Romantic Era Techniques

2000
1800

1900
1600
1500

1700
early 20th
renaissance baroque classical romantic century
contemporary

however, the music of the romantic

the music of the baroque, classical era employed some interesting
and romantic eras share a consistent use techniques that set it apart from
of harmony and counterpoint, enough to cause the baroque and classical eras...
theorists and historians to group them together
as the “Common Practice Period.”
...and foreshadow some of
the big changes coming in
ii° the twentieth century!
V11 we’ve already mentioned a few chords
IV
that were specific to the romantic era:
13 dominant eleventh and ii°
V thirteenth chords, V
bIII & # ˙˙ n ˙˙
the “flat three” borrowed chord,
and secondary subdominants. iv
IV

? b˙ ˙˙
b˙
another technique that is unique to the romantic era is
the resolution of an augmented sixth chord to a
dominant seventh chord rather than a dominant triad,
causing the interval of the augmented sixth to resolve
obliquely instead of moving outward to the octave. Ger.6 V7

finally, romantic era composers would sometimes use a particular type of chord
progression that had the effect of suspending tonality for a portion of the
piece. By temporarily removing the feeling of being in a certain key, the composer
could easily modulate to a distant key!
if you think of ...
t
tonality like ar hird
being in a of e l r
this technique is called f ike ela
room... in the tur tion
third relations because it t
fo he gra ning s
involves moving by root r r v
a oo ity
movements of a major or bit m
...
minor third without respect
to key signature.

for example...

œœœ
here, we’re

œœœ
...here, we’re just moving

& b œœœ œœœ

in F major...

# ˙˙˙
down by Major thirds...

b n ˙˙˙
Bb M
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F: I IV V I DM
...which obscures any
*whump*

& b # # # ˙˙˙ b b ˙˙˙ œœœ # œœœ

sense of key we had...

# œ # œœ
...and then turning

# n œœ œ
the gravity back
on ... but in a
different

F #M E bM
direction!

B: I IV V I
and then we land
in b major!