Music, literature, and art that was created between the years 1820 and 1910 is called Romantic Music. The word Romantic doesn’t just mean romance or love. It describes how artists were trying to become more expressive and inventive through their work. Romantic era music was created to express the composer’s emotions, individuality, imagination, hopes and dreams, as well as their pride in their home countries.
Although some composers wrote songs with lyrics, many Romantic era composers created mainly instrumental music. They felt that instrumental music was the best way to communicate different emotions and help the listener to imagine specific scenes and stories. Here is a list of musical elements that Romantic era composers commonly used to create their music:
Melody and Rhythm: Both melody and rhythm became more complex. As a result, there was an increase of virtuoso performers.
Form: Composers were mainly concerned with the flow of the music, so music had no set form or structure.
Dynamics (volume): The dynamic range of the music became wider and included very soft (pianissimo) to very loud (fortissimo)
Harmony: Harmony become more complex (chromatic) and made use of the all the keys of the piano.
Texture: New instruments were created because of the advancements in technology during this era. Orchestras got much larger and could have as many as 100 players.
There are many famous composers from the Romantic era. Some of them include:
Frédéric Chopin
Johannes Brahms
Pyotr Illyich Tchaikovsky
Franz Liszt
Robert Schumann
Franz Schubert
Felix Mendelssohn
Gustav Mahler
The construction of the piano changed greatly during the Romantic era. More keys were added and stronger materials, like metal, were used in its construction. As a result, the range and tone quality of the piano greatly improved making it the most popular instrument of composers in the Romantic ear.