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Romantic music
Romantic music is a stylistic movement in Western
Classical music associated with the period of the 19th
century commonly referred to as the Romantic era (or
Romantic period). It is closely related to the broader
concept of Romanticism—the intellectual, artistic and
literary movement that became prominent in Western
culture from about 1798 until 1837.[1]

Romantic composers sought to create music that was

individualistic, emotional, dramatic and often
programmatic; reflecting broader trends within the
movements of Romantic literature, poetry, art, and
Josef Danhauser's 1840 painting of Franz Liszt at
philosophy. Romantic music was often ostensibly
the piano surrounded by (from left to right)
inspired by (or else sought to evoke) non-musical
Alexandre Dumas, Hector Berlioz, George Sand,
stimuli, such as nature,[2] literature,[2] poetry,[2]
Niccolò Paganini, Gioachino Rossini and Marie
super-natural elements or the fine arts. It included
d'Agoult, with a bust of Ludwig van Beethoven on
features such as increased chromaticism and moved
the piano
away from traditional forms.[3]

Background
The Romantic movement was an artistic, literary, and
intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the
18th century in Europe and strengthened in reaction to the
Industrial Revolution.[4] In part, it was a revolt against social
and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment and a reaction
against the scientific rationalization of nature (Casey 2008). It
was embodied most strongly in the visual arts, music,
literature,[5] and education,[6] and was in turn influenced by
developments in natural history.[7]

One of the first significant applications of the term to music was

in 1789, in the Mémoires by the Frenchman André Grétry, but it
was E. T. A. Hoffmann who established the principles of musical
romanticism, in a lengthy review of Ludwig van Beethoven's
Fifth Symphony published in 1810, and an 1813 article on
Beethoven's instrumental music. In the first of these essays
Wanderer above the Sea of Fog, by
Hoffmann traced the beginnings of musical Romanticism to the
Caspar David Friedrich, is an example
later works of Haydn and Mozart. It was Hoffmann's fusion of
of Romantic painting.
ideas already associated with the term "Romantic", used in
opposition to the restraint and formality of Classical models, that
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elevated music, and especially instrumental music, to a position of pre-eminence in Romanticism as

the art most suited to the expression of emotions. It was also through the writings of Hoffmann and
other German authors that German music was brought to the center of musical Romanticism.[8]

Traits
The classical period often used short, even fragmentary, thematic material while the Romantic period
tended to make greater use of longer, more fully defined and more emotionally evocative themes.[9]

Characteristics often attributed to Romanticism:

a new preoccupation with and surrender to nature;[10]

a turn towards the mystic and supernatural, both religious and unearthly;[11]
a focus on the nocturnal, the ghostly, the frightful, and terrifying;[12]
a new attention given to national identity;[10]
discontent with musical formulas and conventions;[10]
a greater emphasis on melody to sustain musical interest;[13]
increased chromaticism;[10]
a harmonic structure based on movement from tonic to subdominant or alternative keys rather
than the traditional dominant, and use of more elaborate harmonic progressions (Wagner and
Liszt are known for their experimental progressions);[10]
large, grand orchestras were common during this period;[10]
increase in virtuosic players featured in orchestrations;[10]
the use of new or previously not so common musical structures like the song cycle, nocturne,
concert etude, arabesque and rhapsody, alongside the traditional classical genres;[13]
Program music became somewhat more common;[13]
the use of a wider range of dynamics, for example from ppp to fff (from pianississimo, or very,
very quiet to fortississimo, very, very loud), supported by large orchestration;[10]
a greater tonal range (for example, using the lowest and highest notes of the piano);[10]

In music, there is a relatively clear dividing line in musical structure and form following the death of
Beethoven. Whether one counts Beethoven as a "romantic" composer or not, the breadth and power of
his work gave rise to a feeling that the classical sonata form and, indeed, the structure of the
symphony, sonata and string quartet had been exhausted.[14]

Trends of the 19th century

Non-musical influences

Events and changes in society such as ideas, attitudes, discoveries, inventions, and historical events
often affect music. For example, the Industrial Revolution was in full effect by the late 18th century
and early 19th century. This event profoundly affected music: there were major improvements in the
mechanical valves and keys that most woodwinds and brass instruments depend on. The new and
innovative instruments could be played with greater ease and they were more reliable.[15]

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Another development that affected music was the rise of the middle class.[2] Composers before this
period lived under the patronage of the aristocracy. Many times their audience was small, composed
mostly of the upper class and individuals who were knowledgeable about music.[15] The Romantic
composers, on the other hand, often wrote for public concerts and festivals, with large audiences of
paying customers, who had not necessarily had any music lessons.[15] Composers of the Romantic
Era, like Elgar, showed the world that there should be "no segregation of musical tastes"[16] and that
the "purpose was to write music that was to be heard".[17]

"The music composed by Romantic [composers]" reflected "the importance of the individual" by being
composed in ways that were often less restrictive and more often focused on the composer's skills as a
person than prior means of writing music.[2]

Nationalism

During the Romantic period, music often took on a much more nationalistic purpose. Composers
composed with a distinct sound that represented their home country and traditions. For example,
Jean Sibelius' Finlandia has been interpreted to represent the rising nation of Finland, which would
someday gain independence from Russian control.[18]

Frédéric Chopin was one of the first composers to incorporate nationalistic elements into his
compositions. Joseph Machlis states, "Poland's struggle for freedom from tsarist rule aroused the
national poet in Poland. ... Examples of musical nationalism abound in the output of the romantic era.
The folk idiom is prominent in the Mazurkas of Chopin".[19] His mazurkas and polonaises are
particularly notable for their use of nationalistic rhythms. Moreover, "During World War II the Nazis
forbade the playing of ... Chopin's Polonaises in Warsaw because of the powerful symbolism residing
in these works".[19]

Other composers, such as Bedřich Smetana, wrote pieces that musically described their homelands. In
particular, Smetana's Vltava is a symphonic poem about the Moldau River in the modern-day Czech
Republic, the second in a cycle of six nationalistic symphonic poems collectively titled Má vlast (My
Homeland).[20] Smetana also composed eight nationalist operas, all of which remain in the repertory.
They established him as the first Czech nationalist composer as well as the most important Czech
opera composer of the generation who came to prominence in the 1860s.[21]

See also
History of music Classical music
List of Romantic-era composers portal
Neoromanticism (music)

References
1. "The Romantic Period" (https://www.easternct.edu/speichera/understanding-literary-history-all/the-
romantic-period.html). Easternnct.edu. Retrieved 27 February 2022.
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Lankester, Michael; Lutchmayer, Karl; McGowan, Keith; Ogano, Kumi; et al. (Authors) (2022). The
Classical Music Book. New York: DK. pp. 168–169. ISBN 978-0-7440-5633-4.

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l'auteur, de L'Imprimerie de la république, 1789. Second, enlarged edition, Paris: Imprimerie de la
république, pluviôse, 1797. Republished, 3 vols., Paris: Verdiere, 1812; Brussels: Whalen, 1829.
Facsimile of the 1797 edition, Da Capo Press Music Reprint Series. New York: Da Capo Press,
1971. Facsimile reprint in 1 volume of the 1829 Brussels edition, Bibliotheca musica Bononiensis,
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Young, Percy Marshall. 1967. A History of British Music. London: Benn.

Further reading
Adler, Guido. 1911. Der Stil in der Musik. Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel.
Adler, Guido. 1919. Methode der Musikgeschichte. Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel.
Adler, Guido. 1930. Handbuch der Musikgeschichte, second, thoroughly revised and greatly
expanded edition. 2 vols. Berlin-Wilmersdorf: H. Keller. Reprinted, Tutzing: Schneider, 1961.
Blume, Friedrich. 1970. Classic and Romantic Music, translated by M. D. Herter Norton from two
essays first published in Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart. New York: W. W. Norton.
Boyer, Jean-Paul. 1961. "Romantisme". Encyclopédie de la musique, edited by François Michel,
with François Lesure and Vladimir Fédorov, 3:585–87. Paris: Fasquelle.
Cavalletti, Carlo. 2000. Chopin and Romantic Music, translated by Anna Maria Salmeri Pherson.
Hauppauge, NY: Barron's Educational Series. (Hardcover) ISBN 0-7641-5136-3; ISBN 978-0-
7641-5136-1.
Dahlhaus, Carl. 1979. "Neo-Romanticism". 19th-Century Music 3, no. 2 (November): 97–105.
Dahlhaus, Carl. 1980. Between Romanticism and Modernism: Four Studies in the Music of the
Later Nineteenth Century, translated by Mary Whittall in collaboration with Arnold Whittall; also
with Friedrich Nietzsche, "On Music and Words", translated by Walter Arnold Kaufmann. California
Studies in 19th Century Music 1. Berkeley: University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-03679-4
(cloth); 0520067487 (pbk). Original German edition, as Zwischen Romantik und Moderne: vier
Studien zur Musikgeschichte des späteren 19. Jahrhunderts. Munich: Musikverlag Katzbichler,
1974.
Dahlhaus, Carl. 1985. Realism in Nineteenth-Century Music, translated by Mary Whittall.
Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-26115-5 (cloth); ISBN 0-521-
27841-4 (pbk). Original German edition, as Musikalischer Realismus: zur Musikgeschichte des 19.
Jahrhunderts. Munich: R. Piper, 1982. ISBN 3-492-00539-X.
Dahlhaus, Carl. 1987. Untitled review of Leon Plantinga, Romantic Music: A History of Musical
Styles in Nineteenth-Century Europe and Anthology of Romantic Music, translated by Ernest
Sanders. 19th Century Music 11, no. 2:194–96.
Einstein, Alfred. 1947. Music in the Romantic Era. New York: W. W. Norton.
Geck, Martin. 1998. "Realismus". Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart: Allgemeine
Enzyklopädie der Musik begründe von Friedrich Blume, second, revised edition, edited by Ludwig
Finscher. Sachteil 8: Quer–Swi, cols. 91–99. Kassel, Basel, London, New York, Prague:
Bärenreiter; Suttgart and Weimar: Metzler. ISBN 3-7618-1109-8 (Bärenreiter); ISBN 3-476-41008-
0 (Metzler).
Grout, Donald Jay. 1960. A History of Western Music. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
Lang, Paul Henry. 1941. Music in Western Civilization. New York: W. W. Norton.
Mason, Daniel Gregory. 1936. The Romantic Composers. New York: Macmillan.
Plantinga, Leon. 1984. Romantic Music: A History of Musical Style in Nineteenth-Century Europe.
A Norton Introduction to Music History. New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 0-393-95196-0; ISBN 978-
0-393-95196-7.
Rosen, Charles. 1995. The Romantic Generation. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University
Press. ISBN 0-674-77933-9.
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Rummenhöller, Peter. 1989. Romantik in der Musik: Analysen, Portraits, Reflexionen. Munich:
Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag; Kassel and New York: Bärenreiter. ISBN 9783761812365
(Bärenreiter); ISBN 9783761844939 (Taschenbuch Verlag); ISBN 9783423044936 (Taschenbuch
Verlag).
Spencer, Stewart. 2008. "The 'Romantic Operas' and the Turn to Myth". In The Cambridge
Companion to Wagner, edited by Thomas S. Grey, 67–73. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge
University Press. ISBN 0-521-64299-X (cloth); ISBN 0-521-64439-9 (pbk).
Wagner, Richard. 1995. Opera and Drama, translated by William Ashton Ellis. Lincoln: University
of Nebraska Press. Originally published as volume 2 of Richard Wagner's Prose Works (London:
Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., 1900), a translation from Gesammelte Schriften und
Dichtungen (Leipzig, 1871–73, 1883).
Warrack, John. 2002. "Romanticism". The Oxford Companion to Music, edited by Alison Latham.
Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-866212-2.
Wehnert, Martin. 1998. "Romantik und romantisch". Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart:
allgemeine Enzyklopädie der Musik, begründet von Friedrich Blume, second revised edition.
Sachteil 8: Quer–Swi, cols. 464–507. Basel, Kassel, London, Munich, and Prague: Bärenreiter;
Stuttgart and Weimar: Metzler.

External links
Music of the Romantic Era (https://web.archive.org/web/20120404153052/http://public.wsu.edu/~b
rians/hum_303/romantic.html)
The Romantic Era (https://web.archive.org/web/20070906105600/http://library.thinkquest.org/1541
3/history/history-rom.htm)
Era on line (https://web.archive.org/web/20070810072840/http://www.essentialsofmusic.com/eras/
romantic.html)

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Romantic_music&oldid=1189300369"

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