| Contents |
Introduction. Historical background ; Music, patronage, and the public ; The composer's training ; Musical aesthetics ; Historicism in music ; "Romantic" -- Beethoven in Vienna, 1792-1808. Early stylistic growth: piano sonatas ; The String Quartet op. 18, no. 6 ; The Tempest sonata, op. 31, no. 2 ; The Eroica Symphony ; Fidelio -- Beethoven: the late years, 1809-27. Formation of the late style ; The Diabelli variations ; The Missa Solemnis and the Ninth Symphony ; The late quartets ; Contemporary assessment -- Beethoven's contemporaries: Instrumental music. Schubert ; Music for piano: Clementi, Dusik [Dussek], and Field ; Czerny, Moscheles, Hummel ; Schubert's piano music -- The lied: Schubert and his predecessors. The Berlin school ; Southern Germany and Vienna ; Schubert -- Paris from 1830-1848. Grand opera ; The virtuosos ; Liszt ; Chopin ; French romanticism ; Berlioz -- Schumann and his German contemporaries. Schumann ; Mendelssohn ; Other contemporaries -- Wagner and the music drama. The Ring of the Nibelung ; Tristan und Isolde ; Die Meistersinger ; Later triumphs -- Italian and French opera in the later nineteenth century. Verdi ; Italian contemporaries and followers ; French opera of the later nineteenth century -- Nationalist music. Hungary ; Bohemia ; Tomasek and Smetana ; Dvorak ; Poland ; Russia ; Glinka and Dargomizhsky ; "The Five" ; Musorgsky [Mussorgsky] ; Rimsky-Korsakov ; Tchaikovsky ; Scandinavia ; England ; Spain -- Crosscurents in the late century. Liszt and the "New German school" ; "Brahms" ; Bruckner ; Leipzig ; Paris ; The century's end in Germany and Austria. |
| Abstract |
Beginning with Beethoven's middle years, the author weaves a narrative in which major composers such as Schubert, Rossini, Liszt, Chopin, Berlioz, Schumann, Wagner, Verdi, Tchaikovsky, and Musorgsky are discussed in historical context. Professor Plantinga also places into clear focus slightly lesser figures such as Mendelssohn, Smetana, Dvorak, and others. In a final section that embraces Brahms, Mahler, Bruckner, Strauss, and Wolf, Plantinga rounds out this fascinating survey of the diverging movements and styles that constitute the Romantic century's legacy to the musical arts. |
