Vocal Music of the

Romantic Period
Music 9 - 4TH QUARTER
• How do you express your feelings?
• What do you feel when these
emotions are not expressed?
Vocal Music
• Vocal music is one of the best
tools for expressing one’s feeling
• This form of expression became
more evident during the
romantic period
• The parallelisms of music and
literature were clearly evident in
almost all forms of vocal music
during the Romantic Period
• Composers interpret poem, mood,
atmosphere, and imagery into
music
• Musical compositions such as the
art song was written for solo
voice and piano
• Art song has it’s inspiration from
poetry in this period
• Vocal music in this period
require singers to perform a
greater range of tone color,
dynamics and pitch
• Because of this, Opera became an
important source of musical
expressions
• The birth of the opera houses
came. It was the place where all
the arts converged: not only
music, but poetry, painting,
architecture and the dance as
well.
 Composers of
Vocal Music during the
Romantic Period
Franz Peter
Schubert
• Born: January 31, 1797
• Himmelpfortgrund, Austria
• Died: 1828 in Vienna,
Austria at age 31
 Lieder
• Lieder is a German word means “song”
– He used lieder as a proper name of
his songs so that they had a powerful
dramatic impact on the listeners.
 Lieder
• He tapped the poetry of writers like Johann
Goethe
• He is considered the last of the classical
composers and one of the first romantc ones
 His Famous Vocal
Works
• “Gretchen am Spinnrade”
• “Erlkonig”
• “Ellens Gesang III” (Ave Maria)
• ”Schwanenge sang” (Swan Song)
• He also wrote piano pieces, string
quartets, operetta and the
Symphony No. 8 in B minor
(“Unfinished Symphony”)
 Let us listen to some of
his vocal music compositions.
 Giuseppe Verdi
• Born: October 09, 1813
• Parma, Italy
• Died: January 27, 1901
at age 87
• A name associated with Romantic
Opera
• His characters are neither stock
roles nor symbols like those
found in German operas
• He insisted on a good libretto
• He wrote operas with political
and middle-class audience
• He studied in Busseto and later
went to Milan where his first
opera “Oberto” was performed in
La Scala, the most important
opera house at the time
• Almost all of his works are
serious love story with unhappy
ending
• Expressive vocal melody is the
soul of a Verdi opera
• He completed 25 operas
throughout his career
• His final opera ends with “ All the
World’s a Joke”
• His much acclaimed works are:
La Traviata, Rigoletto, Falstaff,
Otello and Aida
 Let us listen to some of
his vocal music compositions.
 Giacomo Puccini
• Born in a poor family on
December 22, 1858 in
Lucca, Italy
• He studied at the Milan
Conservatory
• He belonged to a group of
composers who give importance
to realism
• He drew material from everyday
life, rejecting heroic themes from
mythology and history
 His Famous Operas
were:
• “La Boheme”
• “Tosca”
• “Madame Butterfly”
Let us take a look to some of
his compositions
 Richard Wagner
• Born in Leipzig, Germany
on May 22, 1813
• Died of a heart attack on
February 13, 1883
• He was very much inspired by
Ludwig van Beethoven
• Introduced new ideas in harmony
• He also explored the limits of the
traditional tonal system that gave
keys and chords to their identity
pointing the way to the rise of a
tonality in the 20th century
• He exerted a strong influence on
the operatic medium
• He was an advocate of a new
form of opera which he called
“Music Drama” where musical
and dramatic elements were
fused together
• He developed a compositional
style in which the orchestra has
of equal importance in dramatic
roles as the singers themselves
• The expressiveness is aided by the
use of “leitmofits” or musical
sequences standing for a
particular character/ plot element
 His Famous Works are:
• “Tristan and Isolde”
• “Die Walkure”
• “Die Meistersinger”
• “Tannhauser and Parsifal”
• His work would later influence
modern film scores, including
those of the Harry Potter and
Lord of the Rings film series.
Let us take a look to some of
his compositions
 Georges Bizet
• He was registered with a name
Alexandre-Cesar-Leopold Bizet,
but was baptized George Bizet.
• Born: October 25, 1838 in Paris,
France
• He entered the Paris Conservatory
of music at a very young age
• Bizet became famous for his
operas.
• His most famous opera is
“Carmen”
• However, when “Carmen” first
opened in Paris, the reviews were
terrible. The shows were
criticized in horrible ways that
resulted in poor audience
attendance
• During the first round of
“Carmen” performances, Bizet
died (June 3, 1875)
• Four months later, “Carmen”
opened in Vienna, Austria, and
was a smash hit
• CARMEN – is now one of the
most popular operas ever written.
Activity no. 1
• Listen to the two songs that I
will play and answer the
questions given: you may
express your answer in
Filipino or English
Which is Which?
• REFLECTION:
1. What did you feel? Or what
emotions were evoked/ expressed
in the music?
2. Which style do you prefer? Why?
• Prepare for a 10-item quiz.
• Bring out ¼ sheet of Paper