Elements of the Classical Period Music and Romantic Period Music

Elements of the Classical Period Music and Romantic Period Music
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Elements of the Classical Period Music and Romantic Period Music
Introduction
Together with new inventions and discoveries in science, the Classical era (1750-1820) emerged with Enlightenment thinkers challenging the existing worldviews (De Leeuw, 2005). The balance in form, the light Rococo style touch, and the rediscovered symmetrical ideals characterized people’s culture and their music during the Classical era. The scientific methods during the Enlightenment resulted in a theory of music that codified rules to govern music. As a replacement of standardized basso continuo accompaniment, harmony and bass became varied and harmony in many musical instruments such as keyboards led to ensembles of wind and strong instruments. The period that followed was the Romantic era (1820-1910). According to De Leeuw (2005), towards the end of the 18th century, Europe witnessed many upheavals with Napoleon’s revolution upsetting the political and social order. As a response to the pure reason of the movement of Enlightenment, individuals’’ experiences and emotions were championed. Works were longer as orchestras became larger and harmonic palette stretched. To generate new tonal color in music, new instruments were created and recording technology ushered a new direction to musical performances, which had a significant effect on composers who needed to be extra precise on how music needs to be performed predicated on their notations. To appreciate how music has changed over the years, this paper compares melody, rhythm, harmony, tempos, timbre, and dynamic elements of Classical Period music to the Romantic Period music.
In Classical era, melodies followed the modern standards of form and the notion of contrast and balance resulted in the use of subjects or themes in a pattern that later became a standard in the writings of works in symphony, concerto, and sonata genres (Pogue & Speck, 2015). Themes during the Classical era were shaped into two segments with each segment having eight bars. The first segment is the rising or the question and the second part is the descending or the answer. Rich melodies are the foundations of the Romantic style of music. During the Romantic period, virtuoso soloists entertained their audiences with unprecedented skills in playing melodic instruments, and compared to the Classical era, melodies became freer and the concepts of unending melody and through-composed melody were born. The Romantic era is archetypical of Leitmotif technique that associates a given phrase or melody with a particular element described in the music such as an opera. An overwhelming and rich accompaniment was paired with soaring melodies during the Romantic era.
The replacement of the basso continuo and writing two separate parts of harmonic and bass lines changed the style of orchestral accompaniment (De Leeuw, 2005). The goal for this separation was to have a natural, systematic, and simple expression of music, and this allowed a more detailed and precise rhythm treatment. This element can be seen in many or...