# 2

The Great Romantic Composers

Monday – 10:00 A.M..                                           Winter Term 2012 (14 Weeks)
Coordinator:  Robert Stein                                  Co-Coordinator: Ginger Leibovitz

Course Description
The Romantic Period spans most of the 19th Century from about 1820 to 1910. The central premise of Romanticism is that an exploration of emotions, the imagination and intuition leads to a more nuanced understanding of the arts.  It was a period of heightened interest in nature with an emphasis on the individual's expression of emotion and imagination, and a departure from the attitudes and forms of classicism. The Romantic Period saw the creation and evolution of new musical genres such as the program symphony, pioneered by Beethoven and further developed by Hector Berlioz; its off-shoot, the symphonic poem was developed by Franz Liszt; the concert overture, examples of which were composed by Felix Mendelssohn and virtually every composer thereafter; and short, expressive piano pieces written for the bourgeois salons of Europe by Robert Schumann and Frédéric Chopin. Italian operas were composed in the Bel canto traditions, and these led directly to the masterworks of Giuseppe Verdi, while the idea of the German music drama was established by Richard Wagner.

We will study and analyze the life and works of some of the major composers of the period to better understand the stories and ideas underlying their compositions.  Each member of the SD/G will select a composer from this period and discuss his life, his works and the relationship of his work to the Romantic Period.

There will be no core book.
Pre-Meeting: Monday, December 19, 2011, 10:00 A.M.