Sense+&+Sensibility

Romantic Music

=== You could divide the main part of the Romantic era into two schools of composers. Some took a more conservative approach. Their music is clearly Romantic in style and feeling, but it also still clearly does not want to stray too far from the classical rules. Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn and Brahms are in this category. Other composers felt more comfortable with pushing the boundaries of the acceptable. Berlioz, Strauss, and Wagner were all progressives whose music challenged the audiences of their day. === === The Romantic period had alot more artistic freedom than the periods before it. Emotions controlled the arts. Musical storytelling was popular. The tone poem was a new musical form that told a story. A lot of the Romantic period music was about exotic places and amazing events. Tone color became important. Tone color is a special sound that makes an instrument or voice sound different from another. New instruments created new tone colors. Old instruments were played in new ways to produce different tone colors. The Romantic period was the age of the virtuoso. === = **__Romantic Musicians and Composers__**: =
 * =Ludwig van Beethoven=
 * ===Franz Schubert- wrote 600 German songs, one of his most famous pieces is titled //Unfinished// because it only has two movements.===
 * ===Hector Berlioz- his //Fantastic Symphony// was written for a stage actress he fell in love with.[[image:imagesCAEKDQHP.jpg width="162" height="100" align="right"]]===
 * ===Franz Liszt- his //Fantastic Symphony// was inspired by one of Berlioz' works.===
 * ===Frederic Chopin- wrote character pieces for solo piano.===
 * ===Robert Schumann- wrote character pieces; some of his works were performed by Clara, his wife.===
 * ===Guiseppe Verdi- wrote many operas with patriotic themes. Two of his most famous works are //Otello// and //Falstaff//.===
 * ===Richard Wagner- composed operas; he started the term "music dramas.", he took the opera to a different level by making use of larger orchestras and applying musical themes to his work. He called these musical themes //leitmotiv// or leading motive. One of his famous work is //The Ring of the Nibelung.//===
 * ===Johannes Brahms- wrote what is called "abstract music.", wrote character pieces for the piano, lieders, quartets, sonatas, and symphonies.===
 * ===Pyotr llyich Tchaikovsky- wrote concertos, symphonic poems and symphonies. Known for his expressive music.===
 * ===Antonin Dvorak- His //Symphony No. 9, from The New World// was influenced by his stay in America during the 1890s.===
 * ===Edvard Grieg- Norwegian composer who drew upon the national folklore of his beloved country as basis for his music.===
 * ===Richard Strauss- wrote symphonic poems and operas; known for the lavish, sometimes shocking scenes in his operas.===

**__Italian Opera Creators__**

 * === Gioacchino Rossini- Produced his first opera at eighteen. He composed dozens of operas, many of which are still in the repertoire today. Others are being explored again. Rossini excelled in the comic opera of the day. The music he wrote for the comic works has been described as "the perfect distillation of comedy into music." The overtures to Rossini's operas are extremely popular concert pieces and some have been put to different commercial uses in the recent years. ===
 * === Gaetano Donizetti- His operas are mostly admired for their attractive melodies and fine ensembles. Although he composed over seventy operas, only a few have remained in the general repertory. His most famous opera is L**ucia di Lammermoor.** ===
 * === Carl Maria von Weber- In history,he is the composer who established a German opera in his home land and successfully broke the chains of Italian traditions. He did this by unsing the spoken dialogue in place of the Italian //recitative,// using German myths and folklore with the emphasis on nature. For the subjects of his operas he used instruments of the orchestra, rather than just the voices, to tell the story. ===

=**__The Captive Princess__**=

//The Captive Princess// premiered on April 9, 1798 at the Royal Circus Theatre, a ��minor� London playhouse south of the Thames. It was an immediate hit, attracting large crowds from the north and holding the stage through the end of July, an unprecedented run at the time. Likely aiding its success were superficial similarities to Coleman�s and Kelly�s //Blue-Beard//, which had helped feed a vogue for pantomime-influenced Romantic musical dramas, and also parallels (many of them deliberate) between the production�s sprawling nautical narrative and recent events in the war with France. Another contributing factor seems to have been the sheer audience appeal of //Blackbeard//�s combinations of pantomimed action, music and elaborate historical-adventure scenarios. Commentators in later years have observed that Cross�s innovative stage aesthetic seems to have anticipated the Romantic melodramas of the nineteenth century � despite spoken dialogue being banned at the Royal Circus � and even prefigured elements of modern television and film swashbucklers.

A song called: In The Good Ship Revenge //Boatswain solo:// In the good ship Revenge how we've spank'd through the Ocean, She's flush to our purpose, you ne'er saw the like; Balls and bullets whiz by, but ne'er cause an emotion, Because, 'till we're bowl'd down, we never will strike. Thus success and seaman's cheer glads the jolly Buccaneer.

Fond of change, in all weathers and climates we're roving, Now a sort of hard tussle, and now a soft booze; With the girls and a fiddle, sometimes kind and loving, See pop'd off a messmate, and step in his shoes. Still success and seaman's cheer glads the jolly Buccaneer. Well stor'd now with plunder, at nine knots we're steering, To where copper fair ones will greet us on shore; There we'll laugh, quaff, and sing, and with kissing and swearing, Our cargo see out, then to sea boys for more. Thus success and seaman's cheer glads the jolly Buccaneer.

The Captive Princess Composers The Romantic Period [|Romantic Virtuoso] Music History 102 Music