19th Century Opera

The first third of the 19th century saw the highpoint of the bel canto style, with Rossini, Donizetti and Bellini all creating works that are still performed today. Literally "beautiful singing", bel canto opera derives from the Italian stylistic singing school of the same name. Bel canto lines are typically florid and intricate, requiring supreme agility and pitch control. Following the bel canto era, a more direct, forceful style was rapidly popularized by Giuseppe Verdi, beginning with his biblical opera Nabucco. Verdi's operas resonated with the growing spirit of Italian nationalism in the post-Napoleonic era, and he quickly became an icon of the patriotic movement (although his own politics were perhaps not quite so radical).

In the early 1850s, Verdi produced his three most popular operas: Rigoletto, Il trovatore and La traviata. But he continued to develop his style, composing perhaps the greatest French Grand Opera, Don Carlos, and ending his career with two Shakespeare-inspired works, Otello and Falstaff, which reveal how far Italian opera had grown in sophistication since the early 19th century. Listening "La donna è mobile", from Giuseppe Verdi's Rigoletto

After Verdi, the sentimental "realistic" melodrama of verismo appeared in Italy. This was a style introduced by Pietro Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana and Ruggero Leoncavallo's Pagliacci that came virtually to dominate the world's opera stages with such popular works as Giacomo Puccini's La bohème, Tosca, and Madama Butterfly. The Style is distinguished by realistic-sometimes sordid or violent-depictions of everyday life, especially the life of the contemporary lower classes. It by and large rejets the historical or mythical subjects associated with Romanticism.

German Opera Wagner was one of the most revolutionary and controversial composers in musical history. Starting under the influence of Weber and Meyerbeer, he gradually evolved a new concept of opera as a Gesamtkunstwerk (a "complete work of art"), a fusion of music, poetry and painting. In his mature music dramas, Tristan und Isolde, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Der Ring des Nibelungen and Parsifal, he abolished the distinction between aria and recitative in favor of a seamless flow of "endless melody". He greatly increased the role and power of the orchestra, creating scores with a complex web of leitmotivs, recurring themes often associated with the characters and concepts of the drama; and he was prepared to violate accepted musical conventions, such as tonality, in his quest for greater expressivity.

Wagner also brought a new philosophical dimension to opera in his works, which were usually based on stories from Germanic or Arthurian legend. Finally, Wagner built his own opera house at Bayreuth, exclusively dedicated to performing his own works in the style he wanted.

Romantic Concerto In the romantic era, the concerto largely narrowed to three genres: the violin concerto, the cello concerto and the piano concerto. Virtually no major composer wrote concertos for wind instruments. In the 19th century the concerto was a vehicle for virtuosic display flourished as never before. Embrace the Romantic spirit with their melodic as well as their dramatic qualities. Recitative elements are often incorporated, showing the influence of Italian opera on purely instrumental forms.

Violin Concerti A violin concerto is a concerto for solo violin (occasionally, two or more violins) and instrumental ensemble, customarily orchestra. Such works have been written since the Baroque period, when the solo concerto form was first developed, up through the present day. Listening: Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto

The great violin virtuoso Niccolò Paganini was a legendary figure who, as a composer, exploited the technical potential of his instrument to its very limits. Each one exploits rhapsodic ideas but is unique in its own form. The Belgian violinist Henri Vieuxtemps contributed several works to this form. Édouard Lalo's Symphonie Espagnole (1875) displays virtuoso writing with a Spanish flavor. Max Bruch wrote three violin concertos, but it is the first, in G minor, that has remained a firm favorite in the repertoire. The opening movement relates so closely to the two remaining movements that it functions like an operatic prelude. Tchaikovsky’s violin concerto (1878) is a powerful work which succeeds in being lyrical as well as superbly virtuosic. In the same year Brahms wrote his violin concerto for the virtuoso Joseph Joachim. This work makes new demands on the player, so much so that when it was first written it was referred to as a "concerto against the violin". The first movement brings the concerto into the realm of symphonic development. The second movement is traditionally lyrical, and the finale is based on a lively Hungarian theme.

Cello Concerti Since the Romantic era, the cello has received as much attention as the piano and violin as a concerto instrument, and many great Romantic and even more 20th century composers left examples. Antonín Dvořák’s cello concerto ranks among the supreme examples from the Romantic era The instrument was also popular with composers of the Franco-Belgian tradition: Saint-Saëns and Vieuxtemps wrote two cello concertos each and Lalo and Jongen one. Tchaikovsky’s contribution to the genre is a series of Variations on a Rococo Theme. He also left very fragmentary sketches of a projected Cello Concerto which was only completed in 2006.

Elgar's popular concerto, while written in the early 20th century, belongs to the late romantic period stylistically. Today's 'core' repertoire which is performed the most of any cello concertos are by Elgar, Dvořák, Saint-Saëns, Haydn. Shostakovich, Tchaikovsky and Schumann

Piano Concerti Beethoven’s five piano concertos increase the technical demands made on the soloist. The last two are particularly remarkable, integrating the concerto into a large symphonic structure with movements that frequently run into one another. His Piano Concerto no. 4 starts, against tradition, with a statement by the piano, after which the orchestra magically enters in a foreign key, to present what would normally have been the opening tutti. The work has an essentially lyrical character. The slow movement is a dramatic dialogue between the soloist and the orchestra. Concerto no. 5 has the basic rhythm of a Viennese military march. There is no lyrical second subject, but in its place a continuous development of the opening material. He also wrote a Triple Concerto for piano, violin, cello, and orchestra.

The piano concertos of Mendelssohn, Field, and Hummel provide a link from the Classical concerto to the Romantic concerto. Chopin wrote two piano concertos in which the orchestra is very much relegated to an accompanying role. Liszt's mastery of piano technique matched that of Paganini for the violin. His concertos No. 1 and No. 2 left a deep impression on the style of piano concerto writing, Grieg’s concerto likewise begins in a striking manner after which it continues in a lyrical vein. Brahms's First Piano Concerto in D minor (pub 1861) was the result of an immense amount of work on a mass of material originally intended for a symphony. His Second Piano Concerto in B♭ major (1881) has four movements and is written on a larger scale than any earlier concerto. Like his violin concerto, it is symphonic in proportions.

Tchaikovsky, whose first piano concerto‘s rich chordal opening is also a famous example. Sergei Rachmaninoff wrote 4 piano concertos between 1891 and 1926. His 2nd and 3rd, being the most popular of the 4, went on to become among the most famous in piano repertoire and shining examples of Russian musicianship.

Small-scale works Besides the usual three-movement works with the title "concerto", many 19th-century composers wrote shorter pieces for solo instrument and orchestra, often bearing descriptive titles. From around 1800 such pieces were often called Konzertstück or Phantasie by German composers. Liszt wrote the Totentanz for piano and orchestra, a paraphrase of the Dies Irae. Max Bruch wrote a popular Scottish Fantasy for violin and orchestra, César Franck wrote Les Djinns and Variations symphoniques, and Gabriel Fauré wrote a Ballade for piano and orchestra. Tchaikovsky's Variations on a Rococo Theme for cello and orchestra have an important place in the instrument's repertoire. Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini is widely considered to be structured similarly to a piano concerto.