WEEK 11

• Romantic period


  Started around 1830 and ended around 1900, as compositions became increasingly expressive and inventive. Expansive symphonies, virtuosic piano music, dramatic operas, and passionate songs took inspiration from art and literature
• Modern period


  Began in 1900 and continues through the present day. Great changes in compositional techniques and styles took place, challenging and reinterpreting old styles of music, making it a time of great innovation
• Well known composer of romantic era

  • Carl Maria von Weber
  • Frederic Chopin
  • Richard Wagner
  • Jacques Offennbach
  • Pytor Ilyinch Tchaikovsky
  • Nikolai Rimsky Korskov
  • Richard Staruss
• Carl Maria von Weber


  • He was born in Germany, in 1786 to a very famous, musical family. A conductor, pianist, guitarist, critic, and one of the first significant composers of the Romantic school. He worked hard to improve the quality of opera in each of these cities by employing bigger orchestras, performing more challenging repertoire, and seeking out fresh singers
• Famous works of Carl Maria von Weber


  • Operas: Der Freischütz, Euryanthe, and Oberon
  • Orchestral: Clarinet concertos, Konzertstück in F minor for Piano and Orchestra
• Frederic Chopin


  • A Polish composer and virtuoso pianist of the Romantic period, who wrote primarily for solo piano
• Frederic Chopin


  • He completed his musical education and composed his earlier works in Warsaw before leaving Poland at the age of 20, less than a month before the outbreak of the November 1830 Uprising. His major piano works also include mazurkas, waltzes, nocturnes, polonaises, the instrumental ballade (which Chopin created as an instrumental genre), études, impromptus, scherzi, preludes, and sonatas, some published only posthumously
• Richard Wagner


  • A German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas
• Richard Wagner


  • He wrote both the libretto and the music for each of his stage works. His compositions, particularly those of his later period, are notable for their complex textures, rich harmonies and orchestration, and the elaborate use of leitmotifs—musical phrases associated with individual characters, places, ideas, or plot elements
• Jacques Offenbach


  • A German-born French composer, cellist and impresario of the Romantic period
• Jacques Offenbach


  • He is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850s to the 1870s, and his uncompleted opera The Tales of Hoffmann. He was a powerful influence on later composers of the operetta genre. He was accepted as a student at the Paris Conservatoire but found academic study unfulfilling and left after a year
• Pytor Ilyinch Tchaikovsky


  • A Russian Composer of the romantic period
• Pytor Ilyinch Tchaikovsky


  • He was the first Russian Composer whose music would make a lasting impression internationally. Tchaikovsky's most popular compositions include music for the ballets Swan Lake (1877), The Sleeping Beauty (1889), and The Nutcracker (1892). He is also famous for the Romeo and Juliet overture (1870) and Symphony No. 6 in B Minor (Pathétique) (1893)
• Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov


  • A Russian composer of the Romantic period
• Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov


  • He was born in a small provincial town of Tikhvin. When he was twelve he entered the Naval academy in St. Petersburg to become a mariner following his brother. He started going to operas, symphonic concerts and acquired a passion for music. During the last year of his studies at the Naval Academy, he began to compose a symphony. Famous works: Capriccio espagnol (1887), The symphonic suite Scheherazade, Russian Easter Festival (1888)
• Richard Strauss


  • A German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras
• Richard Strauss


  • Between 1882 and 1883 he was a student at Munich University, leaving it for a short period of study in Berlin before becoming Hans von Bülow's assistant with the Meiningen Court Orchestra. Famous works: Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche, Also sprach Zarathustra, Don Quixote, Ein Heldenleben, Ariade auf Naxos, Arabella, Capriccio
• Claude Debussy


  A French composer sometimes seen as the first Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term. He is among the most influential composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He originally studied the piano, but found his vocation in innovative composition, despite the disapproval of the Conservatoire's conservative professors
• Claude Debussy's major works


  • Clair de lune ("Moonlight," in Suite bergamasque, 1890–1905), Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune (1894; Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun), the opera Pelléas et Mélisande (1902), and La Mer (1905; "The Sea")
• Arnold Schoenberg


  • An Austrian-American composer, music theorist, teacher, writer, and painter. He is widely considered one of the most influential composers of the 20th century
• Arnold Schoenberg


  • He immigrated to the United States in 1933, becoming an American citizen in 1941. He also coined the term developing variation and was the first modern composer to embrace ways of developing motifs without resorting to the dominance of a centralized melodic idea. His most-important atonal compositions include Five Orchestral Pieces, Op. 16 (1909); the monodrama Erwartung, Op. 17 (1924; "Expectation"), a stage work for soprano and orchestra; Pierrot Lunaire, 21 recitations ("melodramas") with chamber accompaniment, Op. 21 (1912); Die glückliche Hand, Op. 18 (1924; "The Hand of Fate"), drama with music; and the unfinished oratorio Die Jakobsleiter (begun 1917; "Jacob's Ladder")
• John Cage


  • An American composer, music theorist, writer, and artist. He was one of the most original composers in the history of Western music, challenging the very idea of music by manipulating musical instruments in order to achieve new sounds
• John Cage


  • He experimented with what came to be known as Chance music, creating a "prepared" piano where screws and pieces of wood or paper were inserted between the piano strings to produce different percussion possibilities. Famous artworks: 4'33, In a landscape, Sonates and intercludes
• Maurice Ravel


  • A French composer, pianist, and conductor, considered the greatest French composer alive. He was known for being an extremely talented musician due to his orchestration and was one of the first musicians to rely on recordings to bring music to a bigger audience
• Maurice Ravel


  • He was fond of blues and Jazz, which he believed had a rich and captivating rhythm. His best works are "Bolero" and "Daphnis et Chloe"
• Philip Glass


  • An American composer who became accomplished as a violinist and flutist at the age of 15. He formed the Philip Glass Ensemble and produced works such as "Music in Similar Motion" and "Music in Changing Parts" with rock-type grooves at extreme volumes. He produced a four-hour opera "Einstein on the Beach" which was an instant sell-out at the New York Metropolitan Opera House
• Philip Glass


  • His famous works include Einstein on the beach, Akhnaten, and Mad rush