Welcome back to Classical Music 101! In this series, we’re breaking down the world of classical music to make it approachable for the average joe.
In our last article, we toured the Classical era, a time when composers moved away from the intricate, layered sounds of the Baroque period to embrace clarity, balance, and melody.
Today, we’re jumping into the Romantic era — a period when music went from orderly to emotional, from restrained to downright passionate. If the Classical era was a period that can be symbolized by symmetrical, pristine Greek pillars and temples, the Romantic era can be visualized as dark, mysterious German forests and crumbling, moss-covered castles. Art critic Walter Pater got to the essence of the era when he wrote that Romanticism is “the addition of strangeness to beauty.”
Let’s dig in.
The Characteristics of Romantic Era Music
The Romantic era encompassed nearly the entirety of the 19th century. As in previous musical eras, the music of the Romantic era was heavily influenced by the cultural shifts that occurred alongside it. This was the period that gave birth to philosophers like Nietzsche and Emerson and poets like Byron and Wordsworth. Romantic philosophers and writers reacted against the rationalism of the Enlightenment in favor of an emphasis on imagination, individuality, emotion, and mystery.
Instead of focusing their search for inspiration on ancient Greece and Rome, Romantic artists also turned to the medieval and the Gothic, the supernatural and the sublime. They wanted to connect with forces larger than themselves and particularly found these energies in wild landscapes. Romantic thinkers believed that nature was a conduit to overwhelming experiences of awe — moments that mixed beauty and fear and elevated life into the transcendent.
Romantic composers sought to create and convey those same feelings through music.
The shift from the Classical to the Romantic era wasn’t an overnight break but a gradual transformation in which music increasingly incorporated these characteristics:
Emotional intensity. While Classical music aimed for structure and clarity, Romantic music dove into the depths of the human experience, breaking traditional forms to create music that was emotional and dramatic.
Composers of the Romantic era weren’t afraid to crank up the passion, sorrow, and joy. They wanted listeners to feel the music, whether it was delicate and tender or bold and thunderous. With richer harmonies, longer melodies, and greater dynamic range, Romantic music could capture a whole world of emotion in a single piece.
Around 1844, French composer Hector Berlioz described his response to the visceral, moving effect of listening to Romantic music in a quintessentially Romantic way:
I feel a delicious pleasure in which the reasoning faculty has no share; the habit of analysis arises spontaneously later and brings forth admiration . . . emotion, increasing proportionately with the energy and loftiness of the composer’s inspiration, soon produces a strange commotion in my circulation, my arteries throb violently; tears . . . indicate an advancing condition that is far from having reached its peak. In such cases, there are spasmodic muscular contractions, a trembling of all the limbs, a total numbness of feet and hands, a partial paralysis of the optical and auditory nerves: I cannot see, I barely hear; vertigo . . . a half swoon.
Individuality and personal expression. Romantics extolled the value of human beings, which they believed to have infinite, godlike potential. Romantic composers saw themselves as singular individuals and embraced styles that were intensely their own. Instead of fitting into a particular mold, each composer created music that reflected his unique vision.
Beethoven, who is considered the father of Romanticism, infused his Classical works with personal passion and self-expression and epitomized the idea of the Romantic genius when he wrote in his diary that he wanted to “grab fate by the throat.”
Bigger and bolder orchestras. Increased efficiency in instrument-making during the Romantic era allowed for orchestras to grow in size and scope. While a Classical ensemble might have had thirty to forty musicians, a Romantic orchestra had 100+. (Many of the great orchestras that exist today, in fact, began during the Romantic era.)
Composers used this expanded palette to create fuller music with more dramatic contrasts, vivid texture, and the power to convey the scale of human emotions, from intimate whisper-like moments to explosive, all-encompassing soundscapes.
The rise of program music. While Classical music aimed to be “absolute” — music for music’s sake — Romantic composers began to compose “program music,” which told a story or painted a picture. Inspired by literature, nature, and legend, they created pieces that could represent a thunderstorm, a love story, or a folktale.
Nationalism and folklore. During the Romantic era, composers began to draw on their cultural heritage to add a local flavor to their music. Romantic composers like Smetana and Dvořák incorporated folk melodies and rhythms from their homelands, celebrating their national identities in sound. The result was music that felt deeply rooted in a specific place and people — a significant departure from the cosmopolitan tone of the Classical era.
The supernatural, the macabre, and the mysterious. The Romantic era had a fascination with the eerie and mysterious. Composers like Wagner and Berlioz embraced this dark side, creating music that evokes haunted landscapes and supernatural forces. In the Romantic era, beauty wasn’t just something to be gently sighed over; it was a force that could elicit a shiver of fear.
Key Romantic Era Composers
The Romantic era produced a ton of great composers, but here are five that will give you a good overview of the period’s ethos and output:
Franz Schubert (1797-1828). If you want to experience the essence of Romantic music, look no further than Franz Schubert. Schubert was an Austrian composer known for his lieder — German art songs that captured poetry in music. His melodies were haunting and his harmonies rich. Schubert’s music is like reading a Gothic novel; it’s intimate and personal, yet darkly beautiful. Tragically, he died young, but he left behind gems like Der Erlkönig, a thrilling song about a supernatural creature pursuing a child. Schubert’s Symphony No. 8, also known as the Unfinished Symphony, showcases his hauntingly beautiful expressiveness.
Take a listen to Symphony No. 8:
Hector Berlioz (1803-1869). Hector Berlioz was a French composer and one of the first to embrace “program music” — composing pieces based on narratives or themes. His Symphonie fantastique is legendary for its storytelling and drama, chronicling an artist’s wild, psychedelic journey fueled by obsessive love. The finale’s “Dream of a Witches’ Sabbath” is spine-tingling stuff.
Give Symphonie fantastique a listen and prepare for a wild ride:
Frederic Chopin (1810-1849). Born in Poland, but spending much of his life in Paris, Frederic Chopin was the poet of the piano and composed almost exclusively for that instrument. Chopin’s pieces are tender, lyrical, and technically demanding. Works like his Nocturnes and Etudes reveal an unmatched sensitivity, while his Mazurkas and Polonaises echo his Polish heritage.
Check out Nocturne in E-flat Major, Op. 9, No. 2 for a glimpse into his dreamy, intricate world:
Richard Wagner (1813-1883). A German composer who took opera to an epic level, Richard Wagner was one the of the Romantic era’s most controversial composers due to his anti-semitic beliefs. He didn’t just write operas; he created “music dramas” that lasted for hours and were filled with complex themes, mythical characters, and endless musical ideas. His Ring Cycle, a series of four operas, is over 15 hours long and tells a tale of gods, heroes, and betrayal. Wagner’s use of leitmotifs (musical themes representing characters or ideas) was revolutionary and became a staple in film scoring.
Take a listen to the most famous of Wagner’s works, “Ride of the Valkyries” from Die Walküre:
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893). If there’s one Romantic composer whose music you probably recognize without even realizing it, it’s Tchaikovsky. This Russian composer had a gift for creating sweeping, heart-on-your-sleeve melodies. His Nutcracker Suite and Swan Lake are household names, but his symphonies and concertos are equally powerful. Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet Overture captures the passion and tragedy of Shakespeare’s story with incredible emotional weight.
You’ve probably heard Nutcracker Suite before, so give Romeo and Juliet a go for a taste of something different:
The Romantic era began a shift to music driven by the subjective, but it was still restrained by the forms of past musical eras. In the 20th century, Modern composers would remove those classical standards completely and create music that was abstract and weird. To their period is where we’ll turn in our next and final installment in the series.
Read the rest of the series:
- Classical Music 101 — The Origins of an Illustrious Art
- Classical Music 101: The Baroque Era
- Classical Music 101: The Era That Put the Classical in Classical Music
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