Romantic Period Vocal Music

Opera

• Opera became an important source of musical expression during the Romantic period.
• It converged various arts, including music, poetry, painting, architecture, and dance.
• Opera is characterized by elaborate costumes, scenery, and choreography.

Components of an Opera

• Libretto: The text of an opera, written by a librettist in collaboration with a composer.
• Score: The book containing musical notes, words, and ideas to help performers tell the story.
• Recitative: Declamatory singing used in prose parts and dialogue of opera.
• Aria: A solo singing part sung by a principal character, often memorable and impactful.
• Acts: Main divisions of an opera.
• Scene: Setting or place in an opera.

Opera Composer of The Romantic Period

• Franz Peter Schubert:
  • Developed lieder (German songs) with a powerful dramatic impact.
  • Considered the last of the Classical composers and one of the first Romantic ones.
  • Famous vocal music works include "Gretchen am Spinnrade", "Erlkonig", "Ellens Gesang III" ("Ave Maria"), and "Schwanenge sang" ("Swan Song").
  • Born on January 31, 1797, in Himmelpfortgrund, Austria, and died in 1828 in Vienna, Austria, at the age of 31.
• Giuseppe Verdi:
  • Associated with Romantic opera, featuring ordinary people as characters.
  • Insisted on a good libretto, emphasizing the importance of the text.

Vocal Music of the Romantic Period

• Characteristics:
  • Emotional subjectivity.
  • Exploration of feelings, such as grandiosity, intimacy, unpredictability, sadness, rapture, and longing.
• Romantic Vocal Forms:
  • Art song and opera, often featuring fantasy, supernatural, romance, and nature as a mirror of the human heart.
  • Virtuoso performers, including singers, who can sound like multiple characters by using different vocal registers.
• Inspiration:
  • Poems, mood, atmosphere, and imagery.
  • Landscapes and traditional myths, legends, and folklore, often dealing with the supernatural.
• Requirements:
  • Singers need to perform a greater range of tone color, dynamics, and pitch.