Characteristics of Romantic Period Music

The Romantic Period in music broadly covers the nineteenth century, with early Romantic works appearing well before 1850. Characteristics of this period are expanding forms, increased dissonance, program music, organic unity, and concert life. The expression of more individual and emotional experiences was a given during this period.

Originality became increasingly important to composers, but they did not suddenly stop borrowing or reworking musical material. The Baroque and Classical periods had their own traditions of borrowing, and Romantic composers continued to transform older ideas into new pieces. Berlioz, for example, uses the old Dies irae chant in the finale of Symphonie fantastique.

Each composer of the Romantic period brought life to their musical narratives. They did so by expressing unique emotions through free forms, dissonance, and expanded dynamics. A distinctive personal style became important, even when a composer was adapting an existing theme or form. This was due to an increasing emphasis on individualism and the individual’s emotions.

At A Glance

• Characteristics of the Romantic period music are expanding forms, increased dissonance, program music, organic unity, and concert life.
• Some notable Romantic period composers include Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Liszt, Wagner, and Verdi.
• Instruments used in Romantic period music:
  Strings – violin, viola, violoncello, contrabass.
  Woodwind – flutes and piccolo, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, contrabassoon.
  Brass – trumpets, trombones, French horns, tuba.
  Percussion – xylophone, gong, cymbals, bells, triangles, chimes.

Characteristics of Romantic Period Music

1. Expanding Forms

Expanding forms were vital in Romantic Period music. This included Nocturne, Romance, Rhapsody, Etude, The Concert Overture, Polonaise, Arabesque, and Lieder.

Before this period, some new forms had already started to take shape and become popular. A few of these forms were altered or modified by Romantic composers to make them more subjective.

In the Romantic era, some of the things that were popular in the Classical era were still popular. Individualist and subjective language of the Romantic period created new forms of music. Composers were looking for new ways to express themselves, their experiences, emotions, etc.

• Nocturnes are musical compositions that reflect the atmosphere and feelings of the night. The name suggests a nighttime mood, rather than a rule about when the composer must write it. A lyrical melody and expressive piano accompaniment are more useful things to listen for.

• A “Romance” is often a brief, expressive piece for piano. Alternatively, a solo instrument might be accompanied by a keyboard accompaniment. Musically speaking, this is the equivalent of poetry’s “personal feeling and expression”. In music, it refers to the same thing.

• Everything in a Rhapsody is about contrasts. High and low, light and dark, loud and gentle, joyful and sorrowful. It tells a journey, a story. A musical Rhapsody can bring contrasting ideas together with a free, improvisatory feel. That does not mean it has no pattern: some rhapsodies use carefully organized sections or variations.

• Etude is a type of composition that was originally a study or technical exercise. It has now evolved into a musically coherent work that explores a pleasing technical challenge.

• A Concert Overture is a standalone concert piece, rather than simply the opening of an opera. It may use sonata form and evoke a story or scene, as Mendelssohn’s The Hebrides does. The symphonic poem is a related kind of programmatic orchestral work.

• A Polonaise draws on a stately Polish dance in triple meter, with a recognizable rhythmic character. Romantic composers such as Chopin developed it into an expressive concert piece. The name means “Polish” in French, reflecting the dance’s origin.

• Musically speaking, an Arabesque suggests ornamental patterns, taking its name from decorative art associated with Arabic architecture. In Schumann’s Arabeske, a returning melody is framed by contrasting passages, rather than following a universal arabesque form.

• Lieder is the plural of Lied, the German word for song. Romantic art songs often set poetry for a solo singer and piano, with both parts helping to express the text. The piano can suggest a scene or feeling rather than simply doubling the melody, and some songs also have orchestral versions.

2. Increased Dissonance

Dissonance increased in a short period in the Romantic music period. The 20th was close and this characteristic is even more impressive when you compare it with the previous eras.

Romantic composers often explored more distant key relationships and used chromatic notes more freely than in typical Classical-era works. These choices could make the tonal direction less predictable while still giving the music a sense of movement and resolution.

Composers used dissonance to enhance the expressiveness of their music. For greater emotional impact, they began using chromatic notes in their chords and melodies. A later return to consonant chords can make the music feel settled again, but adding chromatic notes does not automatically make a chord consonant.

Composers enlarged chords by adding new notes to existing chords. In certain cases, the music became confusing in tone. During the twentieth century, this was refined even more.

3. Program Music

Program music is instrumental music associated with a story, scene, or other idea beyond the notes themselves. It’s designed to elicit more musical thoughts or pictures in the minds of listeners. This was done by musically expressing a scene, topic, event, or textual material.

Typically, program music describes visual images or tells a story. A musical piece on its own, without a program, is called absolute music. It wasn’t until the Romantic period that orchestral program music became a popular kind of descriptive music.

Music was used to express the story or inspiration, but still, this definition is a bit confusing. In a way, it’s hard to talk about music that doesn’t contain any sort of material, whether it’s feelings, visuals, or memories.

Romantic period composers used short melodic ideas. They transformed them and kept on representing the original idea at the same time. Additionally, instruments represent something in nature or imitate a particular noise. This made it possible to use the dynamics to the extreme limits.

4. Organic Unity

It was a common practice among composers to connect the movements of their compositions through an organic unity.

Organic unity is a way to make a bond between the movements and sections of the movements. The logic was somewhat simple. A motif heard near the beginning can return or be transformed at important points, helping us hear connections across the work.

Related techniques include Wagner’s leitmotifs, which can represent characters or ideas, and Berlioz’s idée fixe, the recurring theme in Symphonie fantastique. They are not simply German and French names for every kind of organic unity. In many Romantic-period symphonies and sonatas, you can hear themes return in changed forms.

5. Concert Life

Public concerts became popular throughout the Classical period. They rose even more in the early decades of the nineteenth century. The result was a flourishing concert scene during the Romantic period.

There were several concerts organized by the government and the music community then. Spectacular concert halls came about to handle orchestras and enormous crowds.

Composers could earn money from performances, publishing, and teaching, alongside support from patrons. Earlier composers often worked for nobles or churches, but the public concert audience became increasingly important in the nineteenth century. Public concerts also took on many forms for different kinds of listeners and performers.

Notable Romantic Period Composers

Many composers during this period drew influence from the great Beethoven, especially since some of his last works laid the foundation for early Romanticism. Composers such as Franz Schubert, Robert Schumann, and Hector Berlioz also played a part in being the inspiration for this period.

Many composers shined during the Romantic period such as Clara Schumann, Felix Mendelssohn, Johannes Brahms, and Chopin, but the following are considered among the best of this period:

• Ludwig van Beethoven. Although Beethoven was a Classical period composer, some of his last pieces of music like his string quartets and Symphony No. 9 are considered the birth of early Romanticism.
• Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. One of the best-known Russian Romantic composers, Tchaikovsky wrote the famous “Swan Lake”, “The Nutcracker”, “Romeo and Juliet”, and the opera “Eugene Onegin”.
• Franz Liszt. Liszt was one of the most influential and successful composers of the Romantic period. He brought new life to this period of music with his innovations in harmony, thematic transformation, and symphonic poem.
• Richard Wagner. A prominent composer, theatre director, and conductor hailing from Germany, Wagner was one of the key composers during the Romantic movement. He frequently used rich harmonies, elaborate leitmotifs, and complex textures.
• Giuseppe Verdi. Verdi was an Italian romantic period composer who dominated the Italian opera at the time. His most influential pieces include “Aida”, “Requiem”, “Otello”, and “Falstaff”, all of which pushed the boundaries and contributed to the sound of the Romantic period.

Instruments used in Romantique Period Music

The piano’s range expanded during the nineteenth century, giving composers more low and high notes to work with. A standard modern piano has 88 keys, spanning seven octaves plus a minor third. Throughout the Romantic period, the composers took full use of this newfound flexibility.

Steel and cast iron-based pianos were also built to be more durable, allowing them to play at a higher volume level.

Romantic music often uses rubato, a flexible handling of timing that lets a phrase linger or move forward expressively. It changes the pacing of a performance, rather than creating new harmonies by itself, and can be used by soloists as well as orchestras. Expanding the instrumentation in their pieces was a common goal for composers. This involved expanding the size of the orchestra.

A lot of instruments were used in the orchestra during this time. This was a big deal because the orchestra took the shape that we still see when we go to a concert hall or a theater.

• Strings – violin, viola, violoncello, contrabass.
• The woodwind instruments – flutes and piccolo, oboe and English horn, clarinet and bass clarinet, bassoon, and contrabassoon.
• Brass instruments – trumpets, trombones, French horns, and tuba.
• A full set of percussion instruments

Summary

Romanticism and individualism are the basic, ideal foundations of Romantic period music. For making music in the most personal way the musical forms expand. The use of dissonances increased the potential for expression. Program music or Programmatic music uses music as a narrator. Organic unity keeps the chapters of the whole story in a union. As a result, people get eager to hear those stories at big public concert events.