1830 – 1850 Romantics

Romanticism in music followed two divergent paths: (1) toward the miniature forms of Lied and character piece for piano as established by Schubert and represented by Schumann, Mendelssohn and Chopin, and (2) toward the spectacular and grandiose in opera and symphony as established by Beethoven and represented by Meyerbeer, Berlioz, Liszt and Wagner.

Grand Opera

Grand opera began with Daniel Auber's (1782-1871) Le Muette de Portici (1828) in which a dumb girl leaped into the erupting Vesuvius. Rossini's last opera, William Tell (1929), was an attempt to imitate this popular new style characterized by

(a) obligatory spectacular scenes,

(b) death, not happy endings, in librettos by Scribe,

(c) potpourri overture,

(d) extended ornate arias,

(e) chorus and ballet, and

(f) a new heavier type of dramatic tenor as the featured hero.

Gilbert Duprez, a famous French tenor, changed the history of opera forever. by singing a high C in chest in the premier performance of Rossini's Guglielmo Tell in Italy in 1831.  This style of singing became hugely popular and is generally the style of singing for tenors in opera today.

Other opera were Giacomo Meyerbeer's (1791-1864) Robert le Diable (1831), Les Huguenots (1836) and Le Prophète (1849), and Jacques Halévy's (1799-1862) La Juive (1835).

Italian Opera

This period is called bel canto.  Orchestral accompaniment used throughout the opera broke down the distinction between recitative and aria, resulting in long formally flexible sections in Vincenzo Bellini's (1801-35) Norma (1831), La Sonnambula (1831) and I Puritani (1835) and Gaetano Donizetti's (1797-1848) Lucia di Lammermore (1835).

German opera

Sentimental light operas were Hans Heiling (1833) by Heinrich Marschner (1795-1861), Zar und Zimmerman (1837) by Albert Lortzing (1801-51) and Martha (1847) by Friedrich von Flotow (1812-83). Richard Wagner's (1813-83) Rienzi (1840) was a grand opera, and Der fliegende Holländer (1842) was in the Weber tradition.

Russian Opera

Russian opera was established by Michael Glinka (1804-57) in A Life for the Tsar (1836) and Russlan and Lyudmilla (1842), the first realization of nationalism in music.

Oratorio

Influenced by Bach and Handel, Felix Mendelssohn (1809-47) composed the sentimental oratorios St. Paul (1836) and Elijah (1846). Also considered a secular oratorio is The Damnation of Faust (1846) by Hector Berlioz (1803-69).

Choral Music

Secular cantatas were Mendelssohn's Erste Walpurgisnacht (1832) and Robert Schumann's (1803-56) Paradise and the Peri (1843) and Scenes from Goethe's "Faust" (1844-53). Important liturgical music were Rossini's Stabat Mater (1832) and the huge Requiem (1837) of Berlioz.

Lied

Though Mendelssohn was also important, Schumann was the outstanding Lieder composer, especially in the song cycles Dichterliebe (1840) and Frauenliebe und Leben (1840).

French Song

The first French song cycle was Berlioz Les Nuits d'Été (1841). It became the first orchestral song cycle when he orchestrated it in 1856.

Overture

While Beethoven's overtures and Mendelssohn's Overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream (1826) were written to precede theatrical performances, Mendelssohn's Hebrides (1832) and Berlioz' Roman Carnival (1844) were character pieces in modified sonata-allegro form composed for concert use.