Romantic Composers: Spohr and Paganini

• The emotional and dramatic compositions of late Classical composers like Beethoven inspired a generation of Romantic composers.
• Music became a way of expressing emotions and ideas.
• Romantic composers experimented with new, rich harmonies, inspired by nature, their country's music, and history.
• The 19th century marked the start of Europe's age of exploration, discovery, and scientific ideas, leading to the Industrial Revolution and colonial expansion.

Louis Spohr (1784-1859)

• A German composer and violinist.
• Spohr combined structured Classical forms with expressive and rich-sounding harmonies.
• Spohr wrote more than 90 songs inspired by love poems.
• As a conductor, he was one of the first to use a baton.

Niccolò Paganini (1782-1840)

• An Italian composer and outstanding violinist.
• Paganini's technically challenging and imaginative violin solos inspired later Romantic composers to use instrumental brilliance as a way of conveying expression in their music.

Early Romantic Composers

Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)

• He was inspired by his musical sister, Fanny (1805-1847).
• At age 17, Mendelssohn wrote A Midsummer's Night's Dream, the first of his many concert overtures or short orchestral works.

Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849)

• Chopin composed short, melodic pieces, including those based on Polish dances.
• He is also famous for composing the Minute Waltz.

Emilie Mayer (1812-1883)

• Like many Romantic composers, she often used existing stories and poems as themes for her songs.
• She composed pieces for a full orchestra, which was rare for a woman at that time.

Franz Schubert (1797-1828)

• By age 17, Schubert was composing exciting and adventurous melodies.
• Schubert broke away from the Classical style and composed more romantic, emotional, and imaginative music.
• He died at 31 but composed a huge amount of music.
• Schubert is known for German art-songs or Lieder-poems set to music for singer and pianist.
• By the 19th century, pianos developed a full, rich tone and became popular in the home.
• Brass instruments had valves to play a larger range of music.
• Improved instruments gave Romantic composers a greater variety of sound.

Carl Maria von Weber (1786-1826)

• Weber's opera Der Freischütz, first performed in 1821, marked the beginning of German Romantic opera.
• Weber showed how opera could be based on national folk tales and folk tunes.
• Romantic artists were also inspired by their country's landscapes.

Middle and Late Romantic Composers

Anton Bruckner (1824-1896)

• An Austrian composer who wrote nine famous large-scale symphonies.
• The long sections allowed his music to develop slowly, giving the pieces a spiritual quality of sound.

César-Auguste Franck (1822-1890)

• A Belgian composer who influenced the revival of the traditional structured symphony and the use of "cyclic form."
• Cyclic form is where several movements had themes linked to a main melody motif.

Franz Liszt (1811-1886)

• Liszt, composer of Hungarian Rhapsodies, introduced the term "symphonic poem."
• Symphonic poem refers to a large-scale, one-movement piece of music taken from a dramatic play, historical event, or mythology.

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)

• A German composer who rejected the new Romantic forms and composed masterpieces in the Baroque and Classical style developed from J. S. Bach to Beethoven.

Georges Bizet (1838-1875)

• French opera composer who is best known for his opera Carmen, performed in 1875.
• Carmen shocked audiences with its lifelike characters and realistic on-stage murder.

Richard Strauss (1864-1949)

• Strauss began his musical career by composing songs and symphonic poems, such as Don Juan.
• He ended composing great operas, such as Der Rosenkavalier ("The Knight of the Rose").

The Romantic era saw music as a form of emotional expression. Composers like Louis Spohr, a German composer and violinist, combined Classical structures with rich harmonies. Niccolò Paganini, an Italian violinist, inspired composers to explore instrumental brilliance.