High-romantic music

Romantic music is a music-historical period dating between approx. 1830 and 1910. It had more resemblance to romance in other arts, such as literature and painting, that is, individualism, patriotism, freedom desire, and the length and pursuit of the goal, rather than the goal in itself. The romance of music came relatively late in relation to the romance of literature and art, and lasted much longer.

The period began as a sliding transition from classicism , but also as a clear violation of this. Where classics under Joseph Haydn , Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Early Ludwig van Beethoven focused on classical ideals of enlightenment, clarity, calm and balance, romance was far more emotional, dynamic and with strong musical contrasts. A longing for something and the journey there was more important than the purpose of the journey. The high dominance of Richard Wagner , Giuseppe Verdi and Johannes Brahm dominated the characters. At the same time, national romance became increasingly dominant in a number of countries and territories, especially Russia ,Czech Republic and Scandinavia . Here there were different ideas that one should be influenced by folk music or writing their own music inspired by the country. Toward the end of romanticism, the music moved away from the romantic ideals, towards more realism, less emotional moves and either more neoclassical or impresionist style.

High-romantic period
The high-romantic period is the most dominant period in time and in the development of music. The Opera had a significant development, especially with Wagner’s dramatic and Verdis melodious operas. Even these two operas made the German and Italian opera increasingly dominant, there were several French opera composers who noticed, especially Georges Bizet and Jules Massenet. During this period, the dramatic and serious opera came back strongly. The operette also had a major development with Jacques Offenbach and Johann Strauss dy

Valser became increasingly popular, but both national and national dances became more orchestral works in some cases than music to dance to. At the same time, the ballet got a boost with help from Russia at the end. Symphonies had a setback for a long time, but were brought back to the popularity of Johannes Brahms, Anton Bruckner, Antonín Dvořák and Pjotr Tsjkovsky especially. The national romantic period became particularly pronounced in Russia, the Czech Republic and the Nordic region. Brahms marked himself as a multitalent with several good compositions in several genres.

The period began with a generational change. Mendelssohn died in 1847, Donizetti in 1848 and Chopin in 1849. Schumann got mental problems in 1850 and died in 1856 while Meyerbeer composed much less after 1850. New composers took over, several without the close connection to classism as the previous generation either the nerve up under or rebelled against. With the development of so many genres and so many countries, the music became much less controlled and far less faceted than before.

Valser and other dances
Johann Strauss started their own orchestra in 1825 and played an important role in the popularization of the waltz. It was also he who stood behind what became known as the Viennese Valley. His modern waltz hit all over Europe, especially in 1838 in London. He came to Norway in 1840, and made Viennese’s popular there. Strauss, the elder, however, belongs home in the early period, except for his Radetzkymarsj. However, his two sons Johann Strauss and Josef Strauss were also keen electoral composers. Marshs and Poles also joined the family members. In particular, Strauss dys An der scönen blauen Danubefrom 1867 a very popular roll. Strauss Dy continued to develop the roll as a cycle of several dances and pieces, something his father and Schubert did before him. Strauss Dy had also added elaborate initiations and endings – and transitions between the pieces – which helped make the waltz to be more accepted also among a more discerning audience.

Jose Strauss became after his brother Johann Strauss’s dared to compose, the dominant choir conductor, along with his brother Eduard. Josef Strauss was interested in combining waltz and symphony, and he was not afraid to try new music. Among other things, he had included pieces from Wagner’s opera Tristan and Isolde in his rolling concerts, so many of the audience were familiar with several of the songs before the opera was set up.

However, there were also many more local dancers who had hit. Chopin had composed Masurques and Poles inspired by Poland, and in the late 1860s and beyond, Brahms with Hungarian dances, probably inspired by the concerts he had with the violinist Eduard Reményi. The Hungarian dances became financially lucrative for Brahms. In the 1870’s Antonín Dvořák came with his Slavic dancer. Unlike Brahms, who was heavily influenced by folk music through Reményi and Hungarian political refugees he met in Hamburg, Dvořák’s Slavic dancer became more artificial, that is, he wrote them with few external sources of inspiration.

Ballet
The ballet in France had suffered during the French Revolution and the turmoil that followed, which either scare away the composers, weakened the ability of the nobility or both. However, the ballet grew again during the rise of romance in the 1830s. In the romantic ballet, as in the opera, the supernatural was important. An example of this was Sylphiden where the protagonist falls in love with a fairy just before his own wedding. In particular, the dancer Marie Taglioni and her father, the choreographer Filippo, were essential for the development of the romantic style, partly because Marie Taglioni played the sylvid far more convincing than usual in ballet. One of the most famous ballets from this period was Giselle, with music by Adolphe Adam. It is also characterized by supernatural beings, in this case the spirits of virgins who died before they could get married.

The ballet focused mainly on dances and choreographers, and much less on male dancers, which meant that there were far fewer male ballet dancers. This helped to sabotage for the popularity of ballet in Western Europe. In Russia, where dance, and especially male dance, was an important part of national identity, however, ballet from early on was intended for dramatic dance from the men’s side. The combination of the choreography of Marius Petipa and the compositions of Pjotr Tsjajkovsky became the rescue. Tchaikovsky music was so well adapted to the dancers that he succeeded in getting the composer out of the shadow of the choreographer and dancers. His compositions Lake Swan (1876), Tornerose (1889) andNutcracker (1892) was crucial in increasing the popularity of the ballet also in the west. Tchaikovsky succeeded in finding the good melodies that were easy to humble, colorful orchestration that matched the adventurous story and atmosphere, and melodies that fought very well for the ballet dances’ movement. In addition, he created a far more symphonic ballet.

Opera and Opera
The opera was about to evolve from Grand Opera to Opera Lyrique, a mix of Grand Opera and Opera Comique. This fit badly with Meyer Beer’s style, and even though he had relatively high success in 1850, his style could have been out anyway. Instead, Charles Gounod and Jules Massenet were dominated by this opera style. However, the opera was shortly dominated by two composers who stood on the side of the French opera, namely Wagner and Verdi. In addition, other talented opera composers appeared, such as Leo Delibes and Georges Bizet, who added exoticism and realism in the opera.

Richard Wagner
However, for Wagner, the revolutionary year of 1848 was characterized by much political commitment, and he was driven into exile because of his revolutionary activities. Wagner also wrote musical analyzes, including the art of the future of Beethoven’s ninth symphony where he said that “the last symphony is already written.” In 1850, he anonymously wrote an anti-Semitic piece, Judas Judgment in Music, in which he accused Jews in general and Meyerbeer and Mendelssohn in particular for holding back the romantic music. It is uncharacteristic of Wagner to have so noticeably negative comments about its competitors. Despite the fact that Verdi (discussed below) had many opinions about Wagner, no statements were found, except for the notes in the Wagner wife’s diary, and only there very trivial sane, from Wagner about Verdi, which in the present time was more known and more listed.

The main point for Wagner was, however, that he missed German opera with German themes, which since the Web’s Hunter ‘s Bread had largely become provincial and uninteresting. Wagner had succeeded with The Flying Dutchman and Tannhäuser, and he quickly returned as an opera composer when Liszt set up Lohengrin, as Wagner wrote in 1847, in Weimar in 1850. Lohengrin was a success and predicted Wagner’s future fascination for medieval legends and German folk adventures, often moralizing and symbolic. In the opening it refers to when one of the heroes defeated the Danes, and the story is also about waging war against the Hungarians who had broken the ceasefire – directed by Hungarian Liszt.

Wagner began in 1848 what would be his main work, the Nibelungenring, an opera cycle of four parts. The first part, Rhingullet, was not ready until 1854, and the next part, Valkyria two years later. Both of them use Search Motiv, that is, a melodic part that is repeated from time to time to emphasize the mood or person who is the subject of the opera. The melody can appear in the orchestra, in a song or in the choir to illustrate the point as best as possible. Wagner’s use of search motif thus reminds Berlioz’s idea fixe. The difference is that Wagner could use several of them under the same opera as he did with Tristan and Isolde, and he also uses them so often that the motives make the program that explains the action redundant. The melody guides the actions further, and can create simultaneous, conflicting and reinforcing emotions in the opera. Wagner’s operastile was also influenced by Mozart, Beethoven, Cherubini, Weber and indeed Meyerbeer, which he thus shone. Despite the fact that Wagner was skeptical of former composers, Beethoven and Gluck except, he had close contact with the past.

Musically, Wagner’s operas are often complex chromatic chord changes, such as in Tristan and Isolde. Just the least three hundred years old mix between diatonic (without sign) and chromatic (with signature) music and between stable and unstable passages were the building blocks in much of Wagner’s music. This often created the feeling of length and unsatisfied needs. Just the length and the road to the goal were romantic ideals already from Weber of which Wagner used a lot. In addition, Wagner also succeeded in making a final settlement with bell canto using the orchestra so consciously that the orchestra and the singer could give contradictory impressions. Wagner’s idea was the complete opera where singing, orchestra, stageography and plays collided to give a powerful dramatic expression.

Giuseppe Verdi
There Wagner composed 10 operas from the breakthrough with Rienzi, wrote Verdi 26 after his breakthrough with Nabucco, and where Wagner was most famous for the lead motif and the use of orchestra, Giuseppe Verdi was most famous for his ability to write good melodies and to capture character characters, emotions and situations in them. Value was also a realist, his actions should most often relate to this world, not a mythical world with gods and monsters. Verdi was also, in contrast to Wagner, concerned that the orchestration should not overpower the singers, but rather add color and atmosphere. There Wagner wrote his librettos himself, often with the mix of many different sources, Verdi was keen to choose known plays by William Shakespeare, Friedrich von Schiller, Lord Byron, Victor Hugo, Voltaire and Alexandre Dumas the younger.

Verdis’s major breakthrough came when he retired from politics and the city of Busseto. There he had time to write the trilogy Rigoletto, based on a piece of Victor Hugo, Il Trovatore, based on a piece of Spanish dramatist Antonio García Gutiérrez, and La Traviata, based on a piece of Alexandre Dumas dy. Everybody succeeds in combining traditional bell canto opera with the use of melody to emphasize the personality of the main characters and leading moods. This meant that the music and song style became a hallmark of the roles. At the same time, he also used motives to remind the audience of past events. This introduced Verdi at the same time as Wagner’s Search Motiv, but contrary to Wagner’s principles, the motives for Verdi were not meant to drive the action forward or create conflict or the different motives built up, but more to tie the action closer together. Verdis’s motifs were also nothing new, for example, Donizetti had already been used in 1835. Verdi’s operas are also not far from Rossini and Donizetti’s Bell Canto operas, and he also borrowed from Rossini’s opera standards.

After Verdi became rich in his operas, he took more diligence with the latest operas, borrowing techniques from grand opera, introducing comic roles and exotic themes and sound images (Aida). The last two operas Verdi wrote were both Shakespeare operas, Otello and Falstaff, more elaborate a first edition of Macbeth, both excellent examples in tragic (Otello) and comic (Falstaff) opera. The latter was Verdi’s only comedy, and they also have some features of Wagner, among other things because it has a dramatic characterization of people and situations rather than calling the Canto opera with the Aries in the presidency.

Other opera and operetta composers
There were more talented French opera composers. Georges Bizet wrote exotic pieces from Ceylon (Today’s Sri Lanka) (Pearl Fish) and Seville (Carmen). Camille Saint-Saëns made Samson a Dalila (bible opera) and Léo Delibes made Lakmé, with the action added to India. Of these, Carmen distinguished both in terms of immediate and retrospective success and given the realism of the action. The sensual and liberal life of Carm is associated with her being a gypsy boy and thus in every way outside society. There were also operas in Russia and the Czech Republic, for this, see Nationalism.

After Napoleon III came to power, serious opera became closely monitored, while the comic opera, opera bouffe, became more free. This was used especially by the operetta, that is, opera with far more speech than traditional opera comique. The most important composer in comic and satirical opera was Jacques Offenbach. Offenbach’s breakthrough came with Orpheus in the underworld, where Orfeus (tenor) was really in love with another, but married Evrydike (soprano) with a mistake and married her because he was afraid of “Public opinion” (mezzo soprano). He arranges her death because Pluto is in love with her, and lives happily – something that Evrydike also makes in the death row with Pluto as husband – until public opinion requires him to save her. Offenbach also had an ear for the good melody, including when the decadent died dancing a gallop (a kind of dance), where the melody is later inextricably linked to can-can. At the same time, his operas, who make fun of the opera themselves, have gathered much from virtuoso song numbers from the early 18th century, contemporary contemporary numbers, bolersos, fangangos, quadrills and rollers – in addition to can-can and gallop.

Offenbach’s popularity increased dramatically after this play, and with the beautiful Helena and La vie parisienne he also inspired other operetta composers and comedy opera composers in many countries. One of them was Johann Strauss’s dy who tried and had great success with the Bats in 1874, and later Arthur Sullivan and WS Gilbert in HMS Pinafore and a series of comic operas thereafter. This meant that English (and English-born) composers were instrumental in singing the music for the first time since Henry Purcell in the late 1600s.

Symphonies
Symphonies had begun to be an abnormality around the 1850s, largely reserved for music students. For example, the major concert halls in Paris were used to play the classical symphonies of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, and the early romance to Mendelssohn and Schumann. Pasdeloup, who arranged the concerts, was eventually persuaded to play the French music students Gounonds and Saint Saëns symphonies, but he went back as much as Bach was rediscovered and Händel was always popular. At the same time, a new form of music appeared in Frans Lizst’s symphonic poems from 1848 to 1857. These were solo works for orchestras characterized by philosophy, literature or painting. This was program music in line with Berlioz, but more descriptive than narrative. Lizst succeeded in a groundbreaking harmony and with orchestral effects that characterized the rest of the 19th century. The symphony of the works is represented, inter alia, in the contours of the sonate form.

Symphony as genre came back strongly when Johannes Brahms broke away from the stubborn situation between modern music and a taste that passed old symphonies. He chose to combine the two by writing backward symphonies, which at the same time were modern. Brahms was inspired by Schumann, and thus he belonged to the classical branch as opposed to Liszt and Berlioz. However, Brahms as he wrote the music was also probably influenced by Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde, despite the fact that he had little left for Wagner’s music. This means that his symphony was neither completely nor completely programmatic, but closer to absolute in style. This is also emphasized by the fact that Brahms was also largely influenced by Beethoven’s 5th symphony. It was also inspired by Beethoven’s 9th symphony in the final. It was mostly diatonic and melodious, but he had chromatic lines in the voices. The symphony was written in the 1860s, but not published until 1876.

What featured all Brahms symphonies was that they were strictly absolute music in shape without any kind of program music. Like Beethoven, Brahms chose to be romantic in the tone of speech, yet showing respect for the sonata form of the first part, largo in the second part and then a scherzo in the third part. Nevertheless, Brahms was also concerned and influenced by contemporary music, thus uniting in some ways these.

When Brahms composed his symphonies early in the 1860s, he was not alone in this, Anton Bruckner also wrote nine symphonies, the first in 1865. However, he often rewrote them, and he did not quite beat before at the same time as Brahms. Bruckner was, unlike Brahms, far more Wagner-friendly, and he composed far more in the direction of program music than did Brahms. However, Bruckner was also concerned with Beethoven, and especially the 9th symphony.

Tshechkovsky also wrote symphonies, and his first came in 1867. Unlike the “mighty five” who wanted to rediscover Russian national music (discussed further down), Tsjkovsky was Westernly oriented. It was only at the time of its fourth symphony that Tsjovkovsky hit the symphony front. Then he had already had success with ballet pieces and piano concerts. Tshechkovsky symphony number 4 from 1878 became a breakthrough, partly because he had formalities in place, and partly because he succeeded in using strong harmonic instruments. However, his unnumbered Manfred symphony is most famous.

Symphonies were also written in France. In 1871 César Franck, Camille Saint-Saëns and several other composers decided to promote French music. Under the motto “Ars Gallia”, Franck, who before had largely been an impressive organizer, began to compose. At first it was symphonic poetry, but towards the end of the high convertance he began to write symphonies. His symphonies resigned in part because of their gloominess, but also because he took the theme from one rate to another instead of treating the four sentences as separate. In addition, Franck, who was compared to Johann Sebastian Bach, was also good at using counterpoint in his works.

National Romanticism
In different places in Europe, there appeared a strong wave of national romantic moves in the music. The reasons could be more, for example, one could wish to toneset popular newspapers that were collected in an increasing number of countries, find the country’s idiosyncratic music style or shout the country in song and music. In the high dominance, it was especially in Russia, the Czech Republic and Scandinaviathat the national romance appeared, while for a while it had been present in German music, if not as direct. In France, however, a group of composers were opposed to composers like Franck and Delibes, who had been inspired by Germans like Beethoven and Wagner. These would rather write a French music on their own premises. One of the composers was Camille Saint-Saëns, who is known for his serious pieces as his organ symphony in c-mole, and the carnival of the comic animals, where the turtle comes into a very staggering version of Offenbach’s infernal gallop.

Russia
Russia had produced few composers before Mikhail Glinka hit the 1830s. His first opera, a life for the Tsar, had clear Russian features in addition to shouting the Tsar and the government. The music was used at times modal scale, largely replaced by major and minor scale in the West, but still in use in Russia. However, his other opera, Russlan and Lyudmila (1842) used to use helton scales, chromatics, dissonances and variations of folk songs that had a real national focus, where a life for the Tsar was more fidget-friendly.

Glinkas operas hit the west just because he was so typical Russian, but the Russian composers who followed him fell into two main categories: Those who sought a more modern and western music style (Tsjajkovsky) and those who wanted to study Russian music for their own part (often called ” The Five ” or “The Powerful Handful”). The music of Tchaikovsky was so western that it belonged to the individual subgroups, the five composers’ search for the Russian were so significant that their works are discussed here, mostly mostly in the case of operas and symphonies.

Tsjaijkovsky ballets and symphonies have already been mentioned, but he also wrote opera, such as Eugen Onegin and Spar Dame. Of these, the former became clearly known, and afterwards it has gained a status that reminds of a Russian national opera. One of Chechnya’s most famous works is the 1812 Overture, which is an independent work and not, as a traditional adulterer, linked to an opera. This ostrich, celebrating the victory of the Russians over Napoleon Bonaparte, is full of references to Russian cossacks, folk melodies and tsarhemians against the Marseillais. The latter despite the fact that the tsarhym was written long after 1812 and that Napoleon Bonaparte forbade the Marseillais in 1805.

The Five consisted of Milij Balakirev, Alexander Borodin, Cesar Cui, Modest Musorgsky and Nikolaj Rimskij-Korsakov. The five were opponents of the German and Italian influences on Russian music, but they were also occupied by Berlioz and Liszt’s music. Cui wrote in his memoirs that they were young and brutal in their criticism, without respect for Mozart and Mendelssohn, with resistance to Schumann, enthusiasm to Liszt and Berlioz and the goddess of Chopin and Glinka.

Of the five composers, neither Cui nor Balakirev had a greater significance for later composition. Borodin used caucasian and central Asian themes in his music, especially in the Opera First Igor (not completed), and in his symphonies, not to mention his symphonic poems On the Steps of Central Asia. However, he was a busy man (he was a professor of chemistry) and had little time to compose. His two symphonies were nevertheless special because he wrote these with much smaller loans from Beethoven, and was therefore much less influenced by the past than most other symphony composers.

Musorgskij had a Ukrainian background, but remained in St. Petersburg most of his life, and never left abroad. Two of his most famous works are the symphonic poem One night at Bloksberg (1867, performed after his death) and the piano piece Pictures at an exhibition (1874). In addition to program music, Musorgsky’s music may be referred to as more realism than romance, albeit with a fascination for the exotic. Thus, his music, such as the Salambô Opera, may remind you of Carmen. In addition, Musorgsky believed that music and art should help human speech instead of being an end in itself. The laws of music, wherever important, should always change and break. The Opera Boris Godunov based on a piece of Alexander Pushkin emphasized Musorgsky’s fascination for speech when he imitated Russian speech patterns. Together with First Igor of Borodin and Tsjajkovsky’s Eugen Onegin, Boris Godunov is the most played Russian opera.

Nikolaj Rimskij-Korsakov was the only one of the five who had musical education, ironically because he became professor in 1871 and had to study to be one step ahead of his students. Even the Five were skeptical of musical education because it was western-oriented, it was precisely Rimskij-Korsakov’s education that saved a lot of Russian music by the way, and elsewhere he edited Glinka, Musorgskij and Borodin to ensure their musical survival. As conductor in both Russia and Western Europe, he also succeeded in exporting their music to these areas. Rimskij-Korsakov wrote operas, but none of them achieved as much attention as Borodin’s, Tsjovkovsky’s and Musorgsky’s works. The strength of Rimskij-Korsakov was that he could play all the instruments in an orchestra and was therefore very good at orchestration. His Capriccio espagnol and Scheherazade became especially famous, ironically since one has a French title and Spanish inspiration and the other is named after the main character in 1001 night.

Czech Republic
Czech composers had been marked under the Mannheim school, but then mostly associated with German music. However, in the second half of the 19th century, a nationalist wave led mainly by Bedřich Smetana and Antonín Dvořák.

First out was Smetana. He is considered the founder of Czech music. Smetana was concerned with independence for the Czech Republic, and at the same time also busy with music. Praha was an important music center, and he met Berlioz, Liszt and both Robert and Clara Schumann, who all affected him a lot. After a stay in Gothenburg he returned to Bohemia for good. This was where he wrote his second opera, The Sold Bride (1866), a comic opera with many national romantic moves. Just like Dvořák later in his Slavic dances, Smetana chose to compose folk tunes and dance herself instead of inspiring directly from folk music.

The background for this election may have been a discussion with protocratic politicians who thought that a serious opera had easily made it possible to write on the basis of Czech folk tunes, but it was impossible to write a comic opera with a Czech character. Smetana argued that this would end in a potpurri of different tunes. Despite the success of the sold bride, Smetana went away from this style in his other operas. He tried serious opera, and in the last four operas the style was markedly different, both from the sold bride and from each other. Smetanas Má vlast (“My Homeland”) was a symphonic poetry cycle in which, in particular, second rate, Vltava (Die Moldau in German) was a great success.

Where Smetana was inspired by Lizst and program music, Dvořák was a more Brahms-like absolute musician. He quickly recovered from the fascination of Wagner, and released several symphonies inspired by Brahms. Admittedly, the first four symphonies were unknown to Dvořák’s death, but the last five were increasingly played. However, where Brahms was accused of being old-fashioned and returning, Dvořák was a more forward-looking and innovative symphonist. Dvořák, however, was not the longing and mysterious, like Brahms, but rather the playful and fresh composer. His possibly greatest success as symphonics, however, came in the overtime of the high omnipotence, when he wrote his symphony number 9, From the New World, inspired by the journey to the United States, but also mixed Czech music. In addition, his Stabat Mater and his Requiem were great successes, and his violin concert in the a-mole and cell concert in H-Moll was also very popular in Europe.

Nordic countries
The Nordic countries, and especially Norway, were influenced by national romance. A number of composers from Northern Europe defined their country’s music either based on folk music, as was done in Russia, or by writing it as it was done in Prague. It was especially the Scandinavian countries that marked themselves in the high convert. Finland’s Jean Sibelius first came in senromantics, together with Carl Nielsen from Denmark.

It was in Denmark that the idea of the “Nordic tone” first appeared in the mid 1800s. It was especially Niels Wilhelm Gade and Jens Peter Emilius Hartmann who started this development. Of these, the symphonist Gade had the greatest influence on the Nordic countries, while the stage musician Hartmann was more Nordic in his composition, perhaps just that, Gade became more recognized in Europe. In Sweden it was especially Franz Berwaldwhich dominated. He wrote both chamber music and opera, but as Gade he is most famous for his symphonies. Berwald’s symphonies were very original, with active use of breaks and rhythm. Unfortunately for him, Stockholm was not necessarily ready for so modern music as he wrote, and he did not live in his music.

In Norway, the only non-independent of the three Scandinavian countries, the public music life had existed since at least 1765 when the music company ” Harmony ” was established in Bergen. This makes it one of the world’s oldest music companies. In Christiania (today’s Oslo), Lyceum appeared as an alternative in 1810, which created greater competition and professionalism. When Norwegian composers appeared in the early 19th century, they were moved by national ideas and by the Eidsvoll events in 1814, and therefore, from very early on, had a form of national romantic tone. Ole Bull, who soon played in Harmony, co-operated with Myllarguten, a hard-hitting player who was particularly good at folk music. The partnership made popular music popular throughout Norway. Eventually several promising composers appeared, such as Halvdan Kjerulf and Richard Nordraak, but especially in the second half of the 1800s, Norway appeared with Edvard Grieg, Johan Svendsen and Christian Sinding, of which Grieg was in a special class both in Norway and in the Nordic countries.

If there was a search for the Nordic or Scandinavian at Gade, Hartmann or Berwald, Grieg was first and foremost not Scandinavian but Norwegian. Edvard Grieg was not good at the big shapes, but relied on the smaller compositions, such as romances, mowers and piano pieces. Thus he was an opposition to Gade and Berwald. Grieg, for example, has no symphonies, and even sonates he has few of. Another feature of Grieg’s music was that he went to the source when it came to finding the national tone and inspired a lot of folk melodies. At the same time, he gave the people’s melody a personal touch so that it was easier to access even beyond the borders of the country. The Romans of Grieg belong to the very best in the genre. Despite the fact that Grieg was considered a miniature artist, his orchestral work was among the most famous, especially the Peer Gynt suite, which featured songs like Morning Mood, The Dovregubbens Hall and Anita’s dance in the first song and Solveig’s song in the other. Also from Holberg’s time and the piano concert in A-Moll has a big international appeal. Grieg was featured by Longyear as “one of the most individual composers in the 19th century.”

Other music
In addition to his symphonies and symphonic poetry, César Franck had also worked a lot of music, which had to some extent gone out of fashion, such as chamber music, orienteering, fantasy, fuge, choir music and organ music. In the latter he borrowed both from French music and from Johann Sebastian Bach, who, after Mendelssohn’s efforts, became increasingly popular. Franck was considered the founder of modern French chamber music, including his piano quintets, string quartets and violin sons – all cyclical in shape.

Gabriel Fauré was basically an antithesis for Franck’s Wagner and German-inspired style. He represented order and constraint as key cornerstones. Fauré was a student of Saint-Saëns. Fauré also inspires Gounond, where the melodies were easier and without virtuoso pieces. Eventually he focused on music genres with a big crew, perhaps known as his Requiem. Towards the end, Fauré became increasingly popular in the musical form, and little melodies were often linked together, about as far from Wagner one can come at that time.

Source from Wikipedia