Romantic Period Vocabulary

Question 1

Chromatic Harmony

Answer 1

The use of “color” tones to embellish harmonies with unusual and emotional dissonances.

Question 2

Rubato

Answer 2

The purposeful showing and speeding of the steady beat, in efforts to make music more emotional and expressive.

Question 3

Art Song (Lied)

Answer 3

Usually a composition for voice and piano, an expressive partnership of music and poetry.

Question 4

Exoticism

Answer 4

The use of material from foreign places and unfamiliar cultures.

Question 5

Idee Fixe

Answer 5

Usually reference to Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique, this term refers to a melodic idea that is used repeatedly in a longer composition, often changed for different contexts

Question 6

Leitmotif

Answer 6

Usually referring to operas by Wagner, this term refers to melodies that represent specific characters, items, or actions in a musical composition.

Question 7

Nationalism

Answer 7

The use of folk songs, dance styles, and timbres to represent specific cultures in music

Question 8

Program Music, or Programmatic Music

Answer 8

Music composed to tell a story - either specific or general

Question 9

Symphonic Poem

Answer 9

A kind of orchestral program music that is one movement, and is meant to tell a story

Question 10

Thematic Transformation

Answer 10

The repeated use of a melody or melodic fragment, but it is changed throughout the composition. Very similar to idee fixe and leitmotiv

Question 11

Romantic Style Period

Answer 11

Lasted from around 1820-1910. Although other historical style periods of music can be emotional, the overriding value of unbridled musical expression is the cornerstone of Romantic Style Period composers.

Question 12

Romanticism

Answer 12

Is all about emotional expression.

Question 13

Some basic artistic values of Romanticism include:

Answer 13

• An emphasis on emotional expression, and the freedom to express feelings without censorship.
• The disregard of traditional rules, and an effort to be individual and unique as a composer.
• A fascination with nature, and the simple honesty of nature undisturbed by mankind.
• A fascination with the supernatural (ghosts, afterlife, etc.).
• Nationalistic pride, and showcasing nationality in the arts.
• Exploration of the exotic - often using sounds or ideas from non-European cultures.

Question 14

Rhythm in Romantic Style Period

Answer 14

Romantics tended to press the extremes of music. In rhythm, this could play out as very fast, or very slow tempos.

Question 15

Rubato

Answer 15

The purposeful speeding up and slowing of the tempo, in efforts to be more expressive. In essence, the steady beat of the music is not steady! Performers will speed up and slow down in efforts to be more expressive and emotional. It can be very poetic and graceful, or it can be really corny.

Question 16

Pitch and Melody in Romantic Style Music

Answer 16

As instruments became more evolved in the 1800’s, the technical possibilities of instruments expanded. This led to composers writing in more extreme ranges, asking musicians to play higher and/or lower than composers from the Baroque or Classical periods.

Romantic Period melodies can be long. They can meander. They can also lack the predictability and periodic structure that we noticed in the Classical Period.

Question 17

Harmony in Romantic Period Music

Answer 17

Harmony in Romantic music was very rebellious and unique for its time. Over the course of the Romantic Period (1820-1910), composers took the traditional Major/minor harmonic traditions established in the Baroque and Classical Periods, and twisted them into more freely used dissonances. These dissonances might have broken our historical values, and foreshadowed some of the unique creativity in the 1900s.

Question 18

Texture in Romantic Period Music

Answer 18

Romantic music tends to be mainly homophonic. There are instances of mono and polyphonic texture, but by and large the Romantic Period used homophonic textures.

Question 19

Countermelody

Answer 19

A countermelody is a secondary melody, happening at the same time of a main melody, but in a less important role. It is not polyphonic, because the countermelody is not as important.

Question 20

Timbre and Instrumentation in Romantic Period Music

Answer 20

Instruments continued to evolve in the Romantic Period. As machinery and production evolve, so did the design and technical possibilities of instruments. This is especially true for woodwind, brass, and percussion instruments.

Another interesting manipulation of timbre is volume. Romantics tended to push volumes to extremes - very, very soft or loud.

Question 21

Some important instruments were actually created in this time period:

Answer 21

• The saxophone family was developed in France in the 1840’s
• The tuba was invented in the 1830’s
• Valves were added to trumpets and horns, making it possible for these instruments to play many more pitches
• The development of world trading led to exposure of many different music cultures. This influenced the development and inclusion of many exotic percussion instruments in the orchestra.
  
  • Cymbals are mainly Turkish in origin, and were once considered very exotic to add in an orchestra

Question 22

Form in Romantic Period Music

Answer 22

In general, traditional musical forms are expanded in the Romantic Period. Structures get longer, take more minutes to play. Operas became 3 or 4 hour performances. The Symphony form expanded to be over 30 or 40 minutes long.

Question 23

Gustav Mahler

Answer 23

Gustav Mahler is famous for his symphonies. Each of his 9 symphonies is quite long, full of drama, and usually composed for very large orchestras.

Question 24

Genres, and Artistic Values in Romantic Period Music

Answer 24

• Tone Poem, or Symphonic Poem: this genre is a single movement piece for orchestra. It is a programmatic composition - meant to tell a story or evoke specific ideas to the listener. Often, it is hard to know the story unless someone tells you, or you read about it. In most orchestra concerts you would get a printed program that explains the music.
• Art Song: the marriage of singing and piano. The composer usually took a preexisting poem, and use it as lyrics for voice with piano accompaniment. These are often short works, and include a variety of topics.
• Piano Character Pieces: these are solo piano works, and explore a variety of ideas. They are usually single movement, short compositions. Some are sad, some are happy, some are dances, and some are contemplative.

Question 25

Franz Schubert

Answer 25

Franz Schubert was the most famous art song composer. His song “The Elf King” is probably the most well known. It tells a creepy and dramatic story.

Question 26

Frederick Chopin

Answer 26

The leading composer for short piano character pieces was the Polish composer, Frederick Chopin.

Question 27

The weather and the romantic period

Answer 27

One thing to add to the textbook is the importance of a single volcanic eruption. Mount Tambora in Indonesia erupted in 1815, and its aftermath caused widespread famine throughout the world. Crops worldwide did not have enough sun to grow.

Question 28

Richard Wagner

Answer 28

1813-1883
He was a notorious anti-Semite (this means he hated Jews), and though Wagner was long dead by the time World War II came about, he was Adolf Hitler’s favorite composer. Wagner’s music was sort of Hitler’s soundtrack to World War II.

Wagner oversaw the beginning of the Bayreuth Festival, and “Mad King Ludwig” built the theater for Wagner. King Ludwig was famous for his castles in Germany (Google “king ludwig castle”,), and there are murals in his castles depicting Wagner operas.

Question 29

Musical elements and sonata form

Answer 29

Composers were definitely pushing boundaries in the Romantic period, but they still adhered to most of the musical elements that are general to the romantic period. They still used standard forms, but they broke more of the rules. They still used standard orchestral instruments, but they may have stretched the instruments’ capabilities.

Question 30

Sonata form and how it’s altered from the classical period

Answer 30

This form is still used today in a lot of music. This became the dominant form back in the classical period, and in the romantic period it was still widely used. But it was stretched, and rules were broken constantly. Whereas the first movement of Mozart’s “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik” (“A Little Night Music”) (from the classical period) only takes a few minutes to play, and therefore easier to hear the complete sonata form, a single movement in a Mahler symphony (late Romantic period) can stretch to 20 minutes or more, making it much harder to hear sonata form.

Question 31

Rhythm & rubato

Answer 31

There are many more tempo changes, and lots more use of rubato, which is the pushing and pulling of tempo, speeding up or slowing down just for small sections. As it gets later in the romantic period, it gets hard to be able to tap your foot to it. Rubato is all over the music of Mahler and Wagner, who are late romantic composers.

Question 32

Melody

Answer 32

Longer melodies, and they tend to move toward an emotional climax by using many different possible techniques. They may build from extreme piano volumes to extreme fortissississimo. They may use rubato toward the climax of the phrase, making us wait and anticipate. Melodies are not as clearly tuneful as the classical period.

Question 33

Harmony

Answer 33

Rather than staying in a nice and tidy key like the classical period, composers used a lot more chromaticism. For example, if you go to the virtual keyboard and play all the white keys from C to C (moving left to right), that’s a C Major scale, and we’re pretty used to hearing this. But if you throw in a lot of black keys here and there, you’re straying from the key. (If you play ALL of the keys, all 12 of them white and black, from C to C, that’s called a chromatic scale.)

Question 34

Instrumentation

Answer 34

Larger orchestras (to about 100 or more). If you go to a Tacoma Symphony or Seattle Symphony concert, there will typically be 70 to 90 musicians on stage.

Instrument technological improvements, including brass instruments (valves), woodwinds (more keys). These technological improvements help make it possible to play more chromatically.

Question 35

Form

Answer 35

Composers manipulated the established forms; or some composers wrote program music, letting the story drive the form. Form was pushed to extremes if used, such as the sonata form example at the top.

Question 36

Genre

Answer 36

Most genres still continued, and remained the centerpieces: symphony, string quartet, piano sonata, and concerto.