During this period, the artist's creation showed his admiration for subjective feelings, his love for nature and his fantasy for the future. New changes have taken place in artistic expression forms, and the formation and development of romantic ideas and styles have emerged. The difference between romantic music and classical music is that it inherits the tradition of classical composers and makes new explorations on this basis. For example, it emphasizes that music should be combined with other arts besides poetry, drama and painting, and advocates a comprehensive art; Advocate title music; Emphasizing the expression of personal subjective feelings, works are often autobiographical; The works are full of fantasy, and there are many works describing nature, because nature is calm and has no contradiction, which is an ideal realm; Pay attention to drama, study national folk music and literature, draw nutrition from it, and the works have national characteristics. In terms of artistic form and expression, it inherits the classical music school, but it is very different in content, and exaggerated techniques are also widely used. In the form of music, it breaks through the limitation of the balanced and complete formal structure of classical music and has greater freedom. There are many instrumental music with a single movement theme, mainly instrumental pieces, such as improvisation, nocturne, etude, narrative, fantasia, prelude, lyrics and various dance music-mazurka, waltz, polka and so on. Among many instrumental music works, piano music is in the majority. There are a lot of artistic songs in vocal music works, and many vocal music works are connected in series to form a suite, such as Schubert's Beautiful Mill Girl and Winter Journey, which are the innovative artistic themes of romantic music school. Harmony is an important tool to express romantic colors. The expansion and free use of dissonance, the frequent appearance of seventh and ninth chords, semitones and tone sandhi in music have expanded the scope and expression of harmony and enhanced the color of harmony. Composers created multi-movement title symphonies and single-movement title symphonies, which are important forms of romantic music.
Romantic attention music is in sharp contrast with the rigorous, elegant and dignified style of classical music with its unique strong, free and unrestrained style. If Beethoven's music is only black-and-white movies or prints, then romantic music works are like watercolors and colored oil paintings. This period produced two different schools of romantic music. One is conservative romanticism represented by Brahms, and the other is positive romanticism. Romantic music period is also the most fruitful period in the history of European music development, which greatly enriched and developed the fine tradition of classical music and made bold innovations. Many music treasures of this period are still deeply loved and welcomed by people.
Schubert, the representative of the early romantic music school, mainly focuses on artistic songs. Artistic opera is the combination of poetry and music, and it is an ideal place for romantic composers to express poetic feelings. Schubert chose a wide range of poems, including those of great poets such as Goethe and Schiller, and the works of his friend Schobel. The piano accompaniment in his opera not only plays a role in setting off the melody, but also is the main means to create a specific artistic conception. Schubert's songs are called "art songs", but the simple musical language in many operas is often close to folk songs. His songs such as Wild Rose, Trout and Bodhi Tree have become popular folk songs. The segmented song form commonly used in folk songs is also the main form of Schubert's song creation.
Liszt is a representative figure of the romantic music school in the middle period. He was born in Hungary. His outstanding contributions to music in his life are mainly in two aspects. First of all, he enriched the expressive force of piano skills.
His piano music not only has poetic sketches, but also has magnificent artistic effects and symphonic music, which makes the piano music have the effect of an orchestra, magnificent and passionate. Secondly, he initiated the genre of single movement title symphonic poetry. He wrote thirteen symphonic poems in his life, among which Prelude and Tasso are the most famous. These symphonic poems are narrative, lyrical, descriptive and dramatic. In addition, the distinctive Hungarian national characteristics are particularly prominent in Liszt's works, such as 19 hungarian rhapsody, which reflects Hungarian folk life, among which the 2 nd, 6 th, 12 and 15 are classics.
Richard Strauss is a composer of late romantic music. As a composer, Strauss's contribution is mainly manifested in symphonic poems. He perfected the structural form of symphonic poetry, carefully created the dominant motivation, and specially described the musical fragments of people, places and scenes. His outstanding talent in orchestral orchestration is also revealed. The lines and thoughts of his works are no less than those of various musical instruments, which makes a very common motive or theme in his works shine with the most fascinating brilliance. Strauss's opera creation is mainly influenced by Wagner's musical. Although his composition skills are superb, his content is pale and weak, much thinner than Wagner's works. His works are sometimes like an essay full of flowery rhetoric, but they are repeating an empty and boring content. Strauss is an outstanding master of classical creation and romantic music. Mozart's famous car, Beethoven's turmoil, Brahms' sense of structure, Wagner's heroism and Liszt's title music inspired his creative desire. His mastery of the orchestra makes his works exude charm, but the cultural characteristics at the end of the century are also fully reflected in his works, that is, the tendency of aestheticism and decadence. Together with Wagner, his creation heralded the arrival of music in the twentieth century.