Question

Question 1
Describe five ways that the music of the Romantic period differed from the music of the Classical period. In your opinion, which of these Romantic era developments improved the music most?

Question 2
Choose one piece of music from the Romantic period. Identify the piece of music. What emotion do you think the piece is illustrating? Why? What aspects of the music indicate this emotion?

Question 3
The Romantic period is characterized mainly by the drive to express human emotion. Choose three emotions and describe how a composer could manipulate musical elements to depict those emotions in their music.

Question 4
Antonin Dvorak is credited with establishing a distinctly American sound in classical music. What cultures’ music did he look to in order to do this? What other groups of people within American society could he have drawn inspiration from? Think about specific areas of the country, what it is like to live there, or immigrant groups who have had an impact on our national culture.

Question 5
Select a composer from the unit, choose one of his compositions and find two different recordings of it. Which recording do you like best? Why? Which recording sounds the most characteristic of “Romantic” music?

Answer 1

Question 1 — Five differences between Romantic and Classical music
1. Emotional emphasis and individuality
- Classical: balance, clarity, formality, objectivity (think Haydn, Mozart).
- Romantic: foregrounds intense personal expression, individual feeling and imagination (Beethoven’s late works pointing the way).
2. Expanded harmonic language
- Classical: diatonic harmony, clear functional progressions.
- Romantic: greater chromaticism, more adventurous modulations, extended chords and delayed resolutions to heighten tension and color.
3. Larger orchestra and new timbres
- Classical ensembles were smaller and more standardized.
- Romantic composers used bigger orchestras, expanded brass/woodwind/percussion, and novel instrument combinations for new colors and dramatic effects.
4. Freedom of form and programmatic content
- Classical favored clear forms (sonata, symphony) with formal balance.
- Romantic often stretched or abandoned strict forms in favor of program music (music that tells a story or paints a scene) and freer structures driven by emotion or narrative.
5. Nationalism, folk elements, and virtuosity
- Romantic composers incorporated folk tunes, national rhythms, and cultural identity into serious art music, and they wrote works to showcase individual virtuosity (Liszt, Paganini) and expressive extremes.

Opinion: which development improved music most?
- I’d pick the expanded harmonic language. Chromaticism and richer harmonic choices broadened emotional range and expressive nuance in ways that transformed melody, form, and orchestral color. It let composers create new tensions and atmospheres that made music more communicative and emotionally complex.

Question 2 — Choose one Romantic piece and analyze its emotion
Piece: Antonín Dvořák — Symphony No. 9 in E minor, “From the New World,” 2nd movement (Largo) — the famous English-horn theme.

Emotion illustrated: homesickness, longing, and gentle nostalgia.

Why and how the music indicates that emotion:
- Melodic shape: long, singing, arching phrases with sighing appoggiaturas and gentle downward inflections suggest yearning.
- Mode/scale choices: the melody’s pentatonic flavor and modal inflections recall folk idioms and evoke a plaintive, timeless quality.
- Tempo and rhythm: slow, steady tempo and relaxed rhythmic flow create a contemplative, introspective mood.
- Orchestration/timbre: the English horn’s warm, reedy solo tone sounds intimate and solitary — perfect for a “missing home” feeling.
- Harmony and suspension: the accompaniment uses soft, consonant harmonies laced with suspensions and gentle chromatic shifts that delay resolution and prolong the sense of unresolved longing.

Question 3 — Three emotions and musical means to depict them
1. Joy / Exuberance
- Tempo: fast to lively (Allegro, Presto).
- Meter/rhythm: energetic, driving rhythms, strong forward motion, syncopation.
- Mode/harmony: major keys, bright intervals (perfect fifths, major thirds).
- Melody: upward leaps, repeated motifs, short rhythmic motives.
- Dynamics and articulation: loud, crisp articulations, accents, staccato and bright brass/upper-strings timbre.
- Orchestration: full orchestra, prominent trumpets/bright strings, percussion (triangles, cymbals) for sparkle.
2. Sorrow / Lament
- Tempo: slow (Adagio, Lento).
- Mode/harmony: minor key or modal inflections; use of minor second/upper-neighbor notes and descending lines.
- Melody: long, falling phrases, sighing motifs, small intervals, chromatic descent.
- Harmony: lingering suspensions, unresolved dissonances, slow harmonic rhythm.
- Dynamics/articulation: soft dynamics, legato, expressive rubato.
- Orchestration: low strings, solo woodwind (oboe, English horn), muted brass for a darker color.
3. Fear / Anxiety
- Rhythm/tempo: irregular or unstable meters, sudden tempo changes, accelerating figures.
- Harmony: dissonance (tritones, cluster chords), abrupt modulations, unresolved chords.
- Melody: angular, fragmented motifs, repeated short notes or tremolos.
- Dynamics: sudden loud-soft contrasts (sforzandi), crescendos to shocks.
- Orchestration: high strings tremolo, low brass and percussion (timpani rolls), sharp percussion hits, metallic timbres.
- Texture: thin to suddenly dense, unpredictable changes that unsettle the listener.

Question 4 — Dvořák and the “American” sound
Which cultures did he look to?
- Dvořák explicitly pointed to African American spirituals and Native American music as sources he felt could form the basis of a distinct American art music. He also drew on his own Czech folk background, applying folk-based procedures (pentatonic/folk modes, dance rhythms).

What other groups or regional musics he could have drawn on (and how they might contribute)
- African American blues and work songs (Mississippi Delta, urban gospel): blue notes, call-and-response, bent pitches, repetitive riffs.
- Appalachian (Scotch-Irish) ballads and fiddle traditions: modal melodies, drone-like accompanimental patterns, fiddle ornamentation, and simple but deeply expressive tunes.
- Cajun and Creole music (Louisiana): syncopated dance rhythms, accordion/fiddle sonorities, modal and pentatonic melodies.
- Mexican and Southwestern folk (Texas, New Mexico, California): rhythmic dance forms, modal melodies, distinctive guitar/bolero/harmonic flavors.
- Native American tribal musics from different regions: characteristic rhythms, vocables, modal elements, and ritual/performance practices.
- Immigrant urban musics: German, Irish, Italian, Eastern European (Polish, Jewish) folk songs brought to cities — each provides melodic and rhythmic material and unique dance types.
- Regional/industrial sounds: sea shanties (Northeast/ports), work songs (mines, fields), and emerging urban popular styles in immigrant neighborhoods.

How those would influence compositional choices
- Use of pentatonic scales and modal inflections, syncopated rhythms and ostinatos, call-and-response structures, characteristic instrumentation (banjo/fiddle/accordion), or incorporation of specific dance forms and melodic contours to evoke place and community.

Question 5 — Composer, piece, two recordings, and evaluation
Composer and piece: Antonín Dvořák — Symphony No. 9 “From the New World” (complete symphony).

Two recordings
1. Leonard Bernstein — New York Philharmonic (RCA, 1960s). Energetic, rhythmically alive, with a warm, soulful English-horn sound and an emphasis on the “American” character and folk-like qualities.
2. Herbert von Karajan — Berlin Philharmonic (Deutsche Grammophon, 1960s). Polished, lush, broad in tempo; strings are very smooth and the overall orchestral sound is very refined and Romantic.

Which recording I prefer and why
- I prefer Bernstein/NYP for this work. His reading captures the rhythmic vitality, the folk-inflected phrasing, and the underlying nostalgia in a way that feels alive and idiomatically “American.” Bernstein’s tempi, accents, and his orchestra’s lyrical solo moments (especially the English horn) convey both the work’s warmth and its frontier spirit.

Which recording sounds most characteristically “Romantic”
- Karajan/Berlin sounds most classically “Romantic” in the stereotypical sense: very lush string tone, broad rubato, and a smooth, sumptuous orchestral blend that emphasizes expansive lyricism and glowing orchestral color.

If you’d like, I can:
- Suggest short audio clips/time stamps to listen for the features I describe (e.g., the English-horn theme in the Largo), or
- Recommend specific modern recordings (period or historically informed) depending on whether you prefer authenticity, period style, or Romantic lushness.