1. The Romantic Time Period

2. Characteristics Music is written to express feelings and emotions.
Composers during this period wanted to express their innermost thoughts and feelings through their music.

3. While Classical composers wrote very structured music, Romantic composers were much more free, using it to express themselves.
They also began to compose in nationalistic styles as a way to show patriotism and love of country.

4. Music frequently represented something (like a sunrise) or expressed something (such as love of country) or was used to describe something (like a poem)
Orchestras are now larger.

5. Orchestration skills become important!
Instruments are used like an artist (for effect, contrast, beauty).

6. Music becomes more difficult as more conservatories grow (schools to train musicians).
A new form, the symphonic poem, was a fairly long work for orchestra in one movement (as long as one hour).

7. Program music develops, which tells a story or paints a musical picture.
Composers also wrote short piano pieces, as well as songs for solo voice with piano accompaniment using expressive poems as the song lyrics.

8. The most grandiose new form of this era was the music drama, a kind of opera using an enormous cast and large orchestra. These combined music, drama, theatre, scenery, and costuming.

9. Ludwig van Beethoven
Born in 1770 in Germany
Died in 1827 in Germany

10. Beethoven Facts:
He represents the transition between Classical and Romantic music.

11. Beethoven Facts: He began piano lessons at 4 years old
Performed as a Concert pianist at 8 years old

12. Beethoven Facts:
At age 14, he became the assistant organist at a local church

13. Beethoven Facts:
At 17 years, he met Mozart, who predicted a great career for him.

14. Beethoven Facts:
In his early 20's, he moved to Vienna, Austria, where he took composition lessons from Franz Joseph Haydn.

15. Beethoven Facts: By the age of 45, he had written: 8 symphonies
27 piano sonatas
10 piano trios
11 string quartets
and more!

16. Beethoven Facts: He began losing his hearing in his early 20's
By his mid-40's, he gave up his performing career, and devoted as much time as possible to composing.

17. Beethoven Facts:
He spent the last 12 years of his life composing while he slowly went deaf

18. Beethoven Facts:
He never married - his poor origins kept him from marrying the upper class women he really liked.

19. Beethoven Facts:
His musical manuscripts were terrible. One copyist (the person who copies someone's music—by hand) said, "I would rather copy 20 pages by another composer than one page of Beethoven's.

20. Beethoven Facts:
He was a slow worker-- his manuscripts and musical notebooks showed many revisions (opposite of what composer?). He was never satisfied with his music and tried endlessly to improve it.

21. Beethoven Facts:
Beethoven's early music was composed in the Classical style, and his later music was composed in the Romantic style...thus, he is often called the musical bridge between these two periods.

22. Ludwig van Beethoven
Listening Selection:
Symphony No. 5 in C Minor

23. Ludwig van Beethoven Symphony No. 5 in C Minor
This is one of the most well-recognized
melodies of all time because of the motif,
the small musical pattern that appears
frequently in a musical composition
(sometimes called a hook).

25. Here's another Beethoven selection.
Ludwig van Beethoven
Here's another Beethoven selection.
Can you name it?

27. Ludwig van Beethoven
The translation is For Elise, a simple dedication. However, we do not know who Elise is. There are a couple of theories. One is that because of Beethoven’s sloppy handwriting, the title was simply copied incorrectly. Another is that Beethoven proposed marriage to a young lady named Theresa Malfatti, but she turned him down (that is fact). Beethoven may have then changed the title to a non-existent woman’s name.
This piece was not discovered until 40 years after Beethoven’s death, in 1865.

28. Franz Schubert
Born 1797 in Austria
Died in 1828 in Austria

29. Schubert Facts:
Schubert's father was a schoolteacher.

30. Schubert Facts:
As a child, he attended a boychoir school where he sang in the choir and played violin in the orchestra. He began to compose while he was a student.

31. Schubert Facts:
At age 21, he took a job as a music teacher at the summer home of Count Esterhazy (the same count who support Franz Joseph Haydn). However, most of his music still remained unperformed outside of the palace. He left his job here after just two years.

32. Schubert Facts:
By the age of 23, he had written over 500 musical works, but only two had ever been performed in public. He spent his mornings composing, his afternoon with friends, and his nights partying. He was always short on money and lived in terrible conditions, then his health began to fail.

33. Schubert Facts:
In 1828, some friends put together a concert devoted exclusively to his music. It was well received, and he was told success was near. However, he died eight months later at the age of 31.

34. Schubert Facts:
Ten years after his death, another composer began studying his music and organized performances. One of his most famous works was not even finished at the time of his death, and became known as the Unfinished Symphony. In fact, it wasn’t even premiered until 50 years after his death.

35. Schubert Facts:
Writing music was Schubert’s only goal in life. He had no business sense and lived in poverty for most of his life.
He was buried next to Ludwig van Beethoven, as the two were great friends.

36. Listening Selection
Symphony No. 8 in B Minor
"Unfinished"

38. Listening Selection #2
“March Militaire”

40. “March Militaire”
(arranged for 8 hands)

42. Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Born in 1840
from Russia
Died in 1893 in Russia

43. Tchaikovsky Facts:
Tchaikovsky did not begin studying music seriously until the age of 22. He had only taken a few piano lessons.

44. Tchaikovsky Facts:
He got a job with the government, and wrote a song while working there, so he began considering music as a career. He left his job and entered the musical conservatory of St. Petersburg, Russia, where he studied music composition and orchestration.

45. Tchaikovsky Facts:
After graduation, he moved to Moscow, Russia, and became an instructor of music theory at the Moscow Conservatory. This position allowed him to continue composing.

46. Tchaikovsky Facts:
He completed his first symphony at the age of 28 and his first opera a year later. Both were successful. He also began writing music for ballets.

47. Tchaikovsky Facts:
In 1878, he married Antonina, but the marriage did not last. After that a wealthy widow (Madame von Meck) began supporting him financially. This enabled him to leave his teaching position and devote full-time to composing. It also allowed him to travel to the musical capitals of Europe.

48. Tchaikovsky Facts:
Tchaikovsky was supported by the Madame von Meck for 13 years on one condition: he was never to attempt to meet her. At first he wrote a lot, but from , he traveled a lot and wrote very little.

49. Tchaikovsky Facts:
At age 48, the Russian government recognized Tchaikovsky’s talents and gave him an annual salary for life. He spent two years touring Europe as an orchestral conductor. In 1890, Madame von Meck ended her financial support, and Tchaikovsky, even though he didn’t need the support, felt abandoned by her.

50. Tchaikovsky Facts:
Tchaikovsky made an extended visit to the United States in 1891 (age 51) and conducted one of his most famous works, the 1812 Overture at the grand opening of Carnegie Hall in New York City.

51. Tchaikovsky Facts:
Tchaikovsky died in St. Petersburg during a cholera epidemic (virus in intestines that leads to severe dehydration).

52. Tchaikovsky Facts:
Like Beethoven, Tchaikovsky agonized over his music, never feeling like it was good enough.

53. Listening Example:
“March”
from The Nutcracker

54. Listening Example:
Tchaikovsky was the most popular composer in Russia during the late 19th century. He loved the world of make-believe, and when commissioned to write a ballet, he chose the story of The Nutcracker and Mouse King by E.T.A. Hoffman as his subject.

55. Listening Example:
The ballet was first performed at the Imperial Opera House in St. Petersburg on December 18, 1892, but it was not well received, but has since become one of the most popular ballets of all time. It is regularly performed throughout the world during the Christmas holiday season.

56. Listening Example:
“March” is one of eight dances in the second act. A young girl, Marie, is transported to an enchanted kingdom by a Prince (the transformed Nutcracker), and watches as the eight special dances are performed.

58. Duke Ellington’s version, “Peanut Brittle Brigade”
Listening Example #2:
(if time)
Duke Ellington’s version,
“Peanut Brittle Brigade”

60. The Romantic Time Period