Ushered in somewhere around the turn of the 19th century, Romanticism shook up the world of classical music in ways that were both seismic and enduring. With its emphasis on emotion, individuality, and the exploration of deeper psychological and emotional states, the work of the best Romantic composers displays a major gear change from the more structured forms and balance of the Classical period that has preceded it.
Now, personal expression was to the fore. So, too, was an interest in nature, fantasy, and the supernatural. Romantic music often set out to evoke profound emotional responses, and composers of the time were inspired by poetry, art and literature, with many works having a descriptive or ‘programmatic’ element – this was, after all, the era of the ‘tone poem‘.
Contents
- Introduction: Romanticism and the 19th century
- Best Romantic composers: Classical era into Romanticism
- Early Romantic composers
- Late Romantic composers
- Romantic opera
- Romanticism in the 20th century
Romanticism and the 19th century
Romanticism wasn’t confined to music, of course. It also swept its way into literature and painting, among other art forms. Poets like Wordsworth, Coleridge and Byron, and painters such as Turner, Delacroix and William Blake all produced work that followed the Romantic ethos of passion, subjectivity, and a fascination with the outside world.
Back in music, the Romantic era followed the Age of Enlightenment and the Classical period of composers like Mozart and Haydn, where clarity, balance, and form were all prized qualities in music. Conversely, political and military upheavals such as the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, and the rise of nationalism in many European nations had a major impact on the story of music in the 19th century.
Best Romantic composers: from the Classical era into Romanticism
1. Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
The great Ludwig van Beethoven was something of a bridge between the Classical and Romantic eras. Early works such as his first six string quartets and First Symphony clearly still belong to the Classical period, with their grace and sense of proportion. However, Beethoven’s later works, such as his Symphony No. 9 and Piano Sonata No. 29 (‘Hammerklavier‘), tore up the rulebooks of Classical music and injected a new grandeur and emotional intensity.
Ludwig van Beethoven: his best works
Gosh, where do we start? Perhaps with…
Symphony No. 3, aka the ‘Eroica‘, which with its drama, melodic and rhythmic adventurousness, and its sheer scale, can be credited with kicking off the Romantic movement in music. Or try the Fifth Piano Concerto, whose grandeur and momentum – not to mention a sublime slow movement – make it surely one of the greatest piano concertos of all time.
2. Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
Schubert wrote over 600 songs in total, and was at the forefront of the Romantic Lieder tradition. He is also known for his thrilling orchestral and chamber works. Schubert had a gift for shaping a melody and creating beautiful themes that makes him one of the very best Romantic composers.
Franz Schubert: his best works
Symphony No. 8 ‘Unfinished’, 1822: The first phrase comes from the cellos and basses playing low in register and pianissimo. After a few bars, agitated shimmering strings enter alongside a more lyrical oboe and clarinet line. This dark introverted opening is unlike other symphonies of the time which often open with a bold statement.
Gretchen am Spinnrade, 1814: This song depicts a girl, Gretchen, spinning yarn and worrying about her feelings for her new lover, Faust. The right hand of the piano accompaniment is busy yet flowing, capturing the spinning wheel but also Gretchen’s agitation. Above floats a fluid vocal melody.
3. Hector Berlioz (1803-1869)
Berlioz’s music is often technically difficult. His use of harmony was seen at the time as little short of revolutionary. He treated harmony as a tool for expression rather than function. Other stylistic qualities are his use of irregular rhythms and long melodies, while still being clearly influenced by the Classical period.
Hector Berlioz: his best works
Symphonie fantastique, 1830: Probably one of the most influential, innovative works in the history of classical music, Berlioz’s great five-movement symphony is notable for its bold orchestration, programmatic structure, and vivid use of recurring musical themes, known as the idée fixe. It represents a landmark of Romantic music, combining intense emotion, imagination, and new symphonic forms. Considered the first tone poem, the work’s main theme is notably long, running for 30 bars.
Berlioz provided a detailed program or narrative to accompany the symphony, which tells the story of a young artist who, driven by unrequited love, spirals into a series of increasingly bizarre and disturbing hallucinations after taking opium. One of the most gripping musical dramas, from one of the very best Romantic composers.
- The love story behind Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique
- We also named Berlioz one of the greatest French composers of all time
Les Nuits d’été, 1834-40: A song cycle set to the poetry of Gautier. Originally written for baritone and piano, it has also been arranged for soprano and orchestra.
Best Romantic composers: early Romanticism
4. Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)
Felix Mendelssohn was arguably the most talented child prodigy of all time. At the age of 15, his teacher was already claiming that Mendelssohn’s talents were equal to those of Bach, Haydn and Mozart. The following year, Mendelssohn composed one of his best loved works: the exhilarating, beautifully orchestrated Octet. Quite a feat for a lad of 16.
Graceful, beautifully balanced yet stormy at times, Mendelssohn’s music incorporates the elegance and balance of the Classical era, while still evoking the fantasy of the Romantic.
Felix Mendelssohn: his best works
Piano Concerto No. 1, 1831: The concerto was inspired by Mendelssohn’s trip to Italy (1830-31). The premiere of the work was a triumph, with Mendelssohn playing the piano himself.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream Overture, 1826: The music was written to accompany Shakespeare’s play, and its overture quickly became popular across Europe.
5. Fanny Mendelssohn (1805-1847)
Fanny Mendelssohn was the older sister of Felix Mendelssohn. Despite often being overlooked, she composed around 500 brilliant works. As a woman, she was not encouraged to pursue music as a career in the way her brother was, so did not get the same opportunities of travelling and education. Nevertheless, her music contains the complex virtuosity exhibited by her male contemporaries. Her work is light and poised in character.
Fanny Mendelssohn: her best works
String Quartet, 1834: The quartet begins with short phrases being passed around between players creating an echoing effect. The second movement is the most lively and shows Baroque influences. The final movement is the most moving of the three.
Overture in C: Fanny Mendelssohn’s only orchestral work displays her characteristic gracefulness alongside virtuosic string parts.
6. Clara Schumann (1819-1896)
Clara Schumann was a gifted composer at a time where the profession was highly male-dominated. Her career began as a child prodigy pianist, taught by her father Friedrich Wieck who insisted on spending time teaching her harmony and counterpoint so she could go on to perform her own works.
Her talent earned Clara a prestigious place at the Society of the Friends of Music in Vienna. Undoubtedly her marriage to Robert Schumann influenced her music. The couple were known for sharing musical ideas with each other, and with their close friend Johannes Brahms. Three of the best Romantic composers in a room together? We’d love to have been a fly on the wall.
Clara Schumann: her best works
Three Romances for Violin and Piano, 1853: A display of sophisticated lyrical lines and daring complexity.
Piano Concerto, 1836 This beautiful, distinctive concerto was written when Clara Schumann was only 16. The bold first movement demonstrates her original voice.
7. Robert Schumann (1810-1856)
German composer Robert Schumann was known for his piano music, Lieder and orchestral works. Before his marriage, Schumann was mostly seen as a miniaturist composer due to his fondness for writing short piano pieces and songs. Most of his music is inspired by literature and poems.
Schumann’s music often has a passionate, impulsive quality – it often sounds like the composer’s own volatile emotions (he suffered from mental illness later in life) being directly distilled onto the page. In this way, Schumann can perhaps be seen as the ultimate Romantic composer – the most emblematic example of a movement that prized emotion, passion, subjectivity and states of mind over the more objective concerns of the Classical era.
Robert Schumann: his best works
Piano Quintet in E flat, 1842: The piano quintet form later become a popular cornerstone of chamber music, with famous examples composed by Brahms, Dvořák, Elgar and Shostakovich. Schubert arguably wrote the first major Piano Quintet in 1819 with his masterful, joyous ‘Trout‘ Quintet. Schumann’s own essay in the genre is a perfect synthesis of Romantic ideals, with its alternating passion, energy and drama.
Kreisleriana, 1838: A set of eight pieces for solo piano. Schumann dedicated these to Chopin and saw them as his best work. They were inspired by stories by Romantic writer ETA Hoffmann.
8. Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849)
The Polish composer Frédéric Chopin was a virtuoso pianist, child prodigy and master of Romantic composition. Most of his extraordinarily beautiful, sensitive and evocative musical output is written for solo piano, including 59 Mazurkas, 27 Etudes, 27 Preludes, 21 Nocturnes and 20 Waltzes.
Frédéric Chopin: his best works
24 Preludes, Op. 28: In much the same vein as Bach’s famous piano cycle The Well-Tempered Clavier, Chopin moves through every key in sequence. The pieces are very short, yet filled with character.
Polonaise-Fantaisie, 1846: The opening to this ten-minute piece has an improvisatory feel. The middle section is a lullaby, which then returns to the main theme. The piece ends with a bold flourish, which suddenly fades away finishing with a couple of trills.
9. Franz Liszt (1811-1886)
Composer, conductor, teacher, virtuoso pianist (he invented the piano recital): make no mistake, Franz Liszt was a whirlwind of energy during the heart of the Romantic era, and a hugely influential figure in the development of the classical piano repertoire. His incredible technical prowess on the piano, not to mention his dramatic good looks, made him a legendary performer.
But he was much more than that: in works like the extraordinary Années de pèlerinage, a sort of piano journal of his roamings around Italy and Switzerland as a young man, Liszt makes huge strides in the art of programme music, evoking places and impressions through the power of music. For the energy and work ethic he brought to the piano repertoire, as well as for a prodigious talent for capturing atmosphere in music, Liszt deserves a place in our list of best Romantic composers.
Franz Liszt: his best works
Transcendental Etudes (1837): These 12 études (studies, or exercises, is the closest translation, though it doesn’t do them justice) are some of the most demanding works ever written for the pianist. They each have their own distinct character, too, from the lyrical ‘Harmonies du Soir’ to the turbulent ‘Mazeppa’. As such, any pianist needs to be both technically and emotionally nimble.
Piano Sonata in B minor (1853): Perhaps Liszt’s greatest work for piano, the Sonata in B minor is a kind of Romantic piano pinnacle. In a break with traditional sonata form, it’s designed to be performed without a break between movements – so, again, demanding. And once again, there’s great variety of moods, from lyrical beauty to drama and passion.
Best Romantic composers: late Romanticism
10. Richard Wagner (1813-1883)
Wagner was a revolutionary operatic composer. He worked according to his theory that music, poetry and drama are inseparable. He used leitmotifs throughout his music – musical phrases that represent specific characters so listeners can identify physical action in the music.
Richard Wagner: his best works
Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring Cycle), 1876: An epic story of a magic ring spread across four full-length operas, the Ring Cycle is a big commitment – but, if you’re attuned towards fantasy, drama and/or big, emotionally cathartic, harmonically daring music, a hugely rewarding one.
Tristan und Isolde, 1865: Based on a Greek tragedy of two lovers, Isolde and Tristan mistakenly drink the elixir of love instead of death. This causes the pair huge trouble as Isolde is engaged to marry the King.
11. Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
Brahms followed the principles of form and counterpoint that were familiar to composers of the Classical era. The spirit of his music is, however, much more rooted in Romanticism. At times his music is intensely dark, and notoriously difficult to play.
Johannes Brahms: his best works
Violin Concerto, 1879: This extremely virtuosic concerto, full of gypsy inflections, was written for violinist Joseph Joachim. Joachim advised Brahms while he composed the concerto, as Brahms had no experience of playing the violin. Dramatic, passionate, packed with emotion and verve, the Brahms fiddle concerto is always among the first to be mentioned in any discussion of the greatest violin concertos in the history of music.
Ein Deutsches Requiem, 1868: Written in response to the death of the composer’s mother, Ein Deutsches Requiem (A German Requiem) deploys a full symphony orchestra, plus chorus and soprano and baritone soloists, as it sets passages from the Lutheran Bible to sublime, moving music.
12. Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)
The Russian composer Tchaikovsky is known for his rich orchestration and tuneful melodies. He was hugely prolific, composing seven symphonies, 11 operas and three ballets. He also wrote concertos (his Violin Concerto and First Piano Concerto are both staples of the concerto repertoire) and chamber music.
We named Tchaikovsky one of the best ballet composers ever
Tchaikovsky: his best works
The Nutcracker, 1892: Tchaikovsky’s third ballet is based on a story by the German fantasy writer ETA Hoffmann. The Nutcracker is innovative in terms of the sounds Tchaikovsky uses in the orchestra. In Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, for example, he deploys a celesta, which has a uniquely magical, delicate sound like shards of light poking through the darkness.
Tchaikovsky had heard a celesta in Paris in 1891, and promptly asked his publisher to buy one, hoping to keep it a secret so that no other Russian would compose music for the instrument before him.
Piano Concerto No. 1, 1874-75: The opening chords of this concerto are some of the most famous in history. The first movement is highly virtuosic, while the second is more focused on interplay between the piano and orchestra. The final movement is a powerful rondo.
13. Antonin Dvořák (1841-1904)
The Czech composer Antonín Dvořák was experimental in his early compositions. As his primary job was as a viola player, however, he did not rely on these works for an income. His style became more Classical as he became influenced by the works of Liszt and Brahms. His music from the mid 1870s has a more nationalistic feel, as heard in his masterful, thrilling Slavonic Dances.
Antonín Dvořák: his best works
String Quartet No. 4 in E minor, 1868-1869: The height of Dvořák’s experimental phase, this string quartet pushes Romantic tonality to its limits.
Symphony No. 9 ‘From the New World’, 1892-95: This symphony contains a range of memorable themes, hugely popular with audiences. Dvořák wrote this after taking the position as director of the National Conservatory of Music in New York in 1892. The work incorporates influences from American music and culture.
14. Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)
Mahler is best known for his nine complete symphonies: immense works, full of emotion, abrupt changes of mood, and daring, colourful orchestration. His contemporaries did not have a high opinion of him, accusing him of being morbid, self-indulgent and derivative. But Mahler is actually a supreme synthesiser of different musical worlds and idioms. His unforgettable soundworld brings together folk music, military marches, waltzes, chorales and Lieder.
Mahler’s reputation recovered dramatically midway through the 20th century, thanks to the passionate championing of his works by conductors including Bernard Haitink, Rafael Kubelik and, famously, Leonard Bernstein.
Gustav Mahler: his best works
Symphony No. 2, 1888-94: This epic symphony sets out to do nothing less than tell the story of a life. It is huge in scale – an hour and a half long. It is written for symphony orchestra, two vocal soloists and a chorus.
Symphony No. 9, 1909: This was Mahler’s last completed symphony. It expresses complicated feelings of someone nearing the end of their life, and is particularly poignant as Mahler himself died soon after composing it.
Best Romantic composers: opera
15. Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901)
Verdi is best known for his 25 celebrated operas, including Falstaff, Aida and Rigoletto and the longest, and arguably the greatest of his operas, Don Carlos. His career really took off after his first opera, Oberto, which was put on at the La Scala opera house in Milan in 1839.
Alongside Mozart, Schubert and Tchaikovsky, Verdi was one of one of classical music’s great melodists. He created some of opera’s most beautiful arias, or songs – miniature gems that combine dramatic power with lyrical expression.
Giuseppe Verdi: his best works
La Traviata, 1853: La Traviata was based on Alexandre Dumas’ play The Lady of the Camellias, and remains Verdi’s most popular opera.
Requiem, 1874: One of Verdi’s masterpieces is not an opera, but a requiem or funeral mass. Verdi’s Requiem was composed as a tribute to the famous novelist and poet Alessandro Manzoni, who died in 1873. The Requiem does reflect Verdi’s prominence as an opera composer, though, as it’s deeply dramatic, in contrast to a much more soothing view of death and the afterlife as expressed in, say, Fauré’s Requiem.
16. Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924)
Italian composer Puccini made his mark on opera. His music is effortlessly lyrical, influenced by Wagner and Verdi, and sharing similarities with more contemporary composers such as Debussy and Stravinsky.
Giacomo Puccini: his best works
La bohème, 1895: The tragic opera La bohème tells the story of a young poet who falls in love with a seamstress, but obstacles of poverty and illness get in their way.
La bohème follows the lives of a group of young Parisians: Rodolfo (a poet), Marcello (a painter), Schaunard (a musician), and Colline (a philosopher) and their travails through friendship, love and poverty. It all centres on the love between Rodolfo and Mimì, a seamstress – a poignant and ultimately a tragic love story.
Madam Butterfly, 1904: A story of unrequited love, the emotional score of Madam Butterfly reflects the heartbreaking story of a young Japanese girl Cio-Cio San and her doomed love for Pinkerton, an American naval officer.
Best Romantic composers: the 20th century
17. Jean Sibelius (1865-1957)
When studying literature, this great Finnish composer discovered the Kalevala, a mythological epic about Finland. This influenced his composing as many of his tone poems are inspired by it, including the choral symphony Kullervo and the four-movement Lemminkäinen Suite with its famous slow movement, ‘The Swan of Tuonela’.
As such, much of Sibelius’s wonderfully atmospheric music is hugely evocative of his native land, its landscapes, nature and folklore. Key features of his musical style include an economy of form (not for him Mahler’s diktat that ‘the symphony must be like the world. It must embrace everything’), imagery drawn from nature, and an often daring, modern harmonic language.
Jean Sibelius: his best works
Violin Concerto, 1904: This wonderfully atmospheric work was one Sibelius wanted to play as he was a violinist himself. Sadly, he didn’t possess the technical ability to play it.
Much loved for its emotional depth, dazzling virtuoso passages, and widescreen evocation of frosty Nordic landscapes, the Sibelius Violin Concerto features a tense, brooding first movement, a sweetly lyrical Adagio, and a frenetic, virtuosic Allegro finale that has been likened to the sound of two polar bears dancing.
Finlandia, 1899: A nationalistic tone poem calling for Russia to allow Finland to remain independent. Today, the piece is regarded as the country’s unofficial national anthem.
18. Richard Strauss (1864-1949)
The idea that Romanticism, that quintessentially 19th-century movement, could be said to have survived until just beyond the Second World War takes some getting your head around. Yet that is what we have, more or less, in the case of Richard Strauss, arguably the last great flowering of Romanticism.
Strauss is best known as a composer of highly dramatic tone poems – depictions of dramatic narratives in music. He’s also rightly revered as a superb orchestrator. When we asked orchestral musicians to name the pieces they love to play, Strauss came up a lot as he writes beautifully for so many of the instruments of the orchestra.
Richard Strauss: his best works
Don Juan (1888): Strauss’s very first symphonic poem is also one of his finest. Don Juan is a depiction in music of the life, loves and eventual downfall of the famous fictional libertine (also the subject of Mozart’s Don Giovanni among others). Strauss’s Don Juan (or excerpts thereof) is often used in orchestral auditions, because in true Straussian form there is some lively, challenging writing for various instruments.
Also Sprach Zarathustra (1896): Strauss’s 1896 tone poem Also Sprach Zarathustra is hugely dramatic and powerful, with one of the most iconic openings of any classical music work.
19. Sergey Rachmaninov (1873-1943)
The Russian composer, pianist and conductor Sergey Rachmaninov was, along with Strauss and Sibelius, one of the last great defenders of the Romantic tradition as the 20th century, and composers such as Stravinsky and Schoenberg, ushered in new, often dissonant elements into classical music.
In contrast to these often sparser, more angular music styles, Rachmaninov’s music is instantly recognisable with its sweeping, swooning melodies, high emotional temperature, lush harmonies and often serious technical demands on the soloist. (Rachmaninov himself was one of the greatest pianists of all time).
Sergey Rachmaninov: his best works
Piano Concerto No. 2 (1900-01): Pretty much the distillation of mid-period Rachmaninov, the Second Piano Concerto has some achingly gorgeous melodies, naked emotion, and no little drama. Deservedly one of the most popular piano concertos in the repertoire, it represented a triumphant return to composing for Rachmaninov, who had been plunged into depression after a disastrous first performance of his Symphony No. 1.
Symphonic Dances (1940): Rachmaninov’s final orchestral masterpiece, the Symphonic Dances are packed with thrilling, driving rhythms and pungent orchestral colour.