Romantic music is a stylistic movement in Western classical music associated with the

period spanning the nineteenth 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 Europe
from approximately 1800 until 1850.
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 philosophy. Romantic music was often ostensibly
inspired by (or else sought to evoke) non-musical stimuli, such as nature, literature,
poetry or the plastic arts.
Influential composers of the early Romantic era include Ludwig van Beethoven (in his later
works), Franz Schubert, Felix Mendelssohn, John Field, Gioachino Rossini, Vincenzo
Bellini, Gaetano Donizetti, Giacomo Meyerbeer, Robert Schumann, Frédéric Chopin, Hector
Berlioz, Franz Liszt, and Richard Wagner. Later nineteenth-century composers would
appear to build upon certain early Romantic ideas and musical techniques, such as the
use of extended Chromatic harmony and expanded Orchestration. Such later Romantic
composers include Bruckner, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Dvořák, Mahler, Richard
Strauss, Puccini, Sibelius, Elgar, Grieg, Saint-Saëns, Fauré, Rachmaninoff and Franck.

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 (Encyclopædia Britannica n.d.). 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, and literature, but had a
major impact on historiography (Levin 1959,[page needed]) and education (Gutek 1995, 220–54),
and was in turn influenced by developments in natural history (Nichols 2005, 308–309).
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 really established the principles of
musical romanticism, in a lengthy review of Ludwig van Beethoven's Fifth Symphony published
in 1810, and in an 1813 article on Beethoven's instrumental music. In the first of these essays
Hoffmann traced the beginnings of musical Romanticism to the later works
of Haydn and Mozart. It was Hoffmann's fusion of ideas already associated with the term
"Romantic", used in opposition to the restraint and formality of Classical models, that 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 centre of musical Romanticism
(Samson 2001).

Characteristics often attributed to Romanticism:

 a new preoccupation with and surrender to Nature;
 a fascination with the past, particularly the Middle Ages and legends of medieval chivalry;
 a turn towards the mystic and supernatural, both religious and merely spooky;
 a longing for the infinite;
 mysterious connotations of remoteness, the unusual and fabulous, the strange and surprising;
 a focus on the nocturnal, the ghostly, the frightful, and terrifying;
 fantastic seeing and spiritual experiences;
 a new attention given to national identity;
 emphasis on extreme subjectivism;
 interest in the autobiographical;
 discontent with musical formulas and conventions.

Such lists, however, proliferated over time, resulting in a "chaos of antithetical phenomena",
criticized for their superficiality and for signifying so many different things that there came to be
no central meaning. The attributes have also been criticized for being too vague. For example,
features of the "ghostly and supernatural" could apply equally to Mozart's Don Giovanni from
1787 and Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress from 1951 (Kravitt 1992, 93–95).
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. Schumann, Schubert, Berlioz
and other early-Romantic composers tended to look in alternative directions.[citation needed] Some
characteristics of Romantic music include[citation needed]:
 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. Programme
music became somewhat more common;
 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);
 A greater emphasis on melody to sustain musical interest. 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 satisfying themes;
 The use of a wider range of dynamics, for example from ppp to fff, supported by
large orchestration;
 Using a larger tonal range (exp. using the lowest and highest notes of the piano);

Trends of the 19th centuryEdit

Non-musical influencesEdit
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 had a profound effect on 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 (Schmidt-Jones and Jones 2004, 3).
Another development that had an effect on music was the rise of the middle class. Composers
before this period lived on the patronage of the aristocracy. Many times their audience was
small, composed mostly of the upper class and individuals who were knowledgeable about music
(Schmidt-Jones and Jones 2004, 3). 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 (Schmidt-Jones and Jones 2004, 3). Composers of the Romantic Era,
like Elgar, showed the world that there should be "no segregation of musical tastes" (Young
1967, 525) and that the "purpose was to write music that was to be heard" (Young 1967, 527).
NationalismEdit
Main article: Musical nationalism
During the Romantic period, music often took on a much more nationalistic purpose. For
example, Jean Sibelius' Finlandia has been interpreted to represent the rising nation of Finland,
which would someday gain independence from Russian control (Child 2006). 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" (Machlis 1963, 149–50). 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" (Machlis 1963, 150). 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 and the second in a cycle of six nationalistic symphonic poems collectively titled Má
vlast (My Homeland) (Grunfeld 1974, 112–13). 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 (Ottlová, Tyrrell, and Pospíšil 2001).
See alsoEdit
 History of music
 List of Romantic-era composers
 Neoromanticism (music)

ReferencesEdit
 Beard, David, and Kenneth Gloag. 2005. Musicology: The Key Concepts. Cornwall: Routledge.
 Casey, Christopher. 2008. "'Grecian Grandeurs and the Rude Wasting of Old Time': Britain, the
Elgin Marbles, and Post-Revolutionary Hellenism". Foundations 3, no. 1:31–64 (Accessed 24
September 2012).
 Child, Fred. 2006. "Salonen on Sibelius". Performance Today. National Public Radio.
 Encyclopædia Britannica (n.d.). "Romanticism". Britannica.com. Retrieved 2010-08-24.
 Feld, Marlon. n.d. "Summary of Western Classical Music History". Linked from John Ito, Music
Humanities, section 16. New York: Columbia University (accessed 11 April 2016).
 Grétry, André-Ernest-Modeste. 1789. Mémoires, ou Essai sur la musique. 3 vols. Paris: Chez
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, Sezione III no. 43. Bologna: Forni Editore, 1978.
 Grunfeld, Frederic V. 1974. Music. New York: Newsweek Books. ISBN 0-88225-101-
5 (cloth); ISBN 0882251023 (de luxe).
 Gutek, Gerald Lee. 1995. A History of the Western Educational Experience, second edition.
Prospect Heights, Ill.: Waveland Press. ISBN 0881338184.
 Hoffmann, Ernst Theodor Amadeus. 1810. "Recension: Sinfonie pour 2 Violons, 2 Violes,
Violoncelle e Contre-Violon, 2 Flûtes, petite Flûte, 2 Hautbois, 2 Clarinettes, 2 Bassons,
Contrabasson, 2 Cors, 2 Trompettes, Timbales et 3 Trompes, composée et dediée etc. par Louis
van Beethoven. à Leipsic, chez Breitkopf et Härtel, Oeuvre 67. No. 5. des Sinfonies. (Pr. 4 Rthlr.
12 Gr.)". Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung 12, no. 40 (4 July), cols. 630–42 [Der Beschluss
folgt.]; 12, no. 41 (11 July), cols. 652–59.
 Kravitt, Edward F. 1992. "Romanticism Today". The Musical Quarterly 76, no. 1 (Spring): 93–
109. (subscription required)
 Levin, David. 1959. History as Romantic Art: Bancroft, Prescott, and Parkman. Stanford Studies
in Language and Literature 20, Stanford: Stanford University Press. Reprinted as a Harbinger
Book, New York: Harcourt, Brace & World Inc., 1963. Reprinted, New York: AMS Press, 1967.
 Machlis, Joseph. 1963.[full citation needed]
 Nichols, Ashton. 2005. "Roaring Alligators and Burning Tygers: Poetry and Science from
William Bartram to Charles Darwin". Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 149,
no. 3:304–15.
 Ottlová, Marta, John Tyrrell, and Milan Pospíšil. 2001. "Smetana, Bedřich [Friedrich]". The
New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John
Tyrrell. London: Macmillan Publishers.
 Philips, Abbey. 2011. "Spacebomb: Truth Lies Somewhere in Between". RVA News: Joaquin in
Memphis. (accessed 5 October 2015)
 Samson, Jim. 2001. "Romanticism". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second
edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan Publishers.
 Schmidt-Jones, Catherine, and Russell Jones. 2004. Introduction to Music Theory. [Houston,
TX]: Connexions Project. ISBN 1-4116-5030-1.
 Young, Percy Marshall. 1967. A History of British Music. London: Benn.

Further readingEdit
 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 Nietsche, "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.
 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.