COURSE OUTLINE
• INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC OF THE
ROMANTIC PERIOD (1820-1900)
a) Historical and cultural background
b) Program music
c) Piano music
d) Composers: Frederic Chopin, Peter
Illych Tchaikovsky, Franz Liszt, and
Camille Saint-Saens
Objectives
• Describe musical elements of
given Romantic period pieces
• Appreciate the instrumental
music of Romantic Period
• Listen perceptively to selected
Romantic period music
INSTRUMENTAL
MUSIC OF THE
ROMANTIC
PERIOD
(1820-1900)
ROMANTIC PERIOD
• This movement emphasized one’s emotion,
imagination and individualism.
• Musicians belonging to the Romantic period
had the chance to express themselves
freely.
• Composers increased the use of dissonance
and extended chromatic in the melody and
experimented on the creation of new ways
to produce sounds using existing musical
instruments.
COMPOSERS DURING ROMANTIC
PERIOD
• Berloiz
• Brahms
• Chopin
• Grieg
• Liszt
• Mendelssohn
• Schubert
INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC
• Absolute or Non-program Music- It is an
instrumental music written without program
intention. It is music written for its own
sake.
• Incidental Music- It is a type of music
intended for, before and during a stage
play performance to set the mood for most
scenes and to highlight dramatic action.
• Program Music- It is a new development
during Romantic period which is associated
with a story and poem.
• Program Symphony- It is an
instrumental composition in several
movements based to some extent on a
literary or pictorial idea.
• Symphonic Poem- It is one-movement
orchestral composition based to some
extent literary or pictorial idea.
Musical Elements in the Romantic
Period
• In 1844, Hector Berloiz wrote a “Treatise
in Modern Instrumentation and
Orchestration.” This book signifies the
recognition of orchestration as an art.
• Romantic music puts unprecedented
emphasis on individuality of style and self-
expression.
• Composers of the Romantic period used a
more noticeable application of chromatic
harmony, or the use of chords with tones
not found in the current major or minor
scale.
How is the Romantic
period music related
to its historical and
cultural background?
As a result of changes in
social and political
standards of the 18th
century, Romantic era music
was formed. The Romantic
era swayed away from the
classical era by allowing
artistic freedom and
experimentation. Melodious
music became a dominant
characteristics of music and
it became very expressive.
What are the
characteristic
features of
instrumental Romantic
music?
National Identity
Surrender to nature
Mystic and
supernatural
A longing for the
infinite
Strange
Surprising
Subjectivism
Dissonance
Chromaticism
What were the performance practices
during the Romantic Period?
Romantic music composers
found themselves
essentially compelled to
use sharp contrasts.
This may be found in the
use of dynamics as
composers sought to
include expressiveness in
their composition through
the abrupt changes in the
volume of musical
composition.
• Romantic Art Song is a musical
composition for solo voice and piano.
• The mood of an art song is often set by
brief piano introduction and summed up at
the end by piano section called a postlude.
• Strophic refers to the form when there is
a repetition of the same music for each
stanza of a poem.
• Through-composed is the form when a
composer writes a new music for each
stanza of a poem.
• Lied is a Romantic Art Song with German
content.
Characteristics and techniques of the
romantic performance:
• Accelerando refers to a slight speeding up
of the tempo.
• Ritardando pertains to a slight slowing
down of the tempo.
• Rubato is the slight holding back or
pressing forward of tempo used to
exaggerate the expression of the music.
• Thematic transformation pertains to the
altering of the character of a melody by
changes in dynamics, orchestration or
rhythm.
Simplicity is the final
achievement. After one
has played a vast quantity
of notes and more notes,
it is simplicity that
emerges as the crowning
reward of art.
1. It refers to a slight speeding up of the tempo.
2. It is one-movement orchestral composition
based to some extent literary or pictorial idea.
3. It is the slight holding back or pressing
forward of tempo used to exaggerate the
expression of the music.
4. It is an instrumental music written without
program intention. It is music written for its
own sake.
5. It pertains to a slight slowing down of the
tempo.
6. It pertains to the altering of the character of a
melody by changes in dynamics, orchestration or
rhythm.
7. It is an instrumental composition in several
movements based to some extent on a literary or
pictorial idea.
8. It refers to the form when there is a repetition of
the same music for each stanza of a poem.
9. This movement emphasized one’s emotion,
imagination and individualism.
10. It is the type of music intended for, before and
during a stage play perfomance to set the mood for
most scenes and to highlight dramatic action.
• Nocturne Opus 9 No. 1 - tranquility
• Swanlake - Russian: Лебединое
озеро / Lebedinoye ozero), Op. 20, is a ballet
composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in 1875–
1876. The scenario, initially in four acts, was
fashioned from Russian folk tales and tells the story
of Odette, a princess turned into a swan by an evil
sorcerer’s curse.
• Don Sanche - an opera in one act composed in
1824–25 by Franz Liszt
