Music History - The Romantic Period

(1825-1900)
"Romanticism" was brought about by the social and political stresses following the French
Revolution, and the resulting nationalistic trends. It was a period of dramatic thought and action,
also involving contradictions between capitalism and socialism, freedom and oppression, logic
and emotion, science and faith. This resulted in a change in the thinking of people, especially
creative artists. There was a general impatience with the rules and restraints of Classicism, and
music "revolted" against the practices of Mozart and Haydn. The goal was to be different and
individualistic. The ideal for the Romantic composer was to reflect his own feelings and
emotions in his compositions in order to instill in the listener certain preconceived moods. The
expression of emotion and the "sparking" of the imagination were a primary goal.

The center of musical activity shifted from Vienna to Paris, and musicians were no longer
attached to patrons. However, while composers during this time did not write for the lower
classes, their music was addressed to the masses to a far greater degree than before in the history
of music. Music became more and more disassociated from real life, while expressing the
splendor and pride of the human spirit. In the effort to capture audiences, a dynamic and colorful
personality became an important asset. Such examples can be found in such individuals as Liszt,
Berlioz and Wagner. The concert manager, or "impresario" as he was often called, was also an
important figure in the business of music. Another important person behind the scenes of music
was the music critic.

Function of Music: Romanticism still served a sophisticated and aristocratic society, as had
been the case with Classical music. Aristocratic patronage was smaller, but the intimacy of the
exclusive salon was still the ideal setting for performances. Performance, however, was no
longer by mere amateurs, for Romantic music was usually too technically demanding for
unskilled performers. Standing outside the circle of the exclusive salon was a large, but
unorganized and unsophisticated, concert-going public, which loved music. Romantic composers
were constantly striving to gain recognition of this large audience and, in an effort to win
acceptance, they were very sensitive to the likes and dislikes of these music-lovers. Performers,
as well as composers, had the urge to be acceptable and to dazzle audiences. Composers were
often fine performers as well, such as Liszt and Chopin, who wrote a large number of virtuoso
pieces to thrill the public with technical display. The Romantic composer expressed his own
feelings and convictions, writing music to express himself in personal "documents of art". The
church was no longer considered a patron of music, with very little music written for liturgical
purposes. The teaching of music, however, became an established profession. Many fine
conservatories and schools of music were founded for the education of the performing and
creative musician. Research in music history and theory was introduced into programs of many
universities by the end of the 1800's. Many prominent composers and performers such as Liszt,
Mendelssohn, Brahms and Schumann achieved wide recognition as teachers. Thus, to meet
pressing needs for pedagogical (instructional) material, such composers wrote etudes (studies)
and other short pieces for teaching.

Historical Events: Louisiana Purchase, Monroe Doctrine, McCormick invents the reaper, Morse
telegraph, Daguerre takes first photographs, California gold rush, Darwin writes Origin of
Species, Civil War in the United States, Germany united under Bismarck, Edison invents electric
light and phonograph, Roentgen discovers the x-ray, Spanish-American war.

Visual Arts: Goya, Gericault, Corot, Turner, Delacroix, Millet, Daumier.

Literature: Buron, Austen, Shelley, Keats, Pushkin, Heine, Cooper, Balzac, Hugo, Stendhal,
Sand Lytton, Dickens, Poe, Dumas, Thackeray, Longfellow, Hawthorne, Melville, Stowe,
Whitman, Tennyson, Eliot, Tolstoy, Dostoevski, Browning, Twain, Ibsen, Stevenson, Wilde, H.
James, Maeterlinck, Zola, Kipling.

Philosophy: Hegel, Mill, Comte, Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, Marx, Engels, Thoreau, Spencer,
Huxley, Emerson, Haeckel, Hietzsche, Berson.

Prominent Composers: Beethoven (late period), Paganini, von Weber, Rossini, Schubert,
Donizetti, Bellini, Berlioz, Mendelssohn, Chopin, Schumann, Liszt, Verdi, Wagner, Gounod,
Franck, Smetana, Bruckner, Borodin, Brahms, Bizet, Mussorgsky, Tchaikowsky, Dvorak, Grieg,
Rimsky-Korsakov, Faure, Puccini, Wolf, Mahler, Strauss, Sibelius, Czerny, Field, Elgar,
Offenbach, Saint-Saens, Massenet, Rubinstein, Rachmaninov, Scrabin (early), Albeniz,
Gottschalk, MacDowell.

Practice and Performance: Dynamics were more explicit than those of Classicism. Smaller
changes of color and gradations of loudness were indicated by more definite terms. Tempi were
more accurately designated by the use of metronome markings. Even the conductor became a
performer whose instrument was gigantic and capable of every Romantic expression. This was
an era of massive festival performances. The middle-class love for music making led to the
establishment of the choral society. Improvisation was generally discarded in the practice of
Romantic music, due largely to the complexity of its composition and the complete directions for
performance. A few individuals like Chopin and Liszt, continued to make brilliant use of it
however.

Prominent Musical Characteristics: There were Romantic idealists and Romantic realists. The
idealists insisted music must exist for its own sake without extramusical devices. The realists
were the champions of program music, believing that music could (and should) tell a story,
imitate sounds of nature or express a visual scene. Some Romantic composers excelled in
spectacular virtuosity, which was expressed by brilliant technical performances. Other
composers emphasized the intimacy of miniature forms and delicate textures to express their
personal feelings. There were composers whose aim was to extol national characteristics and
evoke patriotic feelings using folklore, folk songs and dances. There were also Romanticists who
avoided nationalistic devices in the search for a universal musical language. But there was one
concept that all Romanticists had in common, giving their music a sense of unity: their music
was aimed at the evocation of emotion as its primary function. All Romantic music concerns
itself with the problem of creating musical tension to achieve a corresponding intensification of
emotional response.

Forms are not as precise and clear as in Classicism, but are often overlapping, vague and often
without strong cadences. Sections of larger works often "melt" into one another. It was also a
common practice to use some of the same thematic material in each movement as a means of
maintaining a constant expressive character (this is sometimes called "cyclic" form). Folk
melodies were also used a great deal in Romantic music. Melodies are characterized by an
intensity of personal feelings, sometimes extremely long with dramatic and dynamic climaxes.
Rhythmically, music became more interesting. There are often changes in the number of beats in
a measure, cross-rhythms, syncopations, etc. Tempo in Romantic music is not always constant,
but may fluctuate in order to achieve emotional effect (rubato). The rich harmony makes great
use of chromaticism, nonharmonic tones, altered chords and larger chords (such as ninths and
thirteenths). Timbre, or texture, was heavy and thick. Basically, there are six chief musical
characteristics in Romanticism:

 Subjectivity: Music was not objective (outside of human emotions) as in the Classical
period, but had to be joined with extramusical ideas. In this respect, some of Beethoven's
later music was held to be the model to be emulated. Because music could not convey
pictures or ideas, some composers resorted to "objective" devices which imitated natural
sounds. Much of the music during the nineteenth century has a sentimental quality.

 Emotionalism: All music has some degree of emotionalism. However, the Romantic
composer sought to intensify this aspect of his music. By the use of chromaticism
(progression by half steps) in melodies and chords, and modulations (changing keys) and
by exploiting tension in the music (by not resolving dissonances immediately), the
composer was to keep the listener in a state of suspense for long periods of time.

 Nationalism: Composers were greatly influenced by the intense nationalistic feelings

that developed after the Napoleonic wars. Some composers were political outcasts
(Chopin and Wagner), while others promoted a love for their country (Russian Five). The
main areas of nationalistic music during the nineteenth century were Germany, Italy,
France, Central Europe and Russia.

 Programmatic Compositions: The development and use of descriptive music became an

important part of the Romantic movement. The trend from the subjectivity of the
composer to the emotionalism in the listener was natural. As mentioned previously,
composers resorted to "objective" devices in their music. The devices included
descriptive titles, melodic formulas, harmonic cliches and instrumental effects.

 Thick Timbre: The availability of improved musical instruments allowed composers to

experiment with novel orchestral effects. The timbre and texture of the orchestral color
became more evocative as the nineteenth century progressed. The use of chromaticism
and dissonance led to a very complex orchestral timbre by the end of the century:

1. At the beginning of the century, the woodwind parts often doubled those of the
strings. Brass instruments were mainly used to "fill in" louder passages.

2. About the middle of the century, the woodwinds were combined with the strings
in all registers. The brass instruments were generally used to double other parts
and to play for louder passages.
 3. In the second half of the century, complete instrumentation was employed in each
section of the orchestra. Each section tended to be treated on a more equal
footing.

 Chromaticism: The harmonic system established by Rameau in 1722 began breaking

down during the Classical period. The Romantic composers exploited the use of altered
chords and modulation to such a degree that the feeling for a central tonality often
became obscure. This is especially true of music written after about 1850. The increased
use of dissonance and half step movements in all the voices, and the avoidance of a "too-
well-defined" tonality, paved the way for the Impressionistic and Expressionistic
movements of the twentieth century.

Instrumentation: During the Romantic period, the piano (pianoforte) became the
most popular single instrument. It became a musical symbol of Romanticism, and was
enlarged to give it a wider range and more tonal power. The piano reached such
heights of popularity that it became the favorite household instrument with every
family that could afford it. The orchestra grew to be the favorite large instrument of
the century. Added were the English horn, the clarinet, more brass and percussion.
Opera was also a major medium of expression.

Vocal Compositions: Lied, choral music (sacred and secular), Te Deums, Requiems,
Beatitudes, Opera (Italian, French, German Nationalistic), Oratorios.

New Large Forms: Symphonic Poem, Sonata, Symphony, Concerto, Ballet, Ballade,
Impromptu.

New Small Forms: Waltz, Nocturne, Etude, Fantasy, Mazurka, Variations,

Rhapsody.

How the Festival Evolved

In the first years, the Festival was held in the UNCG Dance Theater, and the dances featured were
from out-of town artists; the dance faculty at Duke was the first. Three years after its start, the
Festival added a third evening to showcase work from just the Greensboro/Triad area. The
Festival’s greatest expansion came in 1997 when the local artists’ evening ran twice, making it a
four-night event in the Dance Theater at UNCG. The Festival also expanded to three sites that year,
including Boone and Durham. In 1998, Asheville was added to the tour, followed by Wilmington in
1999 and Charlotte in 2003. Since then, the Festival tour has shifted and evolved with the changes
in funding, changes in host availability, and support. For the 2017 season (our 27th season), we
have made significant changes in the structure of the Festival, including the sites and types of work
presented, in order to feature more artists, working in a variety of “kinds” of contemporary dance,
including experimental work, multi-media, and dance theater, etc. We aim for our Festival to be more
representative of the variety of ways NC artists are expressing themselves, while pushing for high-
quality, innovative choreography by diverse artists. The unique variables of each Festival site will
dictate the kinds of performances, from formal to non-traditional spaces, collaborative work, site-
specific, entertaining to serious, avant-garde to more traditional. Outreach activities are organized to
send Festival artists into public schools, museums, libraries and community centers for classes and
performances.