1803 – 1830 Beethoven and Rossini

1803 Beethoven's Eroica Symphony
1804-14 Napoleon, Emperor of France
1814-24 Louis XVIII, France
1815 Waterloo
1824-30 Charles X

This generation must be subdivided: 1803-15 was Beethoven's second style period and time of greatest influence, including symphonies 3-8 and Fidelio, and 1815-27 was his third style period in which he revived the art of counterpoint, including the Ninth Symphony, Missa solemnis and "Grosse Fuge" for string quartet. Schubert composing in the second half of the period led the transition to Romanticism. Rossini and Weber's operas also fell into the second half of the period.

 

Italian Opera

The last generation of the Neapolitan tradition, led by Gioacchino Rossini (1792-1868), composed the last important roles for castrati and last used recitative secco. This is the last generation of opera seria. Rossini began to write out the important virtuosic ornamentation in his 38 operas composed from 1810 to 1829, including the serious operas Tancredi (1813) and Otello (1816), and the comic operas L'Italiana in Algeri (1813), La Cenerentola (1817), and Il Barbiere di Siviglia (1816).

French Opera

Heroic operas in the tradition of Gluck continued with La Vestale (1807) by Gasparo Spontini (1774-1851) and Joseph (1807) by Nicolas Méhul (1763-1817).

German Opera

Beethoven's Fidelio (1808) was strongly influenced by the revolutionary French operas of Cherubini. Transitional works were Undine (1813) by E.T.A. Hoffman (1776-1822) and Faust (1816) by Ludwig Spohr (1784-1859) The model for German Romantic opera was established with Der Freischütz (1821) by Carl Maria von Weber (1786-1826). Less successful were his Euryanthe (1823) and Oberon (1826). Some common features were (a) sonata-allegro overture, (b) spoken dialogue, including melodrama in Fidelio Freischütz, (c) chorus, (d) dramatic arias and (e) important orchestral accompaniment.

Lied

Though the simple strophic style of the Second Berlin Song School prevailed in the early period, the through-composed Romantic Lied was established with Franz Schubert's (1797-1828) "Gretchen am Spinnrad" (1814). His over 600 songs included the song cycles Die schöne Müllerin (1823) and Winterreise (1827) on texts by Wilhelm Müller. Beethoven's An die ferne Geliebte (1816) is considered the first song cycle. Carl Loewe (1796-1869) was most successful in songs in the ballade form.

Overture

Beethoven's "Cariolan" (1807) and "Egmont" (1810) were overtures for plays. Fidelio had four overtures composed at different times: Leonore I (1805), Leonore II (1805), Leonore III (1806) and Fidelio (1814).