Skip to main content

Romantic Music : Classical Music Video Excerpts

Festival of Romantic musicImage by drhenkenstein via FlickrRomantic Music

Brief Characteristics of the Romantic Era:
  • Larger Orchestra
  • Program Music
  • Nationalism
  • More complicated texture, rhythm, tone color, form, dynamics

Social status of composer as artist increased from the measly "servant" position of earlier eras. The populace began enjoying music, too, in greater numbers, due largely to the increase of manufacturing of the pianoforte.

Composers of the Romantic Era

Nationalist Composers

Created music which glorified their culture and homeland.

Jean Sibelius (Finland)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fgwr3wrenkQ


Louis Gottschalk, America

The Banjo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKDyYiCXlOg


Dvorak, Czech

New World Symphony 4th Movement
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yctfXIqugXc


Frederic Chopin (Poland)
Polonaise in A Flat Major (the Heroic)

The Polonaise was a popular dance of his native Poland. He wrote these works to decry Poland's occupation by the Russians and Prussians.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFvqvZOtCF0


Brahms Hungarian Dance

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCBsR4lO730&feature=related


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFPFo1B8fT4&feature=related


Romantic Era Composers

Franz Schubert and the Lied (German word for Song)

Who rides so late through night and wind?
It is the father who's holding his child;
He's tucked the boy secure in his arm,
He holds him tight and keeps him warm.

My son, why hide you your face in fear?"
See you not, father, the Erl King near?
The Erl King in his crown and train?"
My son, 'tis but a foggy strain."

Sweet lovely child, come, go with me!
What wonderful games I'll play with thee;
Flowers, most colorful, yours to behold.
My mother for you has garments of gold."

My father, my father, and can you not hear
What Erl King is promising into my ear?"
Be calm, stay calm, o child of mine;
The wind through dried leaves is rustling so fine."

Wouldst thou, fine lad, go forth with me?
My daughters should royally wait upon thee;
My daughters conduct each night their song fest
To swing and to dance and to sing thee to rest."

My Father, my father, and can you not see
Erl King's daughters, there by the tree?"
My son, my son, I see it clear;
The ancient willows so grey do appear."

I love thee, I'm aroused by thy beautiful form;
And be thou not willing, I'll take thee by storm."
My father, my father, he's clutching my arm!
Erl King has done me a painful harm!"

The father shudders and onward presses;
The gasping child in his arms he caresses;
He reaches the courtyard, and barely inside,
He holds in his arms the child who has died.

The Elkonig (or the Elf Child)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOiMVPSzr7E

Fanny Mendelssohn
Larghetto from "Song without Words"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhcyUL7QSb4


Program Music

During the Romantic Era, composer began creating music called "program music". In program music, the music directly related to nonmusical art, literature, places, stories, mythology, etc. This was different than Absolute music, which was essentially "music for music's sake". For example, music of the Baroque era, such as a fugue, did not relate directly to any sort of poem, literature, or painting.

Modest Mussorgsky

Night on Bald Mountain
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8Ca_edg6RE



Pictures at an Exhibition: The Old Castle
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1umZ-_5_Rlw


Felix Mendelssohn



The Gnome
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_Ndkdan9oo&feature=related


Midsummer Night's Dream (from Shakespeare)
Wedding March
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDr8Q7lDW8o&feature=related


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wU_zqgoAcUs&feature=related


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzyyvw3YV_I&feature=related


Berlioz

Hector Berlioz wrote the semi-autobiographical Symphonie Fantastique after being rejected by a young actress whom he adored (and stalked). Unable to gain the young woman's unrequited love, the composer wrote this symphonic poem, fantasizing his adored beloved as a witch, in the end killing her and marching to the scaffold for his own beheading. Quite a morose fantasy, supposedly the story of a drug-crazed "artist", who could only be Berlioz himself.

Symphonie Fantastique

March to the Scaffold
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwCuFaq2L3U


The Love Triangle: Brahms, Clara, and Robert

Composer Robert Schumann fell in love and married the lovely Clara, the daughter of a family friend. They had a family together. The young Brahms visited Robert and Clara, and soon became warm friends with Clara. As time wore on, and Robert Schumann's mental state worsened, eventually landing him in an asylum where he spent his last days, Brahms grew closer to Clara. Eventually, after Robert's death, he came to care for her and her family for several years. Eventually they broke off their close relationship, burned their letters, but remained close friends to the end of their days.

Robert Schumann
Traumeriei, Reverie
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHlfNYY1YIY&feature=related


Clara Schumann

Piano Concerto in A Minor Allegro Maestoso

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bANWdzQPchQ


Brahms Lullaby

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsFQcQKWgTQ


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t894eGoymio


Ballet

Tchaikovsky


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LW_LNxEt8QU&feature=fvst


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8fI-dGWT74

"V for Vendetta" ending with 1812 Overture
Destruction of Parliament

Opera
(We will cover opera in the next section)

Giuseppe Verdi
Rossini
Puccini
Wagner





Enhanced by Zemanta

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

EDGY New Film : Special Needs Revolt! A man with Down syndrome is on a mission to save America from a racist dictatorship

Special Needs Revolt!  Is an action-horror-comedy film. The film's hero, Billy Bates, who will be played by up-and-coming actor Samuel Dyer, is a young man with Down syndrome. Billy wakes up from a two-year coma and discovers that the United States has been turned into a brutal dictatorship thanks to President Kruger, to be played by award-winning veteran actor Bill Weeden ( Sgt. Kabukiman   N.Y.P.D. ). Kruger has put all people with disabilities into institutions. Billy becomes the leader of a diverse group of resistance fighters committed to ending Kruger's reign of terror. "Special Needs Revolt!" is also a satire on our current political situation, done in the style of Troma Entertainment. Lloyd Kaufman of Troma will appear in the film.  CHECK OUT THE INDIEGOGO CAMPAIGN:  https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/special-needs-revolt#/ Adrian’s latest work  Special Needs Revolt!  may seem edgy and even shocking to some. However, it demonstrates that he is grow

Music Secrets: The Music School Survival Guide

Music Secrets: The Music School Survival Guide Don't have any time to balance rehearsals, exams, and a social life? Then read on!  So you find that between playing in orchestra, the school musical, a solo recital or two, joining Sigma Alpha Iota or Phi Mu Alpha , playing in the alternative band at night, pep band, and marching band that you can't keep your eyes open, let alone study for the music history midterm next week or even begin to write your term paper on Debussy? Then read on and learn to balance life in Music School. 1) Musicians DO need to Sleep   Yes, you need to sleep, even if it is only five hours a night plus catnaps. Your brain cannot function if you do not sleep. So sleep, even if that means that you can't play in that awesome alternative band that jams every other night till 5am at the local bar. 2) Eat right and exercise Okay, so I sound like your parents, or Oprah, but I am serious. My biggest mistake as an undergrad (well, one of my bigges

Percussion Instruments 101: How to Play the Concert Triangle

PHOTO"wikimedia.org Percussion Instruments 101: How to Play the Concert Triangle There are literally hundreds of concert percussion instruments in use every day throughout the world. Whether you are playing percussion in a drum circle in Ghana , a jazz band in New Orleans , or a symphony orchestra in Sweden, you are playing an instrument that has traveled and mutated throughout the globe. The percussion instrument the triangle , is a metal rod bent into the shape of a two dimensional geometric triangle with one of the bottom corners disconnected to allow sound waves to escape. The concert triangle often has a slight difference, in that it may have a hole in one corner to loop a piece of nylon to hang the concert triangle. If it is an Alan Abel triangle, it will have a slight difference in the open end. That angle will end in a different thickness, supposedly to help the triangle sound to escape better acoustically. The triangle may be struck near one of the closed an