Romantic Music (c.1800-c.1910)

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Romantic music is a stylistic movement in Western orchestral music associated with the period of 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 Europe from approximately 1800 until 1910.

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 Adolphe Adam, Daniel Auber, Ludwig van Beethoven, Hector Berlioz, François-Adrien Boieldieu, Frédéric Chopin, Sophia Dussek, Ferdinand Hérold, Mikhail Glinka, Fanny Mendelssohn, Felix Mendelssohn, John Field, Ignaz Moscheles, Otto Nicolai, Gioachino Rossini, Ferdinand Ries, Vincenzo Bellini, Franz Berwald, Luigi Cherubini, Carl Czerny, Gaetano Donizetti, Johann Nepomuk Hummel, Carl Loewe, Niccolò Paganini, Giacomo Meyerbeer, Anton Reicha, Franz Schubert, Clara Schumann, Robert Schumann, Louis Spohr, Gaspare Spontini, Ambroise Thomas and Carl Maria von Weber. 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 Albéniz, Bruckner, Granados, Smetana, Brahms, MacDowell, Tchaikovsky, Parker, Mussorgsky, Dvořák, Borodin, Delius, Liszt, Wagner, Mahler, Goldmark, Richard Strauss, Verdi, Puccini, Bizet, Rimsky-Korsakov, Schoenberg, Sibelius, Stanford, Parry, Scriabin, Elgar, Grieg, Saint-Saëns, Fauré, Rachmaninoff, and Franck.

Example: Wladyslaw Szpilman plays Frederic Chopin's Nocturne No. 20 (1997)

Example: Leonard Bernstein and Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra plays Gustav Mahler's 1901 classic, Adagietto