added 13th note
 Diminished 7th: Chord made up of minor 3 intervals (B D F
Ab)
 Neopolitan chord: Chord 2, flattened, in first inversion
(remember Bernstein?)
 Augmented 6th: Chord which contains an Augmented 6th
interval (Ab C Eb Fsharp)
Features of Romantic Music
 Harmony (example)
 Harmony is Discordant (clashes) and uses chromatic
notes to portray strong emotions such as grief or anger
Features of Romantic Music
 Strong and varied dynamic contrasts
 Pppp-ffff
Features of Romantic Music
 Increased level of technical demand
 Lead to the rise of the virtuoso performer
 A person who excels in their art form.
 Composers wrote for themselves to perform, or for well
known virtuosic performers of the time
 Idea came from the Romantic idea of the struggle of
the individual
Features of Romantic Music
 Nationalism
 Composers used features of the traditional and folk
music's from their own countries
 E.G Chopin used Polish folk melodies and dance
rhythms in his pieces