One of the most distinctive forms in romantic music is the art song, a composotion for solo voice and piano. Here, the accompaniment is an integral part of the composer's conceotion, and it serves as an interpretive partner to the voice. Although they are now performed in concert halls, romantic songs were written to be sung and enjoyed at home. Poetry and music ae intimately fused in the art song. It is no ccident that this form flowered with the emergenge of a rich body of romantic poetry in the early nineteenth-century. Yearning-inspired by a lost love, nature, legend, or other times and places-haunted the imagination of romantic poets. Thus art songs are filled with the deapair of inreguited love; the beauty of flowers, trees, and brooks; and the supernatural happenings of flok tales. There are also songs of joy, wit and humour. But by and large, romantic song was a reaching out of the soul. Song composers would interpret a poem, translating its mood, atmosphere, and imagenary into music. They created a vocal melody that was musically satisfying and perfectly molded to the text. Important words were emphasised by stressed tones or melodic climaxes.
Romantic Composers and Their Public ~Romantic composers wrote primarily for middle-class audience whose size and prosperity had increased because of the industrial revolution. During the nineteenth century, cities expended dramatically, and a sizable number of people wanted to hear and play music.
Of
all the periods in the development of music, Romantic Period has always
been my number one love.
Click on my favorite composers and see for yourself why I love their music
the best.
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