Musical style romanticism. See what "Music of the Romantic period" is in other dictionaries

The music of the Romantic era is probably the most popular stylistic model in modern society. Romanticism, understood as an epoch, is indicated by a change in the dominant in artistic consciousness and, consequently, in the system of arts. Romanticism is a concept proposed by the poets of the so-called Jena school, considered its founders (L. Tieck and Novalis).

It is poetry in combination with music that contributes to the formation of new regulations for people's relations to the world and to each other. The main difference from the previous era is the new image of socially significant rituals: salon music-making takes on the form of a specific intimate lyrical concert. The romantic musician becomes the subject of a public cult, a character and hero of a certain drama of life: displacing the figure of a crowned and god-equal emperor, a king from the cult, he himself becomes God's "anointed one". The romantic song is the most important genre for characterizing the style; all romantic composers (except F. Chopin) pay tribute to it, writing hundreds of works. Piano arrangements of songs are becoming extremely popular, following the tradition of variations on popular opera themes of the last century.

The genre of "songs without words" - a kind of arrangement of a non-existent song text - extremely attracts listeners with a combination of virtuoso mastery of the instrument and lyric-psychological depth of music. The highest expression of this trend is the birth of a new genre - the actual lyrical miniature, associated primarily with the piano. A special branch of this genre sphere is created by everyday dance music, all the time balancing on the verge of applied dance, arrangements of popular samples and the lyric-confessional miniature itself (there are many examples in the works of Chopin, Schumann, Brahms, Grieg, Tchaikovsky). The waltz (which replaced the minuet) becomes the iconic dance of the era.

Of no small importance in the romantic era are the so-called didactic genres, especially virtuoso etudes.

The construction of public concert halls stimulates the development of symphonic concert genres, the direction of which is set by L. Beethoven - a brightly dramatic and internally deeply literary and program symphony, a symphonic poem and a symphonic concert.

In general, we can say that the system of musical genres is being transformed quite fundamentally both in content and in meaning, their perception by society.

Song genre in Western Europe and Russia

Poetry is a sound art. Public recitation of poetry in salons, drawing rooms and just in intimate life is her living existence. The fashion for reading poetry in the salon gives rise to a special genre: recitation to the musical accompaniment of the piano receives the name melody.

Hence, the logic of the emergence and total spread of the romantic song genre as the intonational embodiment of poetry is quite obvious. It is music through the song that makes it possible to reconstruct the idea of ​​intonational forms of reading: a certain role here belongs to the narrative - "narrative" - ​​recitation. But the musical "discovery" of romanticism is the expressive emphatic intonation. It is she who determines the intonational layer of the song romantic style, cultivating arioso. This type of vocalism represents a combination of the flexibility of the recitative with the beauty and expressiveness of the cantilena achieved in baroque opera and especially classicism (in the comic genre).

The iconic theme of romantic poetry is, of course, the theme of love. Love confessions - lyrical praises - are extremely many-sided not only in songs, but also in all instrumental genres of romanticism.

The first and most prolific romantic composer in the song genre is Franz Schubert. During his short life (1797-1828) he wrote over 600 songs. His fame in this genre began with the ballad "Forest King" to the verses of J. Goethe (1816). This is a song-monologue-scene with contrasting episodes representing different characters. Her main image - the symbolic figure of death - will take a special place in the vocal music of the Romantics.

Schubert used texts from about a hundred poets in his songs.

In an atmosphere of serious poetic interests, the cycle "The Beautiful Miller's Woman" based on the verses of the German poet W. Müller (1823) was born. In a number of songs, the plot of a kind of poetic short story about the love of an apprentice for a miller's wife arises: from the first naive delights through the pain of betrayal and separation to light-sad humility.

A life full of hard, exhausting labor and hopeless poverty leads Schubert to moods of melancholy and loneliness, reflected in his late cycle also on the poems of W. Müller "The Winter Road" (1827). His life has always been hard, his music has always been light and joyful. Now he yearns and writes about the suffering of loneliness and becomes even more romantic, for whom the confession of mental pain is one of the main topics. Tragic is the last cycle "Swan Song" (1828) on the texts of six poems by G. Heine, as well as poets L. Relyptab and A. Seidl.

And another important discovery of Schubert, picked up by all romantics, is the song nature of music in all genres. He processes his own songs into instrumental forms - the s-to quartet, in the second part of which the theme of the song "Death and the Maiden" varies, the piano quintet "Trout" (in the fourth part of the variation on the theme of the song of the same name), the piano fantasy on the theme of the song "Wanderer ". But his symphonies are also imbued with the song, in which a personal poetic intonation sounds, expressing the attitude of a person of a new era to the world. A significant place in Schubert's song work is occupied by images of nature, which are also reflected in instrumental compositions. And this becomes the manifesto of romantic composers, revealing the impulses of the soul through the metaphors of landscapes, flowers, natural elements.

Song creativity Robert Schumann (1810-1856) - the most passionate and reverent of the romantics - occupies a central place in the vocal lyrics of the 19th century. His creative career was initially connected with piano music: he dreamed of becoming a concert virtuoso himself and in the mid-1830s. creates his immortal piano masterpieces - "Symphonic Etudes", "Carnival", Fantasia C-dur, "Kreisleriana". Since 1840, his turn to the song genre begins - in this year alone he wrote 134 songs, among which are the famous cycles "The Love of a Poet" to the verses of G. Heine, "The Love and Life of a Woman" to the verses of A. von Chamisso and "Myrtle" to poems by different poets. In them, he develops the Schubert song tradition, but creates a unique style, the basis of which is the subtlety and depth of penetration into the meaning of the poetic text.

It is in Schumann's song work that the intonation form of the romantic recitation of verse emerges, theatrically bright and intimately lyrical. A huge role belongs to the piano part, which can hardly be called an accompaniment - rich harmony, inventive texture create a vivid image that reveals the emotional subtext of the verse.

In the "Love of a Poet" cycle, Schumann uses Heine's poems from "Lyrical Intermezzo", but not all of them - the composer selects them in such a way as to create a tragic love story, like in Schubert's.

Probably the most famous song of the cycle is "I'm not angry." It is worth listening to it only in the original language in order to be imbued with surprise at the mastery of the composer, "pronouncing" the words of confused forgiveness with pain, delight, meekness.

A similar beauty of melodious intonations and an expressive declamatory monologue distinguishes the song "Dear friend, you are embarrassed that I am crying" from the cycle "Love and Life of a Woman". If Heine's poetry is beautiful, then Chamisso is not one of the first-class poets. Schumann immortalized his poetic creations with his extraordinary gift to hear the subtlest emotional nuances of pronouncing an uncomplicated text.

Schumann's quiet, sublimely dreamy praises are unusually attractive - the songs "You are beautiful like a lily of the valley" and "Lotus" to Heine's verses from the Myrtle cycle, "Quiet Tears" to verses by Yu. Kerner from opus 35 (1840). Enthusiastic, impulsive love confessions, so characteristic of Schumann in piano music, represent another pole of love feelings. An excellent example is the famous "Dedication" to the words of F. Ruckert from the cycle "Myrtle", which is entirely dedicated to "my beloved bride."

The history of the romantic song is an inaccessible topic. German composers possessed some special intonation ear and flair in the embodiment of poetry. Schubert, Schumann, Liszt, Brahms, Wolf, Mahler - these names are now included in the world treasury of the vocal repertoire. Their song heritage, which for the romantic schools of Western Europe and Russia was the standard of love for poetry and the subtlety of its hearing, did not fade even after centuries.

And Russian composers, admiring Goethe, Heine, wrote their vocal works on their texts in Russian translations of Zhukovsky, Pushkin, Lermontov, Tyutchev. Feta. Comparing compositions to one text presents an exciting prospect for independent work. In general, the song genre is extremely popular in Russia, although it is a specific variety called "romance". The differences between a song and a romance are extremely subtle, they must be sought in the national musical style, and in general in the melody of the intonation of Russian speech. Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka (1804-1857), the creator of the Russian national opera, had an unusually fine ear, a good voice and was the founder of the classical romance, romantic in its essence. One of his first romances "Do not tempt" turned out to be a true masterpiece of vocal lyrics. Sensitive, romantically inclined Glinka is fond of the poetry of V. Zhukovsky, which touched him "to tears". And of course, he admires the poetry of A. Pushkin, on whose verses he wrote several magnificent romances. One of them - "Do not sing, beauty, with me" - to the melody of a Georgian folk song, brought in 1828 from the Caucasus by A. Griboyedov. The subtle embodiment of recitation is also distinguished by the miniature romance "Mary" - an example of a youthful love dithyramb. Love drives feelings and thoughts: Glinka dedicates to her student K. Kolkovskaya the wonderful romance "Doubt", full of sad melancholy and tenderness. Having fallen in love with Ekaterina Kern, the daughter of Anna Petrovna Kern, the famous "addressee" of Pushkin's poem "I Remember a Wonderful Moment", Glinka writes his immortal masterpiece on this text. Here the composer's skill and inspiration merge in amazing harmony - composers are rarely able to create an adequate embodiment of a brilliant verse.

Romances are written by many Russian composers - the fashion for poetry in Russia is as widespread as in Western Europe. It has its own national achievements, among which it is necessary, of course, to mention Alexander Sergeevich Dargomyzhsky (1813-1869) and Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky (1839-1881).

Dargomyzhsky's works based on Lermontov's poems "It's both boring and sad", "I'm sad" are lyrical monologues with expressive details of the embodiment of speech intonation. Quite new to the genre is the caustic social satire, which manifests the basic principle of the composer, saying: "I want the sound to directly express the word. I want the truth."

Mussorgsky, who gravitated toward a realistic reflection of images from folk life, wrote on his own texts, poems by N. Nekrasov, A. Ostrovsky ("Svetik Savishna", "Kalistrat", "Lullaby to Eremushka", "Sleep, sleep, peasant son", "Orphan ", "Seminarian"). His songs were a kind of "sketches" for operas, which became a completely new word in the opera genre, the theater of musical drama ("Boris Godunov", "Khovanshchina"). In the 1870s created vocal cycles "Without the Sun" (1874), "Songs and Dances of Death" (1875-1877), as well as "Children's" on his own words (1872). Mussorgsky's musical language struck the imagination of many composers of the 20th century. - so new were the images that required new means of musical expression.

The pinnacle of the romantic song in Russian music is creativity Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893).

Tchaikovsky's romances reveal his amazing gift of melodic expressiveness and beauty. His ariose style is individual and unique - it is worth sounding "three notes", as we unmistakably define the author, however, his choice of poetic texts seems to be undemanding (which has been repeatedly noted in critical literature), although Tchaikovsky subtly felt the musical nature of Pushkin's poems, Fet, wrote about this. The main theme is love lyrics, original and translated poems by A.K. Tolstoy, A.N. Pleshcheeva, L.A. May. "Not a word, oh my friend", "No, only the one who knew", "Take away my heart" and other wonderful examples of early work prepare the lyrics for the opera "Eugene Onegin". At the end of the 1870s. passionate enthusiastic vocal sketches appear - "I bless you, forests", "Does the day reign". "In the midst of a noisy ball" to the words of A. Tolstoy is an outstanding experience of Russian vocal lyrics, an example of a female portrait in the rhythm of a waltz and subtle poetic reverie. More than one generation of performers and listeners admires the charming romance to the verses of K. R. (Konstantin Romanov) "I Opened the Window". The romances of the last opus (1893) to the words of D. Rathaus - "We sat with you", "The sun went down", "On this moonlit night", "Among the gloomy days", "Again, as before, alone" - reflect the themes of grief, longing and sadness, characteristic of the last Sixth Symphony with its tragic theme of life, fate and death.

The romantic worldview is characterized by a sharp conflict between reality and dreams. Reality is low and soulless, it is permeated with the spirit of philistinism, philistinism and is worthy only of denial. A dream is something beautiful, perfect, but unattainable and incomprehensible to the mind.

Romanticism contrasted the prose of life with the beautiful realm of the spirit, "the life of the heart." Romantics believed that feelings constitute a deeper layer of the soul than the mind. According to Wagner, "the artist appeals to feeling, not to reason." And Schumann said: "the mind is mistaken, feelings - never." It is no coincidence that music was declared the ideal form of art, which, due to its specificity, most fully expresses the movements of the soul. It was music in the era of romanticism that took a leading place in the system of arts.
If in literature and painting the romantic direction basically completes its development by the middle of the 19th century, then the life of musical romanticism in Europe is much longer. Musical romanticism as a trend emerged at the beginning of the 19th century and developed in close connection with various trends in literature, painting and theater. The initial stage of musical romanticism is represented by the work of F. Schubert, E. T. A. Hoffmann, K. M. Weber, G. Rossini; the subsequent stage (1830-50s) - the work of F. Chopin, R. Schumann, F. Mendelssohn, G. Berlioz, F. Liszt, R. Wagner, J. Verdi.

The late stage of Romanticism extends to the end of the 19th century.

The problem of personality is put forward as the main problem of romantic music, and in a new light - in its conflict with the outside world. The romantic hero is always lonely. The theme of loneliness is perhaps the most popular in all romantic art. Very often, the idea of ​​a creative person is associated with it: a person is lonely when he is precisely an outstanding, gifted person. The artist, poet, musician are the favorite characters in the works of the romantics (Schumann's Love of the Poet, Berlioz's Fantastic Symphony with its subtitle - "An Episode from the Artist's Life", Liszt's symphonic poem "Tasso").
The deep interest in the human personality inherent in romantic music was expressed in the predominance of a personal tone in it. The revelation of a personal drama often acquired a touch of autobiography among the romantics, which brought a special sincerity into the music. So, for example, many of Schumann's piano works are connected with the story of his love for Clara Wieck. The autobiographical nature of his operas was strongly emphasized by Wagner.

Attention to feelings leads to a change in genres - the lyrics acquire a dominant position, in which images of love predominate.
The theme of nature is very often intertwined with the theme of "lyrical confession". Resonating with the state of mind of a person, it is usually colored by a sense of disharmony. The development of genre and lyrical-epic symphonism is closely connected with the images of nature (one of the first works is Schubert's "great" symphony in C-dur).
The real discovery of romantic composers was the theme of fantasy. Music for the first time learned to embody fabulous-fantastic images by purely musical means. In the operas of the 17th and 18th centuries, "unearthly" characters (such as the Queen of the Night from Mozart's "Magic Flute") spoke the "generally accepted" musical language, standing out little from the background of real people. Romantic composers have learned to convey the fantasy world as something completely specific (with the help of unusual orchestral and harmonic colors).
Interest in folk art is highly characteristic of musical romanticism. Like the romantic poets, who enriched and updated the literary language at the expense of folklore, the musicians widely turned to national folklore - folk songs, ballads, epics. Under the influence of folklore, the content of European music has changed dramatically.
The most important moment in the aesthetics of musical romanticism was the idea of ​​a synthesis of the arts, which found its most vivid expression in the operatic work of Wagner and in the program music of Berlioz, Schumann, and Liszt.

Hector Berlioz. "Fantastic symphony" - 1. Dreams, passions...



Robert Schumann - "In the radiance ...", "I meet the gaze .."

From the vocal cycle "Poet's Love"
Robert Schumann Heinrich Heine "In the radiance of warm May days"
Robert Schumann - Heinrich "I meet the look of your eyes"

Robert Schumann. "Fantastic plays".



Schumann Fantasiestucke, op. 12 part 1: no. 1 Des Abend and no. 2 Aufschwung

Sheet. Symphonic poem "Orpheus"



Frederic Chopin - Prelude No. 4 in E minor



Frederic Chopin - Nocturne No 20 in C - sharp minor



Schubert paved the way for many new musical genres - impromptu, musical moments, song cycles, lyric-dramatic symphony. But in whatever genre Schubert writes - traditional or created by him - everywhere he appears as a composer of a new era, the era of romanticism.

Many features of the new romantic style were then developed in the works of Schumann, Chopin, Liszt, Russian composers of the second half of the 19th century.

Franz Schubert. Symphony C major



Franz Liszt. "Dreams of Love"



Weber. Chorus of hunters from the opera "Free Shooter"



Franz Schubert. Impromptu #3



The text is compiled from different sites. Compiled by:Ninel Nick

Presentation "Musical art of the era of romanticism" Continues This blog post introduced the main features of the style. The presentation dedicated to the music of romanticism is not only rich in illustrative material, but also contains audio and video examples. Unfortunately, you can only hear the music by clicking on the links in PowerPoint.

Musical art of the Romantic era

Not a single era before the 19th century gave the world so many talented composers and performers and so many outstanding musical masterpieces as the era of romanticism. Unlike classicism, whose worldview is based on the cult of reason, the main thing in the art of romanticism is feeling.

“In its closest and most essential meaning, romanticism is nothing but the inner world of a person’s soul, the innermost life of his heart. Its sphere, as we said, is the whole inner spiritual life of a person, that mysterious life of the soul and heart, from which rise all indefinite aspirations for the better and the sublime, trying to find satisfaction in the ideals created by fantasy. V.G. Belinsky

In music, as in no other art form, it is possible to express a wide variety of feelings and emotions. Therefore, it was music that became the main art in the era of romanticism. Incidentally, the term "romanticism" in relation to music was first used by an outstanding writer, artist, composer Ernest Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann, whose life and fate can serve as the clearest example of the fate of a romantic hero.

Musical instruments of the Romantic era

Due to the richness of the sound palette, the variety of timbre coloring, the piano became one of the favorite musical instruments of the Romantics. In the era of romanticism, the piano was enriched with new possibilities. Among the romantic musicians there are many such as Liszt, Chopin, who amaze music lovers with their virtuosic performance of their (and not only their) piano works.

The orchestra of the era of romanticism was enriched with new instruments. The composition of the orchestra has increased several times in comparison with the orchestra of the era of classicism. In order to create a fantastic, magical atmosphere, the composers used the possibilities of such instruments as harp, glass harmonica, celesta, glockenspiel.

In the slide screenshot from my presentation, you can see that I added an example of its sound to each image of a musical instrument. By downloading the presentation to your computer and opening it in PowerPoint, my inquisitive reader, you can enjoy the sound of these amazing instruments.

“The updated instruments have unspeakably expanded the scope of orchestral expressiveness, made it possible to enrich the coloristic palette of the orchestra and the ensemble with previously unknown timbres, technical brilliance and powerful luxury of sonority. And in solo plays, concerts, fantasies, they could amaze listeners with unprecedented, sometimes acrobatic virtuosity and exaggerated sensuality, giving the performers-concertants demonic and imperious features. V.V. Berezin

Genres in Romantic music

Along with the popular genres that existed in the previous era, new ones appear in romantic music, such as nocturne, prelude(which has become a completely independent work (recall the delightful preludes Frederic Chopin), ballad, impromptu, musical miniature, song (Franz Schubert composed about six hundred of them) symphonic poem. In these works, the romantic composer could express the subtlest shades of spiritual experiences. It was the romantics who, striving for the concreteness of musical ideas, came to the creation of program compositions. These creations were often inspired by works of literature, painting, and sculpture. The most striking example of such creations are the works Franz Liszt, inspired by images, Dante, Michelangelo, Petrarch, Goethe.

Romantic composers

The scope of the "genre" does not allow to place in this entry a story about the work of romantic composers. My task was to give a general idea of ​​the music of romanticism and, if I'm lucky, to arouse interest in the topic and the desire to continue an independent study of the musical art of the era of romanticism.

I found among the materials of the Arzamas Academy something that may be of interest to my inquisitive reader about music of romanticism. I highly recommend reading, listening, and thinking!

As always, I offer bibliography. I want to clarify that I am compiling the list using my own library. If you find it incomplete, add it yourself.

  • Encyclopedia for children. T.7. Art. Part three. Music, theater, cinema. - M .: Avanta +, 2001.
  • Encyclopedic Dictionary of a Young Musician. ‒ M.: "Pedagogy", 1985.
  • Musical encyclopedic dictionary. ‒ M.: "Soviet Encyclopedia", 1990.
  • Velikovich E.I. Musical journeys in stories and pictures. ‒ St. Petersburg: Information and publishing agency "LIK", 2009.
  • Emokhonova L.G. World Artistic Culture: Proc. Allowance for students. avg. ped. textbook establishments. - M .: Publishing Center "Academy", 1998.
  • Zalesskaya M.K. Richard Wagner. Forbidden Composer. ‒ M.: Veche, 2014.
  • Collins St. Classical music inside and out. ‒ M.: FAIR_PRESS, 2000.
  • Lvova E.P., Sarabyanov D.V., Borisova E.A., Fomina N.N., Berezin V.V., Kabkova E.P., Nekrasova L.M. World Art. XIX century. Visual arts, music, theater. ‒ St. Petersburg: Peter, 2007.
  • Rolland R. Lives of great people. ‒ M.: Izvestia, 1992.
  • One Hundred Great Composers / Compiled by D.K. Sameen. ‒ M.: Veche, 1999.
  • Tibaldi-Chiesa M. Paganini. ‒ M.: Mol. Guard, 1981

Good luck!

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Music has taken a special place in the aesthetics of romanticism. It was declared a model and norm for all areas of art, since, due to its specificity, it is able to most fully express the movements of the soul.“Music begins when words end” (G. Heine).

Musical romanticism as a direction developed at the beginningXIXcentury and developed in close connection with various trends in literature, painting and theater. The initial stage of musical romanticism is represented by the works of F. Schubert, E. T. A. Hoffmann, K. M. Weber, N. Paganini, G. Rossini; the next stage (1830-50s) - the work of F. Chopin, R. Schumann, F. Mendelssohn, G. Berlioz, F. Liszt, R. Wagner, J. Verdi. The Late Stage of Romanticism Extends to the EndXIXcentury. Thus, if in literature and painting the romantic direction basically completes its development by the middleXIXcenturies, the life of musical romanticism in Europe is much longer.

In musical romanticism, as well as in other forms of art and literature, the opposition of the world of beautiful, unattainable ideals and everyday life permeated with the spirit of philistinism and philistinism gave rise, on the one hand, to dramatic conflict, the dominance of tragic motifs of loneliness, hopelessness, wandering, etc. ., on the other - the idealization and poeticization of the distant past, folk life, nature. In common with the state of mind of a person, nature in the works of romantics is usually colored with a sense of disharmony.

Like other romantics, the musicians were convinced that feelings are a deeper layer of the soul than the mind:"the mind is mistaken, feelings - never" (R. Schumann).

The special interest in the human personality inherent in romantic music was expressed in the predominance ofpersonal tone . The disclosure of personal drama often acquired a connotation among romantics.autobiography, who brought a special sincerity to the music. So, for example, many of Schumann's piano works are connected with the story of his love for Clara Wieck. Berlioz wrote the autobiographical "Fantastic" symphony. The autobiographical nature of his operas was strongly emphasized by Wagner.

Very often intertwined with the theme of "lyrical confession"nature theme .

The real discovery of romantic composers wasfantasy theme. Music for the first time learned to embody fabulous-fantastic images by purely musical means. In operasXVII - XVIIIcenturies, "unearthly" characters (such as, for example, the Queen of the Night from Mozart's "Magic Flute") spoke the "generally accepted" musical language, standing out little from real people. Romantic composers have learned to convey the fantasy world as something completely specific (with the help of unusual orchestral and harmonic colors). A striking example is the "Wolf Gulch Scene" in Weber's Magic Shooter.

If a XVIIIcentury was the era of virtuoso improvisers of a universal type, equally skilled in singing, composing, playing various instruments, thenXIXthe century was a time of unprecedented enthusiasm for the art of virtuoso pianists (K. M. Weber, F. Mendelssohn, F. Chopin, F. Liszt, I. Brahms).

The era of romanticism completely changed the "musical geography of the world." Under the influence of the active awakening of the national self-consciousness of the peoples of Europe, young composer schools in Russia, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Norway advanced to the international musical arena. The composers of these countries, embodying the images of national literature, history, native nature, relied on the intonations and rhythms of their native folklore.

Highly characteristic of musical romanticism is the interest infolk art . Like the romantic poets, who enriched and updated the literary language at the expense of folklore, the musicians widely turned to national folklore - folk songs, ballads, epics (F. Schubert, R. Schumann, F. Chopin, I. Brahms, B. Smetana , E. Grieg and others). Embodying the images of national literature, history, native nature, they relied on the intonations and rhythms of national folklore, reviving the old diatonic modes.Under the influence of folklore, the content of European music has changed dramatically.

New themes and images required the development of romanticsnew means of musical language and the principles of shaping, individualization of melody and the introduction of speech intonations, expansion of the timbre and harmonic palette of music (natural frets, colorful juxtapositions of major and minor, etc.).

Since the focus of romantics is no longer humanity as a whole, but a specific person with his unique feeling, respectivelyand in the means of expression, the general is increasingly giving way to the individual, individually unique. The share of generalized intonations in melody, commonly used chord sequences in harmony, typical patterns in texture are decreasing - all these means are being individualized. In orchestration, the principle of ensemble groups gave way to the soloing of almost all orchestral voices.

The most important pointaesthetics musical romanticism wasthe idea of ​​art synthesis , which found its most vivid expression in the operatic work of Wagner and inprogram music Berlioz, Schumann, Liszt.

Musical Genres in the Works of Romantic Composers

In romantic music, three genre groups clearly emerge:

  • genres that occupied a subordinate place in the art of classicism (primarily song and piano miniature);
  • genres perceived by the romantics from the previous era (opera, oratorio, sonata-symphony cycle, overture);
  • free, poetic genres (ballads, fantasies, rhapsodies, symphonic poems). Interest in them is explained by the desire of romantic composers for free self-expression, the gradual transformation of images.

At the forefront in the musical culture of romanticism issong as a genre most suitable for expressing the innermost thoughts of an artist (whereas in the professional work of composersXVIIIcentury, the lyrical song was assigned a modest role - it served mainly to fill leisure). Schubert, Schumann, Liszt, Brahms, Grieg and others worked in the field of song.

The typical romantic composer creates very directly, spontaneously, at the behest of his heart. Romantic comprehension of the world is not a consistent philosophical grasp of reality, but an instant fixation of everything that touched the artist's soul. In this regard, in the era of romanticism, the genre flourishedminiatures (independent or combined with other miniatures in a cycle). This is not only a song and a romance, but also instrumental compositions -musical moments, impromptu, preludes, etudes, nocturnes, waltzes, mazurkas (in connection with the reliance on folk art).

Many romantic genres owe their origin to poetry, its poetic forms. Such are sonnets, songs without words, short stories, ballads.

One of the leading ideas of romantic aesthetics - the idea of ​​a synthesis of the arts - naturally placed the problem of opera in the center of attention. Almost all romantic composers turned to the operatic genre with rare exceptions (Brahms).

The personal, confidential tone of expression inherent in romanticism completely transforms the classical genres of the symphony, sonata, and quartet. They receivepsychological and lyrical-dramatic interpretation. The content of many romantic works is associated withprogramming (piano cycles by Schumann, Years of Wanderings by Liszt, symphonies by Berlioz, overtures by Mendelssohn).