Romantic Period

Programme Music Programme music is a piece of music for instruments which describes something or tells a story. People only thought a story could be told through song and not just thorugh instrument. Instrumental only piece. Dissonance Clashing sounds. Notes from outside the key being used. Composers needed this to make music song full of emotion. Rule braking, it was not aloud in the classical period. Virtuoso A performer that excels in technical ability. Liszt wrote pieces of music for piano that only he could play at the time. Tone poems Take a non musical source and turn it into music. Such as looking at a painting and writing a song about what they see. Instrumental only piece. Impressionism Impressionist composers using music to show feeling. Romantic symphony Lasted from about 20 to 40 minutes. Didnt have to follow strict rules that classical symphonies had to. More movements than classical period. Much larger orchestras, more expressive using harmonisation, rhythmic patterns and dynamics. Changes in opera Can go on for hours. They were dealing with every form of drama. Enormous orchestra. Lots of brass instruments. Wagner Liszt Schumann Mahler ******

Classical Period

Classical Period

The classical period was from 1750 to 1810.It followed the Baroque period. In the Classical period many new terms and techniques were created and perfected:

Alberti bass: This was used in the classical period.It's played on the left hand of the piano, it's very steady and uses a broken chord. Then a melody is played over the top of the alberti bass part.

Concerto: A concerto is piece of music for a solo instrument and orchestra. The Orchestra accompanies the soloist.

Diatonic music- The phrase diatonic means that the piece of music only uses all notes in the same key. This to ensure that there are no clashing sounds, this would be deemed 'unacceptable' in the classical period if there were clashing notes.

Even phrases- Classical composers made sure all their phrases were balanced an equal. Phrases are measured in bars. They start and end where you would breathe if singing. They are regular chunks of equal lengths of music.

Homo-phonic- The term homo-phonic means that when a melody line moves around the accompanying parts move with it.

Sonata: A sonata was an instrumental composition, usually in three or more movements, for piano alone (piano sonata) or for any other instrument with or without piano accompaniment (violin sonata, cello sonata)

Symphony:This is an extended musical piece split into movements. It's a Large orchestral piece. Classical composers had specific rules about their music. There were three movements in a symphony. The First mvt. was in Sonata form. The Second mvt. was written in a different contrasting key , it was slower and had a stronger melody line. The Third mvt. was livelier and more light hearted.It was in Rondo form.