126-557: Louis-Hector Berlioz (11 December 1803 – 8 March 1869) was a French Romantic composer and conductor. His output includes orchestral works such as the Symphonie fantastique and Harold in Italy , choral pieces including the Requiem and L'Enfance du Christ , his three operas Benvenuto Cellini , Les Troyens and Béatrice et Bénédict , and works of hybrid genres such as
252-528: A Stradivarius viola , which he wanted to play in public if he could find the right music. Greatly impressed by the Symphonie fantastique , he asked Berlioz to write him a suitable piece. Berlioz told him that he could not write a brilliantly virtuoso work, and began composing what he called a symphony with viola obbligato , Harold in Italy . As he foresaw, Paganini found the solo part too reticent – "There's not enough for me to do here; I should be playing all
378-587: A "romantic" composer or not, the breadth and power of his work gave rise to a feeling that the classical sonata form and, indeed, the structure of the symphony, sonata and string quartet had been exhausted. Events and changes in society such as ideas, attitudes, discoveries, inventions, and historical events often affect music. For example, the Industrial Revolution was in full effect by the late 18th century and early 19th century. This event profoundly affected music: there were major improvements in
504-478: A colorful orchestral palette. The mystic Alexander Scriabin dreamed of a synthesis of colors, sound and scents. Sergei Rachmaninov wrote melancholic-pathetic piano pieces and concertos full of intoxicating virtuosity, while the piano works of Nikolai Medtner are more lyrical. In the Czech Republic, Leoš Janáček , deeply rooted in the music of his Moravian homeland, found new areas of expression with
630-472: A concert of his works at the Conservatoire. The programme included the overture of Les Francs-juges , the Symphonie fantastique – extensively revised since its premiere – and Le Retour à la vie , in which Bocage , a popular actor, declaimed the monologues. Through a third party, Berlioz had sent an invitation to Harriet Smithson, who accepted, and was dazzled by the celebrities in the audience. Among
756-561: A disguise for the purpose. By the time he reached Nice on his journey to Paris he thought better of the scheme, abandoned the idea of revenge, and successfully sought permission to return to the Villa Medici. He stayed for a few weeks in Nice and wrote his King Lear overture. On the way back to Rome he began work on a piece for narrator, solo voices, chorus and orchestra, Le Retour à la vie (The Return to Life, later renamed Lélio ),
882-524: A distinctly Russian national style of classical music . They were often at odds with Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky who favored a more Western approach to classical composition. Led by Mily Balakirev the group's main members also consisted of César Cui , Modest Mussorgsky , Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Alexander Borodin . The Belyayev circle was a society of Russian musicians who met in Saint Petersburg from 1885 and 1908 who sought to continue
1008-473: A few of his works are quite close to the musical progress of the time. His successor include Walter Braunfels , who mainly emerged as an opera composer, and the symphonist Wilhelm Furtwängler . The opera stage was particularly suitable for increased emotions. The folk and fairy tale operas of Engelbert Humperdinck , Wilhelm Kienzl and Siegfried Wagner , the son of Richard Wagner, were still quite good. But even Eugen d'Albert and Max von Schillings irritated
1134-509: A loose collection of composers and critics informally led by Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner who strove for pushing the limits of chromatic harmony and program music as opposed to absolute music which they believed had reached its limit under Ludwig van Beethoven . This group also pushed for the development and innovation of the symphonic poem , thematic transformation in musical form , and radical changes in tonality and harmony . Other important members of this movement includes
1260-586: A projected opera, La Nonne sanglante (The Bloody Nun), to a libretto by Eugène Scribe , but made little progress. In November 1841 he began publishing a series of sixteen articles in the Revue et gazette musicale giving his views about orchestration; they were the basis of his Treatise on Instrumentation , published in 1843. During the 1840s Berlioz spent much of his time making music outside France. He struggled to make money from his concerts in Paris, and learning of
1386-484: A respected local figure, was a progressively minded doctor credited as the first European to practise and write about acupuncture . He was an agnostic with a liberal outlook; his wife was a strict Roman Catholic of less flexible views. After briefly attending a local school when he was about ten, Berlioz was educated at home by his father. He recalled in his Mémoires that he enjoyed geography, especially books about travel, to which his mind would sometimes wander when he
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#17327801968691512-461: A revival of Les Troyens and none took place for nearly 30 years. He sold the publishing rights for a large sum, and his last years were financially comfortable; he was able to give up his work as a critic, but he lapsed into depression. As well as losing both his wives, he had lost both his sisters, and he became morbidly aware of death as many of his friends and other contemporaries died. He and his son had grown deeply attached to each other, but Louis
1638-685: A ruinously unsuccessful season, first at the Théâtre-Italien and then at lesser venues, and by March 1833 she was deep in debt. Biographers differ about whether and to what extent Smithson's receptiveness to Berlioz's wooing was motivated by financial considerations; but she accepted him, and in the face of strong opposition from both their families they were married at the British Embassy in Paris on 3 October 1833. The couple lived first in Paris, and later in Montmartre (then still
1764-753: A sequel to the Symphonie fantastique . Berlioz took little pleasure in his time in Rome. His colleagues at the Villa Medici, under their benevolent principal Horace Vernet , made him welcome, and he enjoyed his meetings with Felix Mendelssohn , who was visiting the city, but he found Rome distasteful: "the most stupid and prosaic city I know; it is no place for anyone with head or heart." Nonetheless, Italy had an important influence on his development. He visited many parts of it during his residency in Rome. Macdonald comments that after his time there, Berlioz had "a new colour and glow in his music ... sensuous and vivacious" – derived not from Italian painting, in which he
1890-616: A student to the Conservatoire, studying composition under Le Sueur and counterpoint and fugue with Anton Reicha . In the same year he made the first of four attempts to win France's premier music prize, the Prix de Rome , and was eliminated in the first round. The following year, to earn some money, he joined the chorus at the Théâtre des Nouveautés . He competed again for the Prix de Rome, submitting
2016-471: A style that reminded Brahms. Ralph Vaughan Williams , whose works were inspired by English folk songs and Renaissance music , became the most important symphonist of his country. Gustav Holst incorporated Greek mythology and Indian philosophy into his work. Very idiosyncratic composer personalities in the transition to modernity were also Havergal Brian and Frank Bridge . In Russia, Alexander Glazunov decorated his traditional composition technique with
2142-411: A village). On 14 August 1834 their only child, Louis-Clément-Thomas, was born. The first few years of the marriage were happy, although it eventually foundered. Harriet continued to yearn for a career but, as her biographer Peter Raby comments, she never learned to speak French fluently, which seriously limited both her professional and her social life. Paganini, known chiefly as a violinist, had acquired
2268-516: A work of exceptional exuberance and verve, deserving a better reception than it received. Holoman adds that the piece was of "surpassing technical difficulty", and that the singers were not especially co-operative. A weak libretto and unsatisfactory staging exacerbated the poor reception. The opera had only four complete performances, three in September 1838 and one in January 1839. Berlioz said that
2394-542: A youth, subsequently destroying the manuscripts, but one theme that remained in his mind reappeared later as the A-flat second subject of the overture to Les Francs-juges . In March 1821 Berlioz passed the baccalauréat examination at the University of Grenoble – it is not certain whether at the first or second attempt – and in late September, aged seventeen, he moved to Paris. At his father's insistence he enrolled at
2520-462: Is Franz Schubert , with Erlkönig , however, many other romantic composers have devoted themselves to the lied genre such as Saint-Saëns , Duparc , Robert Schumann , Johannes Brahms , Hugo Wolf , Gustav Mahler , and Richard Strauss . It is Beethoven who inaugurates the romantic concerto, with his five piano concertos (especially the fifth ) and his violin concerto where many characteristics of classicism can still be recognized. His example
2646-492: Is a symphonic poem about the Moldau River in the modern-day Czech Republic , the second in a cycle of six nationalistic symphonic poems collectively titled Má vlast (My Homeland). Smetana also composed eight nationalist operas, all of which remain in the repertory. They established him as the first Czech nationalist composer as well as the most important Czech opera composer of the generation who came to prominence in
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#17327801968692772-476: Is followed by many composers: the concerto rivals the symphony in the repertoire of major orchestral formations . Finally, the concerto will allow instrumentalist composers to reveal their virtuosity, such as Niccolò Paganini on the violin, and Frédéric Chopin , Robert Schumann , and Franz Liszt on the piano. The nocturne is presented as a short-lived confidential piece, which the Irish composer John Field
2898-488: Is free of material or program, is the embodiment of the romantic art idea. Another one of the most important representatives of late classicism and early romanticism is Franz Schubert . Because only with him did romantic features come into the German-language opera with his chamber music works and later also symphonies . In this field, his work is supplemented by the ballads of Carl Loewe . Carl Maria von Weber
3024-577: Is important for the development of the German opera , especially with his popular Freischütz. In addition, there are fantastic-horrious materials by Heinrich Marschner and finally the cheerful opera by Albert Lortzing , while Louis Spohr became known mainly for his instrumental music. Still largely attached to classical music is the work of Johann Nepomuk Hummel , Ferdinand Ries , and the Frenchman George Onslow . Italy experienced
3150-419: Is mentioned only in passing or not at all, and suggests that this is partly because Berlioz had no models among his predecessors and was a model to none of his successors. "In his works, as in his life, Berlioz was a lone wolf". Forty years earlier, Sir Thomas Beecham , a lifelong proponent of Berlioz's music, commented similarly, writing that although, for example, Mozart was a greater composer, his music drew on
3276-494: Is not recorded. Almost nothing is known of their relationship, which lasted for less than a year. After they ceased to meet, Amélie died, aged only 26. Berlioz was unaware of it until he came across her grave six months later. Cairns hypothesises that the shock of her death prompted him to seek out his first love, Estelle, now a widow aged 67. He called on her in September 1864; she received him kindly, and he visited her in three successive summers; he wrote to her nearly every month for
3402-594: Is prominent in the Mazurkas of Chopin". His mazurkas and polonaises are particularly notable for their use of nationalistic rhythms. Moreover, "During World War II the Nazis forbade the playing of ... Chopin's Polonaises in Warsaw because of the powerful symbolism residing in these works". Other composers, such as Bedřich Smetana , wrote pieces that musically described their homelands. In particular, Smetana's Vltava
3528-611: Is the position of the Finn Jean Sibelius , also a symphonist of melancholy expressiveness and clear line design. In Sweden, the works of Wilhelm Peterson-Berger , Wilhelm Stenhammar , and Hugo Alfvén show a typical Nordic conservatism, and the Norwegian Christian Sinding also composed traditionally. The music of Spain also increased in popularity again after a long time, first in the piano works of Isaac Albéniz and Enrique Granados , then in
3654-600: Is under the influence of Wagner's progressive ideas, among them, for example, Peter Cornelius . On the other hand, an opposition arose from numerous more conservative composers, to whom Johannes Brahms , who sought a logical continuation of classical music in symphony, chamber music and song, became a model of scale due to the depth of the sensation and a masterful composition technique . Among others, Robert Volkmann , Friedrich Kiel , Carl Reinecke , Max Bruch , Josef Gabriel Rheinberger , and Hermann Goetz are included in this party. In addition, some important loners came on
3780-404: Is where verism developed, an exaggerated realism that could easily turn into the striking and melodramatic on the opera stage. Despite their extensive work, Ruggero Leoncavallo , Pietro Mascagni , Francesco Cilea , and Umberto Giordano have only become known through one opera at a time. Only Giacomo Puccini 's work has been completely preserved in the repertoire of the opera houses, although he
3906-512: The Aeneid . Having first completed the orchestration of his 1841 song cycle Les Nuits d'été , he began work on Les Troyens – The Trojans – writing his own libretto based on Virgil's epic. He worked on it, in between his conducting commitments, for two years. In 1858 he was elected to the Institut de France , an honour he had long sought, though he played down the importance he attached to it. In
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4032-624: The Grande symphonie funèbre et triomphale in 1840. Neither work brought him much money or artistic fame at the time, but the Requiem held a special place in his affections: "If I were threatened with the destruction of the whole of my works save one, I would crave mercy for the Messe des morts ". One of Berlioz's main aims in the 1830s was "battering down the doors of the Opéra". In Paris at this period,
4158-995: The Gazette musicale and the Journal des débats . He was the first, but not the last, prominent French composer to double as a reviewer: among his successors were Fauré , Messager , Dukas and Debussy . Although he complained – both privately and sometimes in his articles – that his time would be better spent writing music than in writing music criticism, he was able to indulge himself in attacking his bêtes noires and extolling his enthusiasms. The former included musical pedants, coloratura writing and singing, viola players who were merely incompetent violinists, inane libretti, and baroque counterpoint . He extravagantly praised Beethoven's symphonies, and Gluck's and Weber 's operas, and scrupulously refrained from promoting his own compositions. His journalism consisted mainly of music criticism, some of which he collected and published, such as Evenings in
4284-465: The Opéra-Comique ; at the former, three weeks after his arrival, he saw Gluck 's Iphigénie en Tauride , which thrilled him. He was particularly inspired by Gluck's use of the orchestra to carry the drama along. A later performance of the same work at the Opéra convinced him that his vocation was to be a composer. The dominance of Italian opera in Paris, against which Berlioz later campaigned,
4410-685: The Second Viennese School being its main promoters and Primitivism with Igor Stravinsky being its most influential composer. Carried to the highest degree by Ludwig van Beethoven , the symphony becomes the most prestigious form to which many composers devote themselves. The most conservative respect to the Beethovenian model includes composers such as Franz Schubert , Felix Mendelssohn , Robert Schumann , Camille Saint-Saëns , and Johannes Brahms . Others show an imagination that makes them go beyond this framework, in form or in
4536-500: The symphony genre in the classical mold, though they would implement their own musical language. The most prominent members of this circle were Johannes Brahms , Joseph Joachim , Clara Schumann , and the Leipzig Conservatoire , which had been founded by Felix Mendelssohn . The Mighty Five were a group of Russian composers centered in Saint Petersburg who collaborated with each other from 1856 to 1870 to create
4662-402: The "dramatic symphony" Roméo et Juliette and the "dramatic legend" La Damnation de Faust . The elder son of a provincial physician, Berlioz was expected to follow his father into medicine, and he attended a Parisian medical college before defying his family by taking up music as a profession. His independence of mind and refusal to follow traditional rules and formulas put him at odds with
4788-414: The 1860s. The transition of Viennese classicism to Romanticism can be found in the work of Ludwig van Beethoven . Many typically romantic elements are encountered for the first time in his works. These works stand here in contrast to vocal music and are "purely" instrumental music. According to Hoffmann, the pure instrumental music of Viennese classical music, especially that of Beethoven , since it
4914-523: The 19th century commonly referred to as the Romantic era (or Romantic period). It is closely related to the broader concept of Romanticism —the intellectual, artistic, and literary movement that became prominent in Western culture from about 1798 until 1837. Romantic composers sought to create music that was individualistic, emotional, dramatic, and often programmatic ; reflecting broader trends within
5040-501: The Brahms-oriented Hubert Parry and symphonist, as well as the comic operas of Arthur Sullivan . In late Romanticism, also called post-Romanticism, the traditional forms and elements of music are further dissolved. An increasingly colorful orchestral palette, an ever-increasing range of musical means, the spread of tonality to its limits, exaggerated emotions and an increasingly individual tonal language of
5166-508: The Conservatoire and as an officer of the Legion of Honour . The former was an undemanding post, but not highly paid, and Berlioz remained in need of a reliable income to allow him the leisure for composition. The Symphonie funèbre et triomphale , marking the tenth anniversary of the 1830 Revolution, was performed in the open air under the direction of the composer in July 1840. The following year
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5292-651: The Dane Niels Wilhelm Gade . In opera, the operas of Otto Nicolai and Friedrich von Flotow still dominated in Germany when Richard Wagner wrote his first romantic operas. The early works of Giuseppe Verdi were also still based on the Belcanto ideal of the older generation. In France, the Opéra lyrique was developed by Ambroise Thomas and Charles Gounod . Russian music found its own language in
5418-504: The Irish Shakespearean actress Harriet Smithson , and he pursued her obsessively until she finally accepted him seven years later. Their marriage was happy at first but eventually foundered. Harriet inspired his first major success, the Symphonie fantastique , in which an idealised depiction of her occurs throughout. Berlioz completed three operas, the first of which, Benvenuto Cellini , was an outright failure. The second,
5544-504: The Opéra commissioned Berlioz to adapt Weber's Der Freischütz to meet the house's rigid requirements: he wrote recitatives to replace the spoken dialogue and orchestrated Weber's Invitation to the Dance to provide the obligatory ballet music. In the same year he completed settings of six poems by his friend Théophile Gautier, which formed the song cycle Les Nuits d'été (with piano accompaniment, later orchestrated). He also worked on
5670-696: The Orchestra (1854), but also more technical articles, such as those that formed the basis of his Treatise on Instrumentation (1844). Despite his complaints, Berlioz continued writing music criticism for most of his life, long after he had any financial need to do so. Berlioz secured a commission from the French government for his Requiem – the Grande messe des morts – first performed at Les Invalides in December 1837. A second government commission followed –
5796-562: The Rue de Calais on 8 March 1869, at the age of 65. He was buried in Montmartre Cemetery with his two wives, who were exhumed and re-buried next to him. In his 1983 book The Musical Language of Berlioz , Julian Rushton asks "where Berlioz comes in the history of musical forms and what is his progeny". Rushton's answers to these questions are "nowhere" and "none". He cites well-known studies of musical history in which Berlioz
5922-496: The School of Medicine of the University of Paris . He had to fight hard to overcome his revulsion at dissecting bodies, but in deference to his father's wishes, he forced himself to continue his medical studies. The horrors of the medical college were mitigated thanks to an ample allowance from his father, which enabled him to take full advantage of the cultural, and particularly musical, life of Paris. Music did not at that time enjoy
6048-621: The Symphony poems oriented towards Liszt. The symphonies, concerts and chamber music works of Antonín Dvořák , on the other hand, have Brahms as a model. In Poland, Stanisław Moniuszko was the leading opera composer, in Hungary Ferenc Erkel . Norway produced its best-known composers with Edvard Grieg , creator of lyrical piano works, songs and orchestral works such as the Peer-Gynt Suite; England's voice resonated with
6174-525: The Villa Medici before the end of his two-year term. Heeding Vernet's advice that it would be prudent to delay his return to Paris, where the Conservatoire authorities might be less indulgent about his premature ending of his studies, he made a leisurely journey back, detouring via La Côte-Saint-André to see his family. He left Rome in May 1832 and arrived in Paris in November. On 9 December 1832 Berlioz presented
6300-705: The concert Berlioz set off for Italy: under the terms of the Prix de Rome, winners studied for two years at the Villa Medici , the French Academy in Rome . Within three weeks of his arrival he went absent without leave: he had learnt that Marie had broken off their engagement and was to marry an older and richer suitor, Camille Pleyel , the heir to the Pleyel piano manufacturing company. Berlioz made an elaborate plan to kill them both (and her mother, known to him as "l'hippopotame"), and acquired poisons, pistols and
6426-504: The conservative musical establishment of Paris. He briefly moderated his style sufficiently to win France's premier music prize – the Prix de Rome – in 1830, but he learned little from the academics of the Paris Conservatoire . Opinion was divided for many years between those who thought him an original genius and those who viewed his music as lacking in form and coherence. At the age of twenty-four Berlioz fell in love with
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#17327801968696552-400: The critic Richard Pohl and composers Felix Draeseke , Julius Reubke , Karl Klindworth , William Mason , and Peter Cornelius . The conservatives were a broad group of musicians and critics who maintained the artistic legacy of Robert Schumann who adhered to composing and promoting absolute music . They believed in continuing along the footsteps of Ludwig van Beethoven of composing
6678-422: The decade was La Damnation de Faust . He presented it in Paris in December 1846, but it played to half-empty houses, despite excellent reviews, some from critics not usually well disposed to his music. The highly romantic subject was out of step with the times, and one sympathetic reviewer observed that there was an unbridgeable gap between the composer's conception of art and that of the Paris public. The failure of
6804-520: The development of the language melody in his operas. The local sounds are also unmistakable in the music of Zdeněk Fibich , Josef Bohuslav Foerster , Vítězslav Novák , and Josef Suk . On the other hand, there is a slightly morbid exoticism and later classicist measure in the work of the Polish Karol Szymanowski . The most important Danish composer is Carl Nielsen , known for symphonies and concerts. Even more dominant in his country
6930-632: The development of the national Russian style of classical music following in the footsteps of the Mighty Five although they were far more tolerant of the Western compositional style of Tchaikovsky . This group was founded by Russian music publisher philanthropist Mitrofan Belyayev . The two most important composers of this group were Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Alexander Glazunov . Members also included Vladimir Stasov , Anatoly Lyadov , Alexander Ossovsky , Witold Maliszewski , Nikolai Tcherepnin , Nikolay Sokolov , and Alexander Winkler . During
7056-446: The eldest child of Louis Berlioz (1776–1848), a physician, and his wife, Marie-Antoinette Joséphine, née Marmion (1784–1838). His birthplace was the family home in the commune of La Côte-Saint-André in the département of Isère , in south-eastern France. His parents had five more children, three of whom died in infancy; their surviving daughters, Nanci and Adèle, remained close to Berlioz throughout their lives. Berlioz's father,
7182-420: The end and knelt in homage to Berlioz and kissed his hand. A few days later Berlioz was astonished to receive a cheque from him for 20,000 francs. Paganini's gift enabled Berlioz to pay off Harriet's and his own debts, give up music criticism for the time being, and concentrate on composition. He wrote the "dramatic symphony" Roméo et Juliette for voices, chorus and orchestra. It was premiered in November 1839 and
7308-466: The end of 1822 he felt that his attempts to learn composition needed to be augmented with formal tuition, and he approached Jean-François Le Sueur , director of the Royal Chapel and professor at the Conservatoire, who accepted him as a private pupil. In August 1823 Berlioz made the first of many contributions to the musical press: a letter to the journal Le Corsaire defending French opera against
7434-528: The end of his life, represents in person as well as in music almost the prototype of the passionate romantic artist, shadowed by tragedy. His idiosyncratic piano pieces, chamber music works and symphonies should have a lasting influence on the following generation of musicians. Franz Liszt , who came from the German minority in Hungary, was on the one hand a swarmed piano virtuoso, but on the other hand also laid
7560-483: The epic Les Troyens (The Trojans), was so large in scale that it was never staged in its entirety during his lifetime. His last opera, Béatrice et Bénédict – based on Shakespeare's comedy Much Ado About Nothing – was a success at its premiere but did not enter the regular operatic repertoire. Meeting only occasional success in France as a composer, Berlioz increasingly turned to conducting, in which he gained an international reputation. He
7686-505: The exception of a revival of Benvenuto Cellini at Covent Garden which was withdrawn after one performance. The opera was presented in Leipzig in 1852 in a revised version prepared by Liszt with Berlioz's approval and was moderately successful. In the early years of the decade Berlioz made numerous appearances in Germany as a conductor. In 1854 Harriet died. Both Berlioz and their son Louis had been with her shortly before her death. During
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#17327801968697812-408: The failure of the piece meant that the doors of the Opéra were closed to him for the rest of his career – which they were, except for a commission to arrange a Weber score in 1841. Shortly after the failure of the opera, Berlioz had a great success as composer-conductor of a concert at which Harold in Italy was given again. This time Paganini was present in the audience; he came on to the platform at
7938-707: The first of his Prix cantatas , La Mort d'Orphée , in July. Later that year he attended productions of Shakespeare 's Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet at the Théâtre de l'Odéon given by Charles Kemble 's touring company. Although at the time Berlioz spoke hardly any English, he was overwhelmed by the plays – the start of a lifelong passion for Shakespeare. He also conceived a passion for Kemble's leading lady, Harriet Smithson – his biographer Hugh Macdonald calls it "emotional derangement" – and obsessively pursued her, without success, for several years. She refused even to meet him. The first concert of Berlioz's music took place in May 1828, when his friend Nathan Bloc conducted
8064-560: The first significant applications of the term to music was in 1789, in the Mémoires by the Frenchman André Grétry , but it was E. T. A. Hoffmann who established the principles of musical romanticism, in a lengthy review of Ludwig van Beethoven 's Fifth Symphony published in 1810, and an 1813 article on Beethoven's instrumental music. In the first of these essays Hoffmann traced the beginnings of musical Romanticism to
8190-473: The following year and was reworked and expanded much later as La Damnation de Faust . Berlioz was largely apolitical, and neither supported nor opposed the July Revolution of 1830, but when it broke out he found himself in the middle of it. He recorded events in his Mémoires : I was finishing my cantata when the revolution broke out ... I dashed off the final pages of my orchestral score to
8316-547: The foundation for the progressive " New German School " with his harmoniously bold symphonic poems . Also committed to program music was the technique of the Idée fixe (leitmotif) of the Frenchman Hector Berlioz , who also significantly expanded the orchestra. Felix Mendelssohn was again more oriented towards the classicist formal language and became a role model especially for Scandinavian composers such as
8442-430: The hero for example), it is to be compared to music with a symphonic program. This musical genre appeared with the evolution from pianoforte to piano during the romantic period. The lied is vocal music most often accompanied by this instrument. The singing is taken from romantic poems and this style makes it possible to bring the voice as close to feelings as possible. One of the first and most famous lieder composers
8568-494: The heyday of the Belcanto opera in early Romanticism, associated with the names of Gioachino Rossini , Gaetano Donizetti , and Vincenzo Bellini . While Rossini's comic operas are primarily known today, often only through their rousing overtures , Donizetti and Bellini predominate tragic content. The most important Italian instrumental composer of this time was the legendary "devil's violinist" Niccolò Paganini . In France , on
8694-471: The incursions of its Italian rival. He contended that all Rossini 's operas put together could not stand comparison with even a few bars of those of Gluck, Spontini or Le Sueur. By now he had composed several works including Estelle et Némorin and Le Passage de la mer Rouge (The Crossing of the Red Sea) – both since lost. In 1824 Berlioz graduated from medical school, after which he abandoned medicine, to
8820-582: The individual composer are typical features; the music is led to the threshold of modernity . Thus, the symphonies of Gustav Mahler reached previously unknown dimensions, partly give up the traditional four-sentence and often contain vocal proportions. But behind the monumental facade is the modern expressiveness of the Fin de siècle . This psychological expressiveness is also contained in the songs of Hugo Wolf , miniature dramas for voice and piano. More committed to tradition, particularly oriented towards Bruckner, are
8946-480: The individual" by being composed in ways that were often less restrictive and more often focused on the composer's skills as a person than prior means of writing music. During the Romantic period, music often took on a much more nationalistic purpose. Composers composed with a distinct sound that represented their home country and traditions. For example, Jean Sibelius' Finlandia has been interpreted to represent
9072-469: The large sums made by promoters from performances of his music in other countries, he resolved to try conducting abroad. He began in Brussels, giving two concerts in September 1842. An extensive German tour followed: in 1842 and 1843 he gave concerts in twelve German cities. His reception was enthusiastic. The German public was better disposed than the French to his innovative compositions, and his conducting
9198-737: The later half of the 19th Century, some prominent composers began exploring the limits of the traditional tonal system. Important examples include Tristan und Isolde by Richard Wagner and Bagatelle sans tonalité by Franz Liszt . This limit was finally reached during the Late Romantic period where progressive tonality is demonstrated in the works of composers such as Gustav Mahler . With these developments, Romanticism finally began to break apart into several new parallel movements forming in response, bringing way to Modernism . Some notable movements to form in response to Romanticism's collapse include Expressionism with Arnold Schoenberg and
9324-493: The later works of Haydn and Mozart . It was Hoffmann's fusion of ideas already associated with the term "Romantic", used in opposition to the restraint and formality of Classical models, that elevated music, and especially instrumental music, to a position of pre-eminence in Romanticism as the art most suited to the expression of emotions. It was also through the writings of Hoffmann and other German authors that German music
9450-488: The mechanical valves and keys that most woodwinds and brass instruments depend on. The new and innovative instruments could be played with greater ease and they were more reliable. Another development that affected music was the rise of the middle class. Composers before this period lived under the patronage of the aristocracy. Many times their audience was small, composed mostly of the upper class and individuals who were knowledgeable about music. The Romantic composers, on
9576-436: The movements of Romantic literature , poetry , art, and philosophy. Romantic music was often ostensibly inspired by (or else sought to evoke) non-musical stimuli, such as nature, literature, poetry, super-natural elements, or the fine arts. It included features such as increased chromaticism and moved away from traditional forms. The Romantic movement was an artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated in
9702-442: The musical success that mattered was in the opera house and not the concert hall. Robert Schumann commented, "To the French, music by itself means nothing". Berlioz worked on his opera Benvenuto Cellini from 1834 until 1837, continually distracted by his increasing activities as a critic and as a promoter of his own symphonic concerts. The Berlioz scholar D. Kern Holoman comments that Berlioz rightly regarded Benvenuto Cellini as
9828-400: The musicians present were Liszt, Frédéric Chopin and Niccolò Paganini ; writers included Alexandre Dumas , Théophile Gautier , Heinrich Heine , Victor Hugo and George Sand . The concert was such a success that the programme was repeated within the month, but the more immediate consequence was that Berlioz and Smithson finally met. By 1832 Smithson's career was in decline. She presented
9954-535: The nerves with a German variant of verism. Erotic symbolism can be found in the stage works of Alexander von Zemlinsky and Franz Schreker . Richard Strauss went even further to the limits of tonality with Salome and Elektra before he took more traditional paths with the Rosenkavalier. In the style related to the works of Strauss, the compositions Emil Nikolaus von Rezniceks and Paul Graeners are shown. In Italy, opera still dominated during this time. This
10080-526: The new generation of Russian composers and the general public, but he returned to Paris visibly unwell. He went to Nice to recuperate in the Mediterranean climate, but fell on rocks by the shore, possibly because of a stroke, and had to return to Paris, where he convalesced for several months. In August 1868, he felt able to travel briefly to Grenoble to judge a choral festival. After arriving back in Paris he gradually grew weaker and died at his house in
10206-659: The next eight years. He wrote a Te Deum , completed in 1849 but not published until 1855, and some short pieces. His most substantial work between The Damnation and his epic Les Troyens (1856–1858) was a "sacred trilogy", L'Enfance du Christ (Christ's Childhood), which he began in 1850. In 1851 he was at the Great Exhibition in London as a member of an international committee judging musical instruments. He returned to London in 1852 and 1853, conducting his own works and others'. He enjoyed consistent success there, with
10332-468: The one hand, the light Opéra comique developed, its representatives are François-Adrien Boieldieu , Daniel-François-Esprit Auber , and Adolphe Adam , the latter also known for his ballets . One can also quote the famous eccentric composer and harpist Robert Nicolas-Charles Bochsa (seven operas). In addition, the Grand opéra came up with pompous stage sets, ballets and large choirs. Her first representative
10458-599: The operas of Mikhail Glinka and Alexander Dargomyschski . The second phase of high romanticism runs in parallel with the style of realism in literature and the visual arts. In the second half of his creation, Wagner now developed his leitmotif technique , with which he holds together the four-part ring of the Nibelungen , composed without arias ; the orchestra is treated symphonically, the chromaticism reaches its extreme in Tristan and Isolde . A whole crowd of disciples
10584-463: The operas, ballets and orchestral works of Manuel de Falla , influenced by Impressionism. Finally, the first important representatives of the United States also appeared with Edward MacDowell and Amy Beach . But even the work of Charles Ives belonged only partly to late Romanticism - much of it was already radically modern and pointed far into the 20th century. The New German School was
10710-523: The original. At around the same time he encountered two further creative inspirations: Beethoven and Goethe . He heard Beethoven's third , fifth and seventh symphonies performed at the Conservatoire, and read Goethe's Faust in Gérard de Nerval 's translation. Beethoven became both an ideal and an obstacle for Berlioz – an inspiring predecessor but a daunting one. Goethe's work was the basis of Huit scènes de Faust (Berlioz's Opus 1), which premiered
10836-473: The other hand, often wrote for public concerts and festivals, with large audiences of paying customers, who had not necessarily had any music lessons. Composers of the Romantic Era, like Elgar , showed the world that there should be "no segregation of musical tastes" and that the "purpose was to write music that was to be heard". "The music composed by Romantic [composers]" reflected "the importance of
10962-477: The parties in composition. Verdi also reached the way to a well-composed musical drama , albeit in a different way than Wagner. His immense charisma made all other composers fade in Italy, including Amilcare Ponchielli and Arrigo Boito , who was also the librettist of his late operas Otello and Falstaff. In France, on the other hand, the light muse triumphed first in the form of the socio-critical operettas of Jacques Offenbach . Lyrical opera found its climax in
11088-462: The performance, and the press reviews expressed both the shock and the pleasure the work had given. Berlioz's biographer David Cairns calls the concert a landmark not only in the composer's career but in the evolution of the modern orchestra. Franz Liszt was among those attending the concert; this was the beginning of a long friendship. Liszt later transcribed the entire Symphonie fantastique for piano to enable more people to hear it. Shortly after
11214-403: The piano, and throughout his life played haltingly at best. He later contended that this was an advantage because it "saved me from the tyranny of keyboard habits, so dangerous to thought, and from the lure of conventional harmonies". At the age of twelve Berlioz fell in love for the first time. The object of his affections was an eighteen-year-old neighbour, Estelle Dubœuf. He was teased for what
11340-416: The piece left Berlioz heavily in debt; he restored his finances the following year with the first of two highly remunerative trips to Russia. His other foreign tours during the rest of the 1840s included Austria, Hungary, Bohemia and Germany. After those came the first of his five visits to England; it lasted for more than seven months (November 1847 to July 1848). His reception in London was enthusiastic, but
11466-525: The premieres of the overtures Les Francs-juges and Waverley and other works. The hall was far from full, and Berlioz lost money. Nevertheless, he was greatly encouraged by the vociferous approval of his performers, and the applause from musicians in the audience, including his Conservatoire professors, the directors of the Opéra and Opéra-Comique, and the composers Auber and Hérold . Berlioz's fascination with Shakespeare's plays prompted him to start learning English during 1828, so that he could read them in
11592-404: The prestige of literature in French culture, but Paris nonetheless possessed two major opera houses and the country's most important music library. Berlioz took advantage of them all. Within days of arriving in Paris he went to the Opéra , and although the piece on offer was by a minor composer, the staging and the magnificent orchestral playing enchanted him. He went to other works at the Opéra and
11718-522: The rest of his life. In 1867 Berlioz received the news that his son had died in Havana of yellow fever . Macdonald suggests that Berlioz may have sought distraction from his grief by going ahead with a planned series of concerts in St Petersburg and Moscow, but far from rejuvenating him, the trip sapped his remaining strength. The concerts were successful, and Berlioz received a warm response from
11844-460: The rising nation of Finland, which would someday gain independence from Russian control. Frédéric Chopin was one of the first composers to incorporate nationalistic elements into his compositions. Joseph Machlis states, "Poland's struggle for freedom from tsarist rule aroused the national poet in Poland. ... Examples of musical nationalism abound in the output of the romantic era. The folk idiom
11970-471: The same year he completed Les Troyens . He then spent five years trying to have it staged. In June 1862 Berlioz's wife died suddenly, aged 48. She was survived by her mother, to whom Berlioz was devoted, and who looked after him for the rest of his life. Les Troyens – a five-act, five-hour opera – was on too large a scale to be acceptable to the management of the Opéra, and Berlioz's efforts to have it staged there failed. The only way he could find of seeing
12096-409: The same year he wrote the Symphonie fantastique and became engaged to be married. By now recoiling from his obsession with Smithson, Berlioz fell in love with a nineteen-year-old pianist, Marie ("Camille") Moke . His feelings were reciprocated, and the couple planned to be married. In December Berlioz organised a concert at which the Symphonie fantastique was premiered. Protracted applause followed
12222-510: The scene, among whom Anton Bruckner particularly stands out. Although a Wagner supporter, his clear-form style differs significantly from that of that composer. For example, the block-based instrumentation of Bruckner's symphonies is derived from the registers of the organ. In the ideological struggle against Wagner's adversaries, he was portrayed by his followers as a counterpart of Brahms. Felix Draeseke , who originally wrote "future music in classical form" starting from Liszt, also stands between
12348-525: The second half of the 18th century in Europe and strengthened in reaction to the Industrial Revolution . In part, it was a revolt against social and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment and a reaction against the scientific rationalization of nature. It was embodied most strongly in the visual arts, music, literature, and education, and was in turn influenced by developments in natural history. One of
12474-535: The sound of stray bullets coming over the roofs and pattering on the wall outside my window. On the 29th I had finished, and was free to go out and roam about Paris till morning, pistol in hand. The cantata was La Mort de Sardanapale , with which he won the Prix de Rome. His entry the previous year, Cléopâtre , had attracted disapproval from the judges because to highly conservative musicians it "betrayed dangerous tendencies", and for his 1830 offering he carefully modified his natural style to meet official approval. During
12600-399: The spirit: the most daring of them being Hector Berlioz . Finally, some will also tell a story throughout their symphonies; like Franz Liszt , they will create the symphonic poem , a new musical genre, usually composed of a single movement and inspired by a theme, character or literary text. Since the symphonic poem is articulated around a leitmotiv (musical motif to identify a character,
12726-400: The strong disapproval of his parents. His father suggested law as an alternative profession and refused to countenance music as a career. He reduced and sometimes withheld his son's allowance, and Berlioz went through some years of financial hardship. In 1824 Berlioz composed a Messe solennelle . It was performed twice, after which he suppressed the score, which was thought lost until a copy
12852-504: The symphonies of Franz Schmidt and Richard Wetz , while Max Reger resorted to Bach's polyphony in his numerous instrumental works, but developed it harmoniously extremely boldly. Among the numerous composers of the Reger successor, Julius Weismann and Joseph Haas stand out. Among the outstanding late romantic sound creators is also the idiosyncratic Hans Pfitzner . Although a traditionalist and decisive opponent of modern currents, quite
12978-546: The time" – and the violist at the premiere in November 1834 was Chrétien Urhan . Until the end of 1835 Berlioz had a modest stipend as a laureate of the Prix de Rome. His earnings from composing were neither substantial nor regular, and he supplemented them by writing music criticism for the Parisian press. Macdonald comments that this was activity "at which he excelled but which he abhorred". He wrote for L'Europe littéraire (1833), Le Rénovateur (1833–1835), and from 1834 for
13104-462: The visit was not a financial success because of mismanagement by his impresario, the conductor Louis-Antoine Jullien . Soon after Berlioz's return to Paris in mid-September 1848, Harriet suffered a series of strokes , which left her almost paralysed. She needed constant nursing, which he paid for. When in Paris he visited her continually, sometimes twice a day. After the failure of La Damnation de Faust , Berlioz spent less time on composition during
13230-499: The work produced was to divide it into two parts: "The Fall of Troy" and "The Trojans at Carthage". The latter, consisting of the final three acts of the original, was presented at the Théâtre‐Lyrique, Paris, in November 1863, but even that truncated version was further truncated: during the run of 22 performances, number after number was cut. The experience demoralised Berlioz, who wrote no more music after this. Berlioz did not seek
13356-680: The works of Claude Debussy , the structures dissolved into the finest nuances of rhythm, dynamics and timbre. This development was prepared in the work of Vincent d'Indy , Ernest Chausson and above all in the songs and chamber music of Gabriel Fauré . All subsequent French composers were more or less influenced by Impressionism. The most important among them was Maurice Ravel , a brilliant orchestral virtuoso. Albert Roussel first processed exotic topics before he anticipated Neoclassical tendencies like Ravel. Gabriel Pierné , Paul Dukas , Charles Koechlin , and Florent Schmitt also dealt with symbolic and exotic-oriental substances. The loner Erik Satie
13482-512: The works of Jules Massenet , while in the Carmen by Georges Bizet , realism came for the first time. Louis Théodore Gouvy built a stylistic bridge to German music. The operas, symphonies and chamber music works of the extremely versatile Camille Saint-Saëns were, as were the ballets of Léo Delibes , more tradition-oriented. New orchestra colors were found in the compositions of Édouard Lalo and Emmanuel Chabrier . The Belgian-born César Franck
13608-469: The works of his predecessors, whereas Berlioz's works were all wholly original: "the Symphonie fantastique or La Damnation de Faust broke upon the world like some unaccountable effort of spontaneous generation which had dispensed with the machinery of normal parentage". Romantic music Romantic music is a stylistic movement in Western Classical music associated with the period of
13734-556: The year Berlioz completed the composition of L'Enfance du Christ , worked on his book of memoirs, and married Marie Recio, which, he explained to his son, he felt it his duty to do after living with her for so many years. At the end of the year the first performance of L'Enfance du Christ was warmly received, to his surprise. He spent much of the next year in conducting and writing prose. During Berlioz's German tour in 1856, Liszt and his companion, Carolyne zu Sayn-Wittgenstein , encouraged Berlioz's tentative conception of an opera based on
13860-738: Was Gaspare Spontini , her most important Giacomo Meyerbeer . Music development has now also taken an upswing in other European countries. The Irishman John Field composed the first Nocturnes for piano , Friedrich Kuhlau worked in Denmark and the Swede Franz Berwald wrote four very idiosyncratic symphonies . The high romanticism can be divided into two phases. In the first phase, the actual romantic music reaches its peak. The Polish composer Frédéric Chopin explored previously unknown depths of emotion in his character pieces and dances for piano. Robert Schumann , mentally immersed at
13986-515: Was a captain in the merchant navy, and was more often than not away from home. Berlioz's physical health was not good, and he was often in pain from an intestinal complaint, possibly Crohn's disease . After the death of his second wife, Berlioz had two romantic interludes. During 1862 he met – probably in the Montmartre Cemetery – a young woman less than half his age, whose first name was Amélie and whose second, possibly married, name
14112-674: Was accompanied by a revival of organ music, which was continued by Charles-Marie Widor , later Louis Vierne and Charles Tournemire . A specific national romanticism had by now emerged in almost all European countries. The national Russian current started by Glinka was continued in Russia by the " Group of Five ": Mily Balakirev , Alexander Borodin , Modest Mussorgsky , Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov , and César Cui . More western oriented were Anton Rubinstein and Pyotr Tchaikovsky , whose ballets and symphonies gained great popularity. Bedřich Smetana founded Czech national music with his operas and
14238-636: Was also often accused of sentimentality. Despite some veristic works, Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari was mainly considered a revival of the Opera buffa. Ferruccio Busoni , a temporarily defender of modern classicity living in Germany, left behind a rather conventional, little played work. Thus, instrumental music actually only found its place in Italian music again with Ottorino Respighi , who was influenced by Impressionism. The term Impressionism comes from painting, and like there, it also developed in music in France. In
14364-451: Was brought to the center of musical Romanticism. The classical period often used short, even fragmentary, thematic material while the Romantic period tended to make greater use of longer, more fully defined and more emotionally evocative themes. Characteristics often attributed to Romanticism: In music, there is a relatively clear dividing line in musical structure and form following the death of Beethoven. Whether one counts Beethoven as
14490-521: Was discovered in 1991. During 1825 and 1826 he wrote his first opera, Les Francs-juges , which was not performed and survives only in fragments, the best known of which is the overture. In later works he reused parts of the score, such as the "March of the Guards", which he incorporated four years later in the Symphonie fantastique as the "March to the Scaffold". In August 1826 Berlioz was admitted as
14616-409: Was highly regarded in Germany, Britain and Russia both as a composer and as a conductor. To supplement his earnings he wrote musical journalism throughout much of his career; some of it has been preserved in book form, including his Treatise on Instrumentation (1844), which was influential in the 19th and 20th centuries. Berlioz died in Paris at the age of 65. Berlioz was born on 11 December 1803,
14742-549: Was one of the first to cultivate. Immersed in the climate of the night, an atmosphere privileged by romantics, it is often of ABA structure, with a very flexible and ornate melody , accompanied by a left hand with undulating arpeggios . The tempo is usually slow, and the central part is often more agitated. Frédéric Chopin has set the most famous form of the nocturnes. He wrote 21, from 1827 to 1846. First published in series of three (opus 9 and 15), they are then grouped in pairs (opus 27, 32, 37, 48, 55, 62). The Romantic ballet
14868-416: Was seen as a boyish infatuation, but something of his early passion for Estelle endured all his life. He poured some of his unrequited feelings into his early attempts at composition. Trying to master harmony, he read Rameau's Traité de l'harmonie , which proved incomprehensible to a novice, but Charles-Simon Catel 's simpler treatise on the subject made it clearer to him. He wrote several chamber works as
14994-643: Was seen as highly impressive. During the tour he had enjoyable meetings with Mendelssohn and Schumann in Leipzig , Wagner in Dresden and Meyerbeer in Berlin. By this time Berlioz's marriage was failing. Harriet resented his celebrity and her own eclipse, and as Raby puts it, "possessiveness turned to suspicion and jealousy as Berlioz became involved with the singer Marie Recio ". Harriet's health deteriorated, and she took to drinking heavily. Her suspicion about Recio
15120-692: Was sent to a boarding school in Rouen . Foreign tours featured prominently in Berlioz's life during the 1840s and 1850s. Not only were they highly rewarding both artistically and financially, but he did not have to grapple with the administrative problems of promoting concerts in Paris. Macdonald comments: The more he travelled the more bitter he became about conditions at home; yet though he contemplated settling abroad – in Dresden, for instance, and in London – he always went back to Paris. Berlioz's major work from
15246-430: Was so well received that Berlioz and his huge instrumental and vocal forces gave two further performances in rapid succession. Among the audiences was the young Wagner , who was overwhelmed by its revelation of the possibilities of musical poetry, and who later drew on it when composing Tristan und Isolde . At the close of the decade Berlioz achieved official recognition in the form of appointment as deputy librarian of
15372-426: Was still in the future, and at the opera houses he heard and absorbed the works of Étienne Méhul and François-Adrien Boieldieu , other operas written in the French style by foreign composers, particularly Gaspare Spontini , and above all five operas by Gluck. He began to visit the Paris Conservatoire library in between his medical studies, seeking out scores of Gluck's operas and making copies of parts of them. By
15498-490: Was supposed to be studying Latin; the classics nonetheless made an impression on him, and he was moved to tears by Virgil 's account of the tragedy of Dido and Aeneas . Later he studied philosophy, rhetoric, and – because his father planned a medical career for him – anatomy. Music did not feature prominently in the young Berlioz's education. His father gave him basic instruction on the flageolet , and he later took flute and guitar lessons with local teachers. He never studied
15624-777: Was the creator of spun piano pieces and idol of the next generation. Nevertheless, Impressionism is often attributed to the epoch of modernity, if not seen as its own epoch. Hubert Parry and the Irishman Charles Villiers Stanford initiated late Romanticism in England, which had its first important representative in Edward Elgar . While he revived the oratorio and wrote symphonies and concerts, Frederick Delius devoted himself to particularly small orchestral images with his own variant of Impressionism. Ethel Smyth wrote mainly operas and chamber music in
15750-654: Was uninterested, or Italian music, which he despised, but from "the scenery and the sun, and from his acute sense of locale". Macdonald identifies Harold in Italy , Benvenuto Cellini and Roméo et Juliette as the most obvious expressions of his response to Italy, and adds that Les Troyens and Béatrice et Bénédict "reflect the warmth and stillness of the Mediterranean, as well as its vivacity and force". Berlioz himself wrote that Harold in Italy drew on "the poetic memories formed from my wanderings in Abruzzi ". Vernet agreed to Berlioz's request to be allowed to leave
15876-600: Was well founded: the latter became Berlioz's mistress in 1841 and accompanied him on his German tour. Berlioz returned to Paris in mid-1843. During the following year he wrote two of his most popular short works, the overtures Le carnaval romain (reusing music from Benvenuto Cellini ) and Le corsaire (originally called La tour de Nice ). Towards the end of the year he and Harriet separated. Berlioz maintained two households: Harriet remained in Montmartre and he moved in with Recio at her flat in central Paris. His son Louis
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