Transcript Romantic Period 1820-1910

Romantic Period
1820-1910
Cultural Trends and Events
•Industrial Revolution and life in crowded cities cause people to long for
nature and emotional expression.
•Settling of the American West
•American Civil War
•Europe: Napoleon Bonaparte sweeps across Europe.
Italy and Germany become unified countries.
Austrian Empire breaks apart.
•Fascination with nature in its wild state.
•Fascination with the Exotic and Supernatural.
•Emotional expression became all-important in art and music
Kamien CD#5
Romantic Period Artworks
Which painting is Baroque and which is
Romantic?
Both have movement, color, emotion:
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Turner, The Slave Ship, 1840
Rubens, The Fall of Phaeton, 1606-1608
Comparing Romantic and Baroque
Art
• Baroque art and Romantic art share asymmetry, a feeling
of motion, and expression of emotion in common.
• Romantic emotional expression is more true to life, and
subjects reveal Romantic fascination with unspoiled
nature, and mystery.
Romantic Literature
• The Romantic fascination with fantasy and
the supernatural produced writers and
literature like:
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The Brothers Grimm, Fairy Tales
Edgar Allen Poe, The Raven
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
Jules Verne, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
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Romantic Period Musical Trends
Emotion, Adventure, Drama, Fantasy become important.
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Virtuoso performers like Nicolo Pagannini and Franz Liszt toured Europe and lived like rock stars.
Liszt Trancendental Etude
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Orchestras become larger
from @ 30-40 members in Beethoven’s time
to @ 100 members by the year 1900!
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Harmony becomes more complex
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Instruments become louder and more refined
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All of this to fill the larger public concert halls: Concerts were no longer for the nobility in the
palace, but for everyone
YouTube - Mahler Symphony No.8 1st Movement Part 3
Brahms Hungarian Dance 5 - 6 Cecchetto.mht
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Small, quiet, delicate pieces, like little jems, were also popular
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Schubert, Impromptu in G Flat MAjor D899 No. 3 (Horowitz)
War of the Romantics
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Conservative and Radical Romantic composers and their friends fought with
each other in the press through newspaper articles, pamphlets, and editorials.
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Both Groups believed they were heirs to Beethoven, and were composing
music the way he would have composed it.
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Conservative composers championed Absolute Music with forms such as
Sonata Form, Theme and Variations, and Rondo. They took the composer
Brahms as their reluctant leader. Their style lives on in the works of many
modern composers of Symphonies and other works with classical form.
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Radicals championed Program Music. They believed they were composing
the “Music of the Future.” They were led by the composers Liszt and Wagner.
Their style lives on especially in the works of film composers such a John
Williams.
Conservative Romantics
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Write Romantic style music (harmony and emotional content)
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Use Classical Forms such as: Rondo, Sonata Form, Theme and Variations
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There is no extra “story” given by the composer to us to understand the
meaning or form of a piece of music
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Composers: Johann Strauss, Franz Schubert, Clara and Robert Schumann,
Johannes Brahms, Antonin Dvorak, Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel, Felix
Mendelssohn, Peter Tchaikovsky
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Brahms Symphony no_ 2 (4th mvt).mht
The Symphony - Forms.mht
Brahms, before:
Brahms, after:
Radical Romantics
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Use literature and poetry as a basis for the form and content of their
music. This type of music is called Program Music.
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Called their music the “Music of the Future”
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Composers: Hector Berlioz, Franz Liszt, Richard Wagner, Gustav
Mahler
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YouTube - Fantasia - Night on Bald Mountain
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Dukas, Sorcerer's Apprentice, Disney Fantasia
Liszt, before :
Liszt, after :
Romantic Opera and Music Drama
• Giuseppe Verdi and others continued to write Opera in
Italy, which never really developed a true symphonic
tradition. Opera remained the popular art form there.
• Richard Wagner developed Gesamtkunstwerk (ha…say
that three times fast!) in Germany. This was a total work
of art, encompassing drama, literature, scenery, and music
into one whole. He even built himself a theater in which
to perform them. As you might guess, he was not a
conservative.
Verdi, after:
Wagner, after:
Romantic Period
1820-1910
What are your keywords for the ROMANTIC
PERIOD?
What about an HISTORICAL EVENT?
Romantic Period
1820-1910
• After 1910, people sensed an era was coming
to an end. War was ready to break out in
Europe. Western culture would never be the
same…