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All Students preparing for Grade exams are
recommended to use the Hofnotes on-line
training pages to practise for the aural tests.
At
higher grades you must be able to discuss with the examiner musical
features such as texture,
form,
style, and
period of a piece of music.
My own web pages to help with these parts of the test at Grade 5+ and at
GCSE
are available
here!
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Romantic period 1815 - 1910
Romantic style
The Romantic era established the idea of tonality. Composers
took the great structural harmonic plans of Bach and Beethoven and added
their own chromatic innovations, ranging through key changes like giants
in the mountains.
Chromaticism and dissonance started to be used. Modulations could be
effected with a single pivot note rather than pivot chords.
Franz Liszt
Romantic form
The Romantic era extended
sonata form, producing
huge symphonies.
But alongside this, there was an explosion in the
composition of songs and songs without words. Field
and Chopin wrote many nocturnes for piano. Many piano works also had
narrative or pictorial forms, such as Liszt's "Années de pélérinage" or Grieg's
Lyric pieces. Composers such as Dvorak, Mahler and Arensky also became
aware of their own national styles and brought folk songs and dances into 'art'
music in new ways. This was arguably the golden age for expressive
pianistic writing, seen in the work of Chopin, Mendelssohn, Liszt
and Grieg.
The Romantic period also saw the rise of the virtuoso
solo performer. Liszt (above), in addition to his skills as a composer, was also a
flamboyant and dazzling pianist and consummate showman.
      
Romantic instruments
In the orchestra, still growing in size,
brass instruments in particular were being brought to the fore as a key
part of the drama and emotional power of the Romantic era. Several
composers wrote concerti for virtuoso soloists against this rich
backdrop. The piano reached great levels of technological development in the
Romantic era. The pianoforte now had much greater power and range
of expression, and with a much larger sound board and longer, thicker
strings was becoming more sturdy in its construction. While much
'salon' music was being produced, the resources now involved meant that
a great deal of music making took place in concert halls.
An 1860 Steinway piano
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