Music of the Romantic Era

In the wake of the Romantic revolution in literature came a similar revolution in music. About
1820, Beethoven began to write passionate compositions which often threatened to burst asunder
the classical forms in which he worked. His 1824 Symphony No. 9 is notable not only for its
length and complexity, but for the fact that he introduced vocal soloists and a chorus into the
final movement, as if the purely instrumental form of the classical symphony could not express
all that he felt. After this radical departure from tradition, many composers felt free to
experiment.

Beethoven is also significant in the history of music for being the first composer to earn his
living directly from his own work without being subsidized by a church or aristocrat. He
benefited from the emergence of the new bourgeois audience which could not afford to retain a
composer on salary as Haydn was retained by Prince Esterhazy, but who eagerly bought tickets
for Beethoven's concerts. With the money he received from lessons, from the sale of his
compositions, and from his public performances, Beethoven was able to survive if not to prosper.
This was a crucial factor in allowing him to express his extreme individualism, rejecting the role
of artistic servant within which even giants like Haydn and Mozart had been confined. He could
write as he pleased and challenge the public to follow him.

As we have seen in discussing the Romantic movement generally, the rise of the new middle
classes created a new audience seeking fresh sensations. It was also an audience, which was
powerfully drawn to emotion in the arts, and music more than any of the other arts has the
capacity to elicit powerful emotions. Although forms like the sonata continued to be used by
Romantic composers, the new, wider audiences were less to appreciate the details of the
development of themes than to be swept along on waves of melody, harmony, and rhythm.

What is an OPERA?
Opera (English plural: operas; Italian plural: opere) is an art form in which singers and musicians perform
a dramatic work combining text (called a libretto) and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting.[1]Opera
incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such asacting, scenery, and costumes and
sometimes includes dance. The performance is typically given in an opera house, accompanied by
anorchestra or smaller musical ensemble.
Opera is part of the Western classical music tradition.[2] It started in Italy at the end of the 16th century
(with Jacopo Peri's lost Dafne, produced in Florence in 1598) and soon spread through the rest of
Europe:Schütz in Germany, Lully in France, and Purcell in England all helped to establish their national
traditions in the 17th century. In the 18th century, Italian opera continued to dominate most of Europe
(except France), attracting foreign composers such as Handel. Opera seria was the most prestigious form
of Italian opera, untilGluck reacted against its artificiality with his "reform" operas in the 1760s. Today the
most renowned figure of late 18th century opera is Mozart, who began with opera seria but is most
famous for his Italian comic operas, especially The Marriage of Figaro (Le Nozze Di Figaro), Don
Giovanni, and Così fan tutte, as well as The Magic Flute (Die Zauberflöte), a landmark in the German
tradition.
The first third of the 19th century saw the high point of the bel canto style,
with Rossini, Donizetti and Bellini all creating works that are still performed today. It also saw the advent
of Grand Opera typified by the works of Auber and Meyerbeer. The mid-to-late 19th century was a
"golden age" of opera, led and dominated by Wagner in Germany and Verdi in Italy. The popularity of
opera continued through the verismo era in Italy and contemporary French opera through to Puccini and
Strauss in the early 20th century. During the 19th century, parallel operatic traditions emerged in central
and eastern Europe, particularly in Russia and Bohemia. The 20th century saw many experiments with
modern styles, such as atonalityand serialism (Schoenberg and Berg), Neoclassicism (Stravinsky),
and Minimalism (Philip Glass and John Adams). With the rise of recording technology, singers such
as Enrico Caruso became known to audiences beyond the circle of opera fans. Operas were also
performed on (and written for) radio and television.

Franz Peter Schubert (31 January 1797 – 19 November 1828) was an Austrian composer.
Schubert died at 31 but was extremely prolific during his lifetime. His output consists of over six hundred
secular vocal works (mainly Lieder), seven complete symphonies, sacred music, operas, incidental
music and a large body of chamber and piano music. Appreciation of his music while he was alive was
limited to a relatively small circle of admirers in Vienna, but interest in his work increased significantly in
the decades following his death. Felix Mendelssohn, Robert Schumann, Franz Liszt, Johannes
Brahms and other 19th-century composers discovered and championed his works. Today, Schubert is
ranked among the greatest composers of the late Classical era and early Romantic era and is one of the
most frequently performed composers of the early nineteenth century. In the meantime, his genius began
to show in his compositions. Schubert was occasionally permitted to lead the Stadtkonvikt's orchestra,
and Salieri decided to start training him privately in music theory and even in composition.[11] It was the
first orchestra he wrote for, and he devoted much of the rest of his time at the Stadtkonvikt to composing
chamber music, several songs, piano pieces and, more ambitiously, liturgical choral works in the form of a
"Salve Regina" (D 27), a "Kyrie" (D 31), in addition to an unfinished Wind Octet (D 72, said to
commemorate the 1812 death of his mother),[12] the cantata "Wer ist groß?" for male voices and
orchestra (D 110, for his father's birthday in 1813), and his first symphony (D 82).
At the end of 1813, he left the Stadtkonvikt and returned home for teacher training at the
Normalhauptschule. In 1814, he entered his father's school as teacher of the youngest pupils. For over
two years young Schubert endured such drudgery, dragging himself through it with resounding
indifference.[14] There were, however, compensatory interests even then. He continued to take private
lessons in composition from Salieri, who gave Schubert more actual technical training than any of his
other teachers, before they parted ways in 1817.

In 1814, Schubert met a young soprano named Therese Grob, daughter of a local silk manufacturer and
wrote several of his liturgical works (including a "Salve Regina" and a "Tantum Ergo") for her; she also
was a soloist in the premiere of his first Mass (D 105) in September[15] 1814. Schubert wanted to marry
her, but was hindered by the harsh marriage-consent law of 1815 requiring an aspiring bridegroom to
show he had the means to support a family. In November 1816, after failing to gain a musical post in
Laibach, Schubert sent Grob's brother Heinrich a collection of songs retained by the family into the
twentieth century.

One of Schubert's most prolific years was 1815. He composed over 20,000 bars of music, more than half
of which was for orchestra, including nine church works (despite being agnostic[), a symphony, and about
140 Lieder. In that year, he was also introduced to Anselm Hüttenbrenner and Franz von Schober, who
would become his lifelong friends. Another friend, Johann Mayrhofer, was introduced to him by Spaun in
1814.Maynard Solomon suggested that Schubert was erotically attracted to men, a thesis that has, at
times, been heatedly debated. Musicologist and Schubert expert Rita Steblin claimed that he was
"chasing women".
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi (Italian: [d͡ʒuˈzɛppe ˈverdi]; 9 or 10 October 1813 – 27 January
1901) was an Italian Romantic composer primarily known for his operas.

He is considered, with Richard Wagner, the preeminent opera composer of the 19th century.[1] Verdi
dominated the Italian opera scene after the eras of Bellini, Donizetti andRossini. His works are frequently
performed in opera houses throughout the world and, transcending the boundaries of the genre, some of
his themes have long since taken root in popular culture, examples being "La donna è mobile"
from Rigoletto, "Libiamo ne' lieti calici" (The Drinking Song) from La traviata, "Va, pensiero" (The Chorus
of the Hebrew Slaves) from Nabucco, the "Coro di zingari" (Anvil Chorus) from Il trovatore and the "Grand
March" from Aida.

Moved by the death of compatriot Alessandro Manzoni, Verdi wrote Messa da Requiem in 1874 in
Manzoni's honour, a work now regarded as a masterpiece of the oratorio tradition and a testimony to his
capacity outside the field of opera.[2] Visionary and politically engaged, he remains –
alongside Garibaldi and Cavour – an emblematic figure of the reunification process (the Risorgimento) of
the Italian Peninsula.

Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini (Italian: [ˈdʒaːkomo putˈtʃiːni]; 22
December 1858 – 29 November 1924) was an Italian composer whose operasare among the important
operas played as standards.[n 1]

Puccini has been called "the greatest composer of Italian opera after Verdi".[1] While his early work was
rooted in traditional late-19th-century romantic Italian opera, he successfully developed his work in the
realistic verismo style, of which he became one of the leading exponents.

Wilhelm Richard Wagner (/ˈvɑːɡnər/; German: [ˈʁiçaʁt ˈvaːɡnɐ]; 22 May 1813 – 13 February 1883)
was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is primarily known for his
operas (or, as some of his later works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most opera composers,
Wagner wrote both the libretto and the music for each of his stage works. Initially establishing his
reputation as a composer of works in the romantic vein of Weber and Meyerbeer, Wagner revolutionised
opera through his concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk ("total work of art"), by which he sought to synthesise
the poetic, visual, musical and dramatic arts, with music subsidiary to drama, and which was announced
in a series of essays between 1849 and 1852. Wagner realised these ideas most fully in the first half of
the four-opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of theNibelung).

His compositions, particularly those of his later period, are notable for their complex textures,
rich harmonies and orchestration, and the elaborate use ofleitmotifs—musical phrases associated with
individual characters, places, ideas or plot elements. His advances in musical language, such as
extreme chromaticismand quickly shifting tonal centres, greatly influenced the development of classical
music. His Tristan und Isolde is sometimes described as marking the start of modern music.

Wagner had his own opera house built, the Bayreuth Festspielhaus, which embodied many novel design
features. It was here that the Ring and Parsifalreceived their premieres and where his most important
stage works continue to be performed in an annual festival run by his descendants. His thoughts on the
relative contributions of music and drama in opera were to change again, and he reintroduced some
traditional forms into his last few stage works, including Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (The
Mastersingers of Nuremberg).

Until his final years, Wagner's life was characterised by political exile, turbulent love affairs, poverty and
repeated flight from his creditors. His controversial writings on music, drama and politics have attracted
extensive comment in recent decades, especially where they express antisemitic sentiments. The effect
of his ideas can be traced in many of the arts throughout the 20th century; their influence spread beyond
composition into conducting, philosophy, literature, the visual arts and theatre.