Romantic

The beginning of the Romantic Period coincides with major changes in the lives of many people in Europe(beginning around 1825). The music of Romantic composers reached more people than had ever been accomplished previously. A middle class developed which made up this larger audience. The previous aristocratic class hired a composer to work at their court and his music was mostly heard at the court. Also, the court composers were limited in what they wrote by the musicians available and the preferences of the aristocrats paying them. The Romantic composers had more freedom in what they could produce. The composers of the Romantic period traveled and played concerts for a broader market. One of the reasons concerts were performed in new areas was improvements in ways to travel to these new areas.

Romantic music was meant to express feelings and convey deeper meanings. The composers wanted to be free from the limitations of conventional forms and harmonic rules. Program music, music that is descriptive, became very popular. Romantic music expressed personal feelings and sentimentality. Other subjects were nature, magic, fairy tales and the supernatural. Operas also grew in popularity; Paris became the opera capital. Improvements were made in pianos and great piano pieces were written.

Despite the loss of his hearing around the age of 30, Beethoven is one of the most famous composers of Romantic music. He believed that his work should uplift and ennoble the audience. He constantly experimented with existing forms, expanding them to fit his music. He experimented with modulations, developmental processes, and instrumentation. His music expresses his personality and moods. The areas in which he made the greatest contributions were his piano music, his sonatas, and his symphonies. The symphonies he composed have influenced every symphony composed thereafter. His most famous work today is Symphony No. 5.

Schubert wrote more than 600 Lieder. In these works, the piano and voice parts are equally important. Two well known Lieder by Schubert are Der Wanderer and Erlkönig. Richard Wagner made great contributions to opera. Wagner was involved in all aspects of the creation and production of his operas. His use of Leitmotifs in his operas is influential to this day. Chopin composed numerous piano solos. He wrote music that was particularly suited to the piano. Rather than trying to make the piano sound like an orchestra, he wrote music that was specifically for the piano. Other composers during the Romantic Period were Liszt, Mendelssohn and Brahms. After Beethoven, Brahms was the most versatile and accomplished composer of the nineteenth century.