The Romantic Era

19th century, 1820-1900

Tchaikovsky

Brahms

Chopin

Beethoven (early romantic)

Links through art, literature and music

More expressive and dramatic

Concerned with emotions and feelings rather than form

Bigger orchestras (percussion and woodwind)

Brass instruments have valves (more notes)

Piano became very popular

Fuller texture, varying timbres, long melodic lines

Wide range of dynamics, sudden changes

Extended chords (more interesting harmonies)

Chromatic, discordant, dissonance. Used to show emotions

Virtuoso playing, technically difficult

Invented in the 18th century but devoloped in the 19th

Versatile

Changed shape (bigger and louder - increased dynamic range)

Longer, over 7 octaves, increased pitch range

Pedals - sustain, soft pedal (change of tones)

Thicker, longer strings (fuller tone)

Polish, 1810 - 1949

Composer, musician, teacher

'Tragic' composer, was lonely, withdrawns, ill, died young

Cantabile - in a singing style

Long lyrical melody lines, ornamentation

Spreading arpeggios (The notes of a chord played in sequence)

Broken chord accompaniment

Use of pedal effects

Tempo Rubato (literally meaning robbed time)

Virtuosic passages

Composed in 1838  Prelude - a brief opening piece

Piano prelude no.15 in D flat major, Opus 28

24 preludes, one in each key, different emotions for each

Known as the raindrop prelude because of the repeated A flat (dominant) quaver pattern in the left hand, which becomes C sharp in the B section

No.15 is short, only 89 bars, 4 main sections

ABA codetta - ternary form

A section - D flat major

B section - C sharp minor (tonic minor)

Not virtuosic, straight forwards rhythms, played in cantabile legato stle, rubato.

Marked as Sostenuto (sustained)