Piano during the Romantic Music Era

Piano during the Romantic Music Era
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Introduction
Romanticism refers to a movement of literature, music, and intellectual progress that lasted between the early 19th century and the mid-20th century. Romanticism can be viewed as the rejection of the dictates of harmony, order, calmness, rationality, balance, and idealization that epitomized classicism in general and neoclassicism in particular in the late 18th century. It was also considered the rejection of the enlightenment and 18th-century materialism and rationalism. Romanticism emphasizes the irrational, subjective, imaginative, individual, spontaneous, foresight, personal, emotional, and transcendence.; Since it was one of the components of romanticism, romantic music was greatly characterized by expressiveness and imagination. It refuted the long-held belief that literature, music, and art should be for the elites and intellects alone. The introduction of the piano resulted in artists expressing their ideas with greater imagination and expressiveness. Since romantic composers, artists, and writers wanted their art to be enjoyable and felt, they embraced the piano and used it to a greater impact. Instruments such as the piano made art during this fantastic, wild, magical, passionate, and mysterious. With such instruments, Romantic music was freed from the constraints that the rest of the world was similarly freed from. This paper examines the piano musical styles during the romantic period, such as piano four hands, piano ballade, Liszt’s body technique, Alberti bass, and jumpy left hand. Analysis of some of these techniques will be based on various workpieces from various composers such as Liszt, Chopin, and Schubert. However, before jumping into the analysis, it is crucial to briefly analyze music romanticism and the structures of a piano to have a better understanding of the background of piano musical style during the Romantic Period.[Qureshi, Sofia Sadique. “Importance of Romantic Period in Modern Day English.” Journal of Research in Humanities and Social Science 9(9), 2021: 81-87.] [Qureshi, Sofia Sadique. “Importance of Romantic Period in Modern Day English] [Chapin, Keith. “The emergence of musical romanticism.” Cambridge University Press, (2021): 17-34.] [Djahwasi, Herry Rizal, and Zaharul Lailiddin Saidon. “An Analysis of Artistic form and Musical Perspective of Romantic Era Music.”. International Journal of Research in Business and Social Science 11(11), 2021: 1-13.]
Music Romanticism
Musical romanticism was characterized by an emphasis on individuality and originality, experimentation and freedom, and personal emotional expression. Franz Schubert and Ludwig van Beethoven bridged the romantic and classical eras because although their musical technique was typically classical, the highly personal sense of their music and their application of programmatic elements served as a crucial foundation for 19th century romantic composers. The possibilities of dramatic expression in music were expanded through the perfection and expansion of the instrumental element of music and the creation of new musical genres such as precludes, lied, intermezzo, nocturnes, interludes, capriccios, and mazurkas. Legends, poetic texts, sagas, and folktales inspired the spirit of romanticism. The fusion of music and words, either programmatically or in the form of incidental music and concert overtures, is another unique characteristic of romantic music. The most important composers of the preliminary stages of romanticism were Franz Liszt, Frédéric Chopin, Felix Mendelssohn, and Hector Berlioz. These artists pushed musical instruments to their expressive limits, expanded the vocabulary of harmony to include comprehensive chromatic scales, and explored the relationship between the human voice and instruments. The middle period of the romantic music period was represented by figures such as Edvard Grieg, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, and Antonin Dvorak. Efforts to express a particular national idiosyncrasy through music are evident in the works of Czech Bedrich and Antonín Dvořák and Scandinavian French and Russian composers.[Mason, Daniel Gregory. The Romantic Composers. Vol. 10. Macmillan, 1906.] [Webster, James. “Between Enlightenment and Romanticism in music history:” First Viennese modernism” and the delayed nineteenth century.” Nineteenth Century Music 25, no. 2-3 (2001): 108-126.] [Stewart-MacDonald, Rohan. “Anniversary reflections: Chopin, Schumann and Schumann’s circle.” Early Music 38, no. 4 (2010): 627-631.] [Kregor, Jonathan. “A Crash Course in Chopinology.” Nineteenth-Century Music Review 18, no. 2 (2021): 341-354.]
The Piano
One of the characteristics of romantic music was the expansion of musical instrumentation. Instruments such as piano during the Romantic period improved dramatically to ensure composers achieved expressiveness and imagination and evoked emotion, elements absent in classical music. Bartolomeo Cristofori discovered the piano in the 18th century to add to the keyboard music instruments such as harpsichord and clavichord that dominated classical music. The piano, invented in the 18th century, was designed to fit classical music that was less adventurous, did not evoke emotions, and lacked expressiveness and imagination. For Romantic period composers, expressiveness and imagination of music were everything, and there was a need to improve musical instrumentation to fulfill this element. Thus, the piano was significantly improved during the Romantic period and completely replaced the keyboard instruments such as the clavichord and harpsichord. In fact, by the end of the 19th century, nearly all homes in European countries owned a piano. Various improvements were introduced to the piano in the 19th century. For example, more notes were adopted, and a metal frame replaced a wood frame. The piano sound became richer with an expanded range of notes, and sustaining pedals were used more often than during the classical period. The most prominent piano composers of the Romantic period include Schumann, Schubert, Chopin Mendelssohn, Brahms, and Liszt. They wrote short works like sonatas (for soloists with one or accompaniment instruments) and waltzes, mazurkas, and polonaise.[Pollens, Stewart. "Bartolomeo Cristofori in Florence." The Galpin Society Journal (2013): 7-245.] [Post, Justice. “Don’t Lose Your Keys: Exploring the Transition from Harpsichord to Piano.”. California State Univ California State University, Monter , Monterey Bay, (2022): 1-26.] [Hess, Albert G. “The transition from harpsichord to piano.” The Galpin Society Journal (1953): 75-94.]
Piano Music Techniques in the 19th century
Piano Four Hands
One of the innovations that resulted in the powerful sound effects of the piano used in the Romantic era was the introduction of a massive and strong cast iron frame, also referred to as the plate, which sat atop the soundboard and served as the main protection against the force originating from the string tension that exceeded 180 kilotons. Improvement in the frame not only improved sound effects but also resulted in the possibility of two pianists playing in one piano in a music style referred to as piano four hands, a piano duet type entailing two players playing the same piano simultaneously. Various artists took advantage of new, strong, and big pianos to perform the piano duet. One of the renowned pianists playing this piano music style is Franz Schubert. One of his works in this genre is ‘Sonata in C major for piano four-hands. This piece has four movements: allegro moderato, allegro vivace, andante, and scherzo and trio. In the allegro moderato, which is the first movement, the two pianists share the opening feature of the core subject. The melodious variation of the principal subject is the second subject and is presented in the A flat major, and both pianists share it later. The fairly short development section begins with the principal subject’s transposed version. The closing recapitulation constitutes striking modulations, with the second subject appearing in the C minor tonality. This movement ends with a strong coda. The second movement has a slow andante which is in the A-flat major. It has a simple opening theme, but there is a high sense of creativity in the way the pianists mimic one another with some audacious harmonic clashes. The third movement, scherzo, and trio consist of percussive dissonances, and whose trios are in the F minor and have straightforward rhythm juxtaposed with the melody of different length phrases. The fourth movement, allegro vivace, has a Hungarian dance rhythm in its first theme, balancing A minor and C major. The next theme consists of a Dvorakian feel and look. In instances where both of these themes are shared by the pianists’ passages are highly demanding for pianists.[Russo, Matteo, and Jose A. Robles-Linares. “A Brief History of Piano Action Mechanisms.” Advances in Historical Studies 9, no. 05 (2020): 312.] [Ibid.] [Schubert, Franz, Tove Lønskov, Morten Mogensen, and Rodolfo Llambias. Piano works for four hands. Naxos, 1992.] [Anderson, Keith. “Schubert Symphonies: Symphony No. 4, "Tragic", D. 417 – Symphony in C (Grand Duo, D. 812, orch. Joachim)”. Failoni Orchestra, Michael Halász. Naxos. 8.553095. 1994.]
Piano Ballade
Various composers, such as Chapin and Liszt, took full advantage of the newly developed piano. This section will comprehensively dwell on these artists, looking into how they exploited improved pianos in their music. Fredrick Chapin was a romantic-era virtuoso pianist and composer from Poland who predominantly composed solo piano music. The piano Ballade is a new romantic musical style introduced by Fredric Chopin. It is the piano musical style in the genre of solo piano pieces composed in the balletic narrative style, usually with lyrical components interspersed. One example of Chopin’s piano ballade is Ballade No.1 in G minor, which was composed in 1835. The piano solo starts with the Ab major chord inversion, characterized by a magnificent aura. It ends with the dissonant left-hand musical chord consisting of G, D, and Eb, which is completely resolved afterward. The major segment of this ballade is constructed from the two different themes. The first theme, a simple introduction, vanishes in G minor, which appears at measure 8. The next theme contained in Eb major appears slowly at measure 68. These themes undergo a major transformation when they are transferred to a different tonal center resulting in a repeated exposition. Afterward, the reprise presents the first and second themes in their respective keys, although in contrasting order. The thundering chord presents the choda referred to as Presto con Fuoco, to which the first Ab major chord re-appears in continuous dynamic forward propulsions, concluding the music with a strong double-octave scale.[‌Davison, Alan. “Franz Liszt and the development of 19th-century pianism: a re-reading of the evidence.” The Musical Times 147, no. 1896 (2006): 33-43.] [Smialek, William, and Maja Trochimczyk. Frédéric Chopin: A Research and Information Guide. Routledge, 2015.] [Huneker, James. Chopin: the man and his music. Scribner, 1909.] [Tomaszewski, Mieczysław. "Ballade in G minor, Op. 23". Fryderyk Chopin Institute. 2015.]
Franz Liszt Body Movement Technique
Franz Liszt was a romantic-era pianist, teacher, and composer born in Hungary in 1811. He is regarded as one of the most renowned and prominent composers of his time. The body posture and the movement of arms and wrists are crucial aspects that should be considered when playing the piano. One ...