Reading: Music after Beethoven: Romanticism and The Early Romantics Flashcards
The Romantic period was a period where there was strict adherence to musical rules. True or false?
False.
What was a downside to the institutionalization of concert life?
The public tended to be more conservative than the old aristocrats.
What was the main artistic value in the Romantic era?
The integrity of personal feeling.
Romantic Melody
More emotional, effusive, and demonstrative.
Romantic Harmony
Learned to use harmony to underpin melody in such a way as to bring out its emotionality. Chromaticism.
Chromaticism
A musical style employing all or many of the twelve notes of the chromatic scale much of the time.
Rubato
“Robbed” time; the free treatment of meter in performance.
Tempo Rubato
Robbed time – some time has been stolen from the beat.
How did musicians of the Romantic era improvise?
They did not make up notes, but they played with rhythm.
What was new with instruments in the Romantic era?
Technological improvements, new combinations of instruments. Conductors came to the fore.
Program Music
A piece of instrumental music associated with a story or other extramusical idea.
Was program music new to the Romantic era?
No, but the Romantic era contributed to its new importance and prestige.
What are the two types of program music?
- Music that tells a story, with the story being the program.
- Captures the general flavour of a mood associated with some extramusical state, concept, or personality.
Why is program music contradictory?
On one hand, Romantics considered purely instrumental music as the highest form of art, but on the other, program music was embraced.
What was the struggle with form in the Romantics?
They tried to break existing moulds, but still had to avoid real formlessness in order to gold the attention of an audience.
