The Romantic Period (120-1910 CE)

Music saw many changes during the Romantic period. Composers expanded existing musical forms and developed new forms as a way of expressing themselves.

Thus, a huge variety of instrumental and vocal music appeared on the scene.  There were no restrictions on the length of a piece, the number of  movements, or the number of instruments or voices used. The operas of Richard Wagner sometimes last 6 hours.  Ludwig van Beethoven's Ninth Symphony requires an oversize orchestra, a full choir, and vocal soloists. 

It was during the Romantic period that most of the band instruments came into being as they are today.  The invention and widespread use of valves on brass instruments and new key systems on woodwind instruments made them much easier to play, encouraging composers to write more music for them.

There were many influential composers during the Romantic period. They included Hector Berlioz, Johannes Brahms, Richard Wagner, and Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

Romantic Symphony

The Romantic Symphony is an expanded version of the Classical symphony. It is much larger in size and in length with the addition of many more instruments and sometimes more than four movements.

Many Romantic symphonies were examples of program music, a new instrumental form. Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastiqueis an example of a Romantic symphony. Throughout the symphony, the story of a young man's love for a woman is told. Berlioz uses one main musical idea to describe the woman. This theme is known as the idee fixe.

Hector Berlioz,
 Symphonie Fantastique: Mvmt 4, Marche au Supplice

Hector Berlioz,
 Symphonie Fantastique: Mvmt 4, Marche au Supplice

Tone Poem

The tone poem (also known as the symphonic poem) is similar to the program symphony because it, too, tells a story. The difference between a tone poem and the romantic symphony is that the tone poem only consists of one long movement.

Concert Oveture

The most Famous composer of tone poems was Richard Strauss. His tone poems include Don Juan and Der Rosenkavalier.

Overtures appeared throughout the Baroque and Classical periods as instrumental introductions to operas in order to set a particular mood or atmosphere. During the Romantic period composers wrote only overtures without writing operas attached to them. These came to be known as Concert overtures.

Concert overtures are also considered to be program music, as they to tell a story. Mendelssohn's Fingal's Cave Overture is an example.

Romantic Opera

For fifty years, Giuseppe Verdi was the epitome of Italian music. The vast majority of his music was written for the stage, and he wrote twenty-six operas. Verdi's operas tended to concentrate more on human drama, than on romanticized nature or mythological symbolism as many of his predecessors had done.

Perhaps the largest name in Romantic opera is that of Richard Wagner. Wagner believed in opera as Gesamtkunstwerk (total artwork). One aspect of Wagner's music was that he often used a leitmotif to musically describe a character or theme in his music.

Lieder

The term lieder is the plural Form of the German word lied which means "song." The function of lieder is to set fine poetry to beautiful music. Lieder is accompanied by the piano, but the piano is like a partner to the singer in that it helps to create a particular artistic effect which the composer wished to represent.

There are two types of lieder in the Romantic period. First, the strophic song is similar to a hymn, as each stanza of poetry receives the same melody. Second, the through-composed song provides different music for every stanza of a poem. Schubert's Erlkonig (Elf King) is an example of through-composed Romantic Lieder.

Nationalist Music

Until the Romantic period, most composers regardless of their nationality, borrowed musical styles from Germany , France , and Italy . A new trend called nationalism inspired composers to incorporate native folk songs and styles into their music. Russia was the leader of the Nationalist movement, with composers such as Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Alexander Borodin, Modeste Mussorgsky, and Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov.

A Czechoslovakian composer, Antonin Dvorak relied heavily on folk tunes and popular dance rhythms, such as the furiant and dumka, in his symphonies and chamber music.

Piano Music

Music for piano flourished throughout the Romantic period. Many forms of piano pieces evolved, including the miniature. Romantic miniatures such as the nocturne, impromptu, etude, and ballade become extremly popular, as they were short , easy to listen to, and they concentrated on one single musical idea.

Frederic Chopin is perhaps the most famous of all Romantic composers for the piano. An example of his work is the Ballade in G minor.

Richard Wagner

Born: May 22, 1813 - Leipzig

Death: February 13,1883 - Venice

Wagner Quick Facts:

Wagner's Family Background:

Wagner's real father is somewhat a mystery. Some believe that his real father was a police actuary named Carl Friedrich Wagner. Six months after Wagner was born, his legal father died. Later his mother, Johanna, married actor Ludwig Geyer, who also may have been his biological father.

Childhood:

Wagner's parents moved to Dresden , where Ludwig could begin work at the Hoftheater. On December 22, 1822 Wagner began schooling at the Kreuzschule. In 1828, Wagner moved back to Leipzig with his family and attended Nicolaischule. His interest in music was made evident by the low grades in his other studies. He studied harmony with a local musician, and in 1831 he studied music at Leipzig University . That October, he briefly studied with the Kantor of the Thomaskirche, Christian Theodor Weinlig.

Teenage Years:

Many of Wagner's talents were self-taught. At the age of 15 he decided to become a composer. Wagner's passion for Beethoven was made clear in his first compositions. Between 1830 and 1831, he transcribed Beethoven's 9th Symphony for the piano. Afterwards, he wrote keyboard and orchestral works in a Beethovenian style. Before turing 20, Wagner started to write Die Hochziet, but never finished it.

Early Adult Years:

In 1834, Wagner became a musical director in a company in Magdeburg . There he met actress, Minna Planer, and in November of 1836, they married. During his time in Magdeburg , Wagner built up great debts. He relied on his opera Das Liebesverbot to bring him huge success and a large paycheck. The opera was a failure. Wagner and Minna moved to Königsberg. Wagner, again, built up his debts, and in a similar pattern, they moved to Riga , and then Paris to escape their creditors.

Mid Adult Years:

While in Paris , Wagner gave Meyerbeer his opera, Rienzi. One year later in 1840, Wagner recieved the good news that his opera was accepted by the Dresden Opera. On October 20, 1842, his opera was performed. It was a huge success. Wagner had skyrocketed into musical fame. The Dresden Opera secured the rights to his other opera Der fliegende Holländer, which wasn't as successful. However, they appointed Wagner as second Kapellmeister. He was very musically active while in Dresdenuntil 1849.

Late Adult Years:

Finally in 1854, Wagner reconciled his debts (10,000F). Wagner's later years house the creations of such masterful works such as the Ring Cycle and Tristan und Isolde. His musicality blossomed along with his fame and a steady cash flow (although he never managed to stay out of debt). In 1883, Wagner died of a heart attack in Venice . A private burial was held in the grounds of Wahnfrie in the city of Bayreuth .

Johannes Brahms

Born: May 7, 1833 - Hamburg

Died: April 3, 1897 - Vienna

Brahms Quick Facts:

During his teenage years, Brahms had long fair hair, stunning blue eyes, slender body, and a high voice; he could easily be mistaken for a girl.

Brahms was given an honorable grave site next to Beethoven and Schubert; two composers he greatly admired.

Brahms never married, but loved many women; so much to the point, that he had to deny one woman piano lessons, because he was greatly attracted to her.

Brahms Family Background:

Johannes was the second child born to Johanna Henrika Christiane Nissen and Johann Jakob Brahms. His father learned to play several instruments, and earned a living playing in local dance halls. His mother was a skilled seamstress. Brahms' parents married in 1830. His father was 24 and his mother was 41. Besides the fact that their finances were extremely tight, their age difference greatly influenced Johannes' father to leave his wife in 1864. Brahms had an older sister and a younger brother.

Childhood:

Brahms studied mathematics, history, English, French, and Latin in private elementary and secondary schools. Once Brahms learned to read, he couldn't stop. His well-used library of over 800 books can now be seen in the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna . Brahms was given lessons on cello, piano, and horn. At the age of seven, he was taught piano by Otto Friedrich Willibald Cossel and within a few years was accepted (free of charge) into the instruction of piano and theory by Eduard Marxen.

Teenage Years:

Much of Brahms' time was devoted to reading, learning, and composing music. He developed a love for folklore including poems, tales, and music. In his early teens he started to compile a notebook of English folk songs. In 1852, Brahms, inspired by a genuine Minnelied poem by Count Kraft von Toggenburg, wrote the F sharp Piano Sonata op. 2. In 1848, Brahms became familiar with the mixing of Hungarian style and Gypsy style of music, hongrios; later apparent in his Hungarian dances.

Early Adult Years:

Brahms, along with his friend Reményi, toured northern Germany from April to June in 1853. While touring he met Joseph Joachim, who later became his lifelong friend, in Göttingen. He also met Liszt and other prominent musicians. After the tour, Brahms went back to Göttingen to stay with Joseph. Joseph encouraged him to go meet more prominent musicians, especially the Schumanns. Brahms met the Schumanns on September 30, and became very much a part of their family.

Mid Adult Years:

In the 1860's, Brahms' style of music, apparent throughout the rest of his career, became more mature and refined. While in Vienna , Brahms met with Wagner. They listened to each others music, and afterward Wagner was known to criticize Brahms' works; although Brahms' claimed to be a Wagner supporter. Brahms spent the latter portion of the 1860's touring much of Europe to earn money. In 1865, after the death of his mother, he began writing the German Requiem and finished a year later.

Late Adult Years:

As a result of his travels, Brahms was able to collect an abundance of music scores autographed by the composers that wrote them. Because of his large circle of musical friends, he was able to give concerts all over Europe . His music and fame spread from Europe to America . After the death of Clara Schumann, he wrote his final pieces. A year later, Brahms was diagnosed with liver cancer. A month before his death, he was able to attend a performance of his 4th Symphony by the Vienna Philharmonic.

Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Born: May 7, 1840 Votkinsk , Russia
Died: November 6, 1893 St. Petersburg , Russia

Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky was one of the most loved of Russian composers. His music is famous for its strong emotion, and his technical skill and strict work habits helped guarantee its lasting appeal.

Early years

Born on May 7, 1840, in Votkinsk in the Vyatka district of Russia, Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky was the son of a successful engineer. Peter and his brothers and sister received a sound education from their French governess. His parents sometimes took him to concerts, and after one such evening he complained that he could not fall asleep because of the music stuck in his head. He was devoted to his mother, and at age four he and his sister composed a song for her. Her death when he was fourteen was a huge blow to him.

Tchaikovsky attended law school in St. Petersburg , Russia , and, while studying law and government, he took music lessons, including some composing, from Gabriel Lomakin. Tchaikovsky graduated at the age of nineteen and took a job as a bureau clerk. He worked hard, but he hated the job; by this time he was totally absorbed by music. He soon met the Rubinstein brothers, Anton (1829-1894) and Nikolai (1835-1881), both of whom were composers. Anton was a pianist second only to Franz Liszt (1811-1886) in technical brilliance and fame. In 1862 Anton opened Russia 's first conservatory (a school that focuses on teaching the fine arts), under the sponsorship of the Imperial Russian Music Society (IRMS), in St. Petersburg . Tchaikovsky was its first composition student.

Early works

Tchaikovsky's early works were well made but not memorable. Anton Rubinstein was demanding and critical, and when Tchaikovsky graduated two years later he was still somewhat frightened by Anton's harshness. In 1866 Nikolai Rubinstein invited Tchaikovsky to Moscow , Russia , to live with him and serve as professor of composition at the Moscow Conservatory, which he had just established. Tchaikovsky's father was now in financial (money-related) trouble, and the composer had to support himself on his meager earnings from the conservatory. The musical poems Fatum and Romeo and Juliet that he wrote in 1869 were the first works to show the style he became famous for. Romeo and Juliet was redone with Mily Balakirev's (1837-1910) help in 1870 and again in 1879.

During the 1870s and later, there was considerable communication between Tchaikovsky and the Rubinsteins on the one hand and the members of the "Mighty Five" Russian composers-Balakirev, Aleksandr Borodin (1834-1887), Modest Mussorgsky (1839-1881), Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908), and César Cui-on the other. It was widely reported that the two groups did not get along, but this was not true. Tchaikovsky worked as an all-around musician in the early 1870s, and, as was expected of a representative of the IRMS, he taught, composed, wrote critical essays, and conducted (although he was not a great conductor). In 1875 he composed what is perhaps his most universally known and loved work, the Piano Concerto No. 1. Anton Rubinstein mocked the piece, although he himself often performed it years later as a concert pianist. Also popular was Tchaikovsky's ballet  Swan Lake  (1876). It is the most successful ballet ever written if measured in terms of broad audience appeal.

A disastrous marriage

In 1877 Tchaikovsky married the twenty-eight-year-old Antonina Miliukova, his student at the conservatory. It has been suggested that she reminded him of Tatiana, a character in his opera Eugene Onegin. His unfortunate wife, who became mentally ill and died in 1917, not only suffered rejection by her husband but also the vicious criticism of his brother Modeste Tchaikovsky. Modeste, like Peter, was a misogynist (one who hates women). Modeste attacked Antonina in a biography he wrote about Peter. This was an attempt to shield Peter and mask his weaknesses. Later biographers repeated and even exaggerated Modeste's claim that Antonina was cheap and high-strung.

Tchaikovsky never stuck around to find out what she was like. Within a few weeks he had fled Moscow alone for an extended stay abroad. He made arrangements through his relatives to never see his wife again. In his correspondence of this period-indeed through a large part of his career-he was often morbid (gloomy) about his wife, money, his friends, even his music and himself. He often spoke of suicide. This, too, has been reported widely by Tchaikovsky's many biographers. Even during his life critics treated him unkindly because of his open, emotional music. But he never sought to change his style, though he was dissatisfied at one time or another with most of his works. He also never stopped composing.

Arrangement with Madame von Meck

Tchaikovsky became involved in another important relationship at about the same time as his marriage. Through third parties an unusual but helpful arrangement with the immensely wealthy Nadezhda von Meck was made. She was attracted by his music and the possibility of supporting his creative work, and he was interested in her money and what it could provide him. For thirteen years she supported him at a base rate of six thousand rubles a year, plus whatever "bonuses" he could manage to get out of her. He was free to quit the conservatory, and he began a series of travels and stays abroad.

Von Meck and Tchaikovsky purposely never met, except for one or two accidental encounters. In their correspondence Tchaikovsky discusses his music thoughtfully; in letters to his family he complains about her cheapness. He dedicated his Fourth Symphony (1877) to her. Tchaikovsky finished Eugene Onegin in 1879. It is his only opera generally performed outside the Soviet Union . Other works of this period are the Violin Concerto (1881), the Fifth Symphony (1888), and the ballet Sleeping Beauty (1889).

Later years

Tchaikovsky's fame and his activity now extended to all of Europe and America . To rest from his public appearances he chose a country retreat in Klin near Moscow . From this he became known as the "Hermit of Klin," although he was never a hermit. In 1890 he finished the opera Queen of Spades, based on a story by the Russian poet Aleksandr Pushkin (1799-1837). Tchaikovsky was happy when, despite the criticism of "experts," the opera was well received. In late 1890 Von Meck cut him off. He had reached the point where he no longer depended on her money, but he was still upset by her rejection. Even his brother Modeste expressed surprise at his anger. Tchaikovsky had an immensely successful tour in the United States in 1891.

The Sixth Symphony was first heard in October 1893, with the composer conducting. This work, named at Modeste's suggestion Pathétique, was poorly received-very likely because of Tchaikovsky's conducting. Tchaikovsky never knew of its eventual astonishing success, for he contracted cholera (a disease of the small intestine) and died, still complaining about Von Meck, on November 6, 1893.

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky wrote several works well known among the general classical public-Romeo and Juliet, the 1812 Overture, his Nutcracker, Swan Lake, and Sleeping Beauty ballets, and Marche Slave. These, along with two of his concertos and three of his latter symphonies, are probably his most familiar works-brimming with melody, color and passion, they are what most people think of when they hear the name "Tchaikovsky." However, there is much more to Tchaikovsky's output than that.