Chapter 22:Romantic Music: Piano Music

The Piano• Improved by the new technologies of the Industrial

Revolution – Range extended to 88 keys

• Home music making

• Virtuosi pianists

Robert Schumann: Carnaval (1834) • Collection of 21 short piano pieces written while a

student in Leipzig

• “Carnivalesque goings-on:” Musically depicted colorful character, including mardi gras characters, Clara, Chopin, and Paganini

• Signs of bipolar disorder already evident here– “Eusebius” is meek and sensitive while “Florestan” is

assertive, even fiery

• Started the high-end music magazine Die neue Zeitschrift für Musik– Wrote both as Eusebius and Florestan

Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849)• “The Poet of the Piano”

• Born in Warsaw, Poland

• Made his career in Paris

• Use of Tempo Rubato

Nocturne in Eb major, Op. 9, No. 2 (1832)

• Nocturne:

Franz Liszt (1811-1886)• Flamboyant artistic personality

• Compositions demand great virtuosity

• Established the modern piano recital

• Etude:

Transcendental Etude No. 8 “Wilde Jagd” (1851)

• “Wild Hunt”