Introduction to Romanticism

Overview

For many composers working in the 19th century, or the Romantic Era, expressive content came to shape form. Beethoven’s music both anticipated and inspired the self-referential and self-expressive approach to composition that many Romantic-era composers would adopt. Four main trends characterize Romantic-era art: the depiction of extreme emotional states, the cultivation of nationalism, the idealization of the wilder aspects of nature, and a fascination with the macabre and the supernatural. The Enlightenment’s celebration of individualism comes to flower in the Romantic art of the 19th century.