Romantic music is a stylistic movement in Western classical

music associated with the period spanning the nineteenth century,

[not verified in body] commonly referred to as the Romantic era (or
Romantic period). It is closely related to the broader concept
of Romanticism—the intellectual, artistic and literary movement that
became prominent in Europe from approximately 1800 until 1910.
Romantic composers sought to create music that was individualistic,
emotional, dramatic and often programmatic; reflecting broader
trends within the movements of Romantic literature, poetry, art and
philosophy. Romantic music was often ostensibly inspired by (or else
sought to evoke) non-musical stimuli, such as nature, literature, poetry
or the plastic arts.
Influential composers of the early Romantic era include Ludwig van
Beethoven, Carl Maria von Weber, Franz Schubert, Adolphe
Adam, François-Adrien Boieldieu, Mikhail Glinka, Fanny
Mendelssohn, Felix Mendelssohn, John Field, Ignaz Moscheles, Otto
Nicolai, Gioachino Rossini, Ferdinand Ries, Vincenzo Bellini, Franz
Berwald, Carl Czerny, Gaetano Donizetti, Johann Nepomuk
Hummel, Carl Loewe, Niccolò Paganini, Giacomo Meyerbeer, Anton
Reicha, Clara Schumann, Robert Schumann, Louis Spohr, Gaspare
Spontini, Frédéric Chopin, and Hector Berlioz. Later nineteenth-
century composers would appear to build upon certain early Romantic
ideas and musical techniques, such as the use of extended chromatic
harmony and expanded orchestration. Such later Romantic
composers
include Bruckner, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky, Dvořák, Liszt, 
Wagner, Mahler, Richard Strauss, Verdi, Puccini, Georges
Bizet, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Sibelius, Elgar, Grieg, Saint-
Saëns, Fauré, Rachmaninoff, Rabindranath Tagore and Franck.
Contents
1
Background
2
Traits
3
Trends of the 19th century
3.1
Non-musical influences
3.2
Nationalism
 4
See also
5
References
6
Further reading
7
External links
Background[edit]

Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog, by Caspar David Friedrich is an

example of Romantic painting.
Main article: Romanticism
Further information: Transition from Classical to Romantic music
The Romantic movement was an artistic, literary, and intellectual
movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in
Europe and strengthened in reaction to the Industrial
Revolution (Encyclopædia Britannica n.d.). In part, it was a revolt
against social and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment and a
reaction against the scientific rationalization of nature (Casey 2008).
It was embodied most strongly in the visual arts, music, and literature,
but had a major impact on historiography (Levin 1959,[page needed])
and education (Gutek 1995, 220–54), and was in turn influenced by
developments in natural history (Nichols 2005, 308–309).
One of the first significant applications of the term to music was in
1789, in the Mémoires by the Frenchman André Grétry, but it
was E.T.A. Hoffmann who really established the principles of musical
romanticism, in a lengthy review of Ludwig van Beethoven's Fifth
Symphony published in 1810, and in an 1813 article on Beethoven's
instrumental music. In the first of these essays Hoffmann traced the
beginnings of musical Romanticism to the later works
of Haydn and Mozart. It was Hoffmann's fusion of ideas already
associated with the term "Romantic", used in opposition to the
restraint and formality of Classical models, that elevated music, and
especially instrumental music, to a position of pre-eminence in
Romanticism as the art most suited to the expression of emotions. It
was also through the writings of Hoffmann and other German authors
that German music was brought to the centre of musical Romanticism
(Samson 2001).
Traits[edit]
Characteristics often attributed to Romanticism:
• a new preoccupation with and surrender to Nature;
• a fascination with the past, particularly the Middle Ages and
legends of medieval chivalry;
• a turn towards the mystic and supernatural, both religious
and merely spooky;
• a longing for the infinite;
• mysterious connotations of remoteness, the unusual and
fabulous, the strange and surprising;
• a focus on the nocturnal, the ghostly, the frightful, and
terrifying;
• fantastic seeing and spiritual experiences;
• a new attention given to national identity;
• emphasis on extreme subjectivism;
• interest in the autobiographical;
• discontent with musical formulas and conventions.
Such lists, however, proliferated over time, resulting in a "chaos of
antithetical phenomena", criticized for their superficiality and for
signifying so many different things that there came to be no central
meaning. The attributes have also been criticized for being too vague.
For example, features of the "ghostly and supernatural" could apply
equally to Mozart's Don Giovanni from 1787 and Stravinsky's The
Rake's Progress from 1951 (Kravitt 1992, 93–95).
In music there is a relatively clear dividing line in musical structure
and form following the death of Beethoven. Whether one counts
Beethoven as a "romantic" composer or not, the breadth and power of
his work gave rise to a feeling that the classical sonata form and,
indeed, the structure of the symphony, sonata and string quartet had
been exhausted. Schumann, Schubert, Berlioz and other early-
Romantic composers tended to look in alternative directions.[citation
needed] Some characteristics of Romantic music include[citation
needed]:
• The use of new or previously not so common musical
structures like the song cycle, nocturne, concert
etude, arabesque and rhapsody, alongside the traditional classical
genres. Programme music became somewhat more common;
• A harmonic structure based on movement
from tonic to subdominant or alternative keys rather than the
traditional dominant, and use of more elaborate
harmonic progressions (Wagner and Liszt are known for their
experimental progressions);
• A greater emphasis on melody to sustain musical interest.
The classical period often used short, even fragmentary, thematic
material while the Romantic period tended to make greater use of
longer, more fully defined and more satisfying themes;
• The use of a wider range of dynamics, for example
from ppp to fff, supported by large orchestration;
• A greater tonal range (exp. using the lowest and highest
notes of the piano);
Trends of the 19th century[edit]
Non-musical influences[edit]
Events and changes in society such as ideas, attitudes, discoveries,
inventions, and historical events often affect music. For example,
the Industrial Revolution was in full effect by the late 18th century
and early 19th century. This event had a profound effect on music:
there were major improvements in the mechanical valves and keys
that most woodwinds and brass instruments depend on. The new and
innovative instruments could be played with greater ease and they
were more reliable (Schmidt-Jones and Jones 2004, 3).
Another development that had an effect on music was the rise of the
middle class. Composers before this period lived on the patronage of
the aristocracy. Many times their audience was small, composed
mostly of the upper class and individuals who were knowledgeable
about music (Schmidt-Jones and Jones 2004, 3). The Romantic
composers, on the other hand, often wrote for public concerts and
festivals, with large audiences of paying customers, who had not
necessarily had any music lessons (Schmidt-Jones and Jones 2004, 3).
Composers of the Romantic Era, like Elgar, showed the world that
there should be "no segregation of musical tastes" (Young 1967, 525)
and that the "purpose was to write music that was to be heard" (Young
1967, 527).
Nationalism[edit]
Main article: Musical nationalism
During the Romantic period, music often took on a much more
nationalistic purpose. For example, Jean Sibelius' Finlandia has been
interpreted to represent the rising nation of Finland, which would
someday gain independence from Russian control (Child 2006).
Frédéric Chopin was one of the first composers to incorporate
nationalistic elements into his compositions. Joseph Machlis states,
"Poland's struggle for freedom from tsarist rule aroused the national
poet in Poland. … Examples of musical nationalism abound in the
output of the romantic era. The folk idiom is prominent in the Mazurkas
of Chopin" (Machlis 1963, 149–50). His mazurkas and polonaises are
particularly notable for their use of nationalistic rhythms. Moreover,
"During World War II the Nazis forbade the playing of … Chopin's
Polonaises in Warsaw because of the powerful symbolism residing in
these works" (Machlis 1963, 150). Other composers, such as Bedřich
Smetana, wrote pieces that musically described their homelands; in
particular, Smetana's Vltava is a symphonic poem about the Moldau
River in the modern-day Czech Republic and the second in a cycle of
six nationalistic symphonic poems collectively titled Má vlast (My
Homeland) (Grunfeld 1974, 112–13). Smetana also composed eight
nationalist operas, all of which remain in the repertory. They
established him as the first Czech nationalist composer as well as the
most important Czech opera composer of the generation who came to
prominence in the 1860s (Ottlová, Tyrrell, and Pospíšil 2001).
See also