Blustering its way in at the turn of the 19th century, Romanticism shook up classical music as never before.
The best Romantic composers made a huge leap forward from the more structured forms of the Classical period. Now, it was all about passion, feeling, drama. Nature, fantasy, and the supernatural were also central.
Romantic music often set out to evoke profound emotional responses, and composers of the time were inspired by poetry, art and literature, with many works having a descriptive or 'programmatic' element - this was, after all, the era of the 'tone poem'.
Romanticism and the 19th century
Romanticism also swept its way into literature and painting. Great poets like Wordsworth, Coleridge and Byron, and painters such as Turner, Delacroix and William Blake all produced work that followed the Romantic ethos of passion, subjectivity, and a fascination with the outside world.
Back in music, the Romantic era disrupted the Classical period of composers like Mozart and Haydn, where clarity, balance, and form were all prized qualities in music. Conversely, political and military upheavals such as the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, and the rise of nationalism in many European nations had a major impact on the story of music in the 19th century.
Best Romantic composers: from the Classical era into Romanticism
1. Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
The great Ludwig van Beethoven was something of a bridge between the Classical and Romantic eras. Early works such as his first six string quartets and First Symphony clearly still belong to the Classical period, with their grace and sense of proportion. However, Beethoven’s later works, such as his Symphony No. 9 and Piano Sonata No. 29 ('Hammerklavier'), tore up the rulebooks of Classical music and injected a new grandeur and emotional intensity.
Start with: Symphony No. 3 'Eroica' (1803). With its drama, melodic and rhythmic adventurousness, and its sheer scale, the 'Eroica' can be credited with kicking off the Romantic movement in music. Sample its sheer excitement below.
2. Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
Schubert wrote over 600 songs in total, and was at the forefront of the Romantic Lieder tradition. He is also known for his thrilling orchestral and chamber works. Schubert had a gift for shaping a melody and creating beautiful themes that makes him one of the very best Romantic composers.
Start with: Symphony No. 8 ‘Unfinished’ (1822). The first phrase comes from the cellos and basses playing low in register and pianissimo. After a few bars, shimmering strings enter alongside a more lyrical oboe and clarinet line. This dark, introverted opening is radically unlike other symphonies of the time.
3. Hector Berlioz (1803-1869)
Berlioz’s music is often technically difficult. His use of harmony, as a tool for expression rather than function, was little short of revolutionary. Other Berlioz fingerprints are his use of irregular rhythms and long melodies, while still being clearly influenced by the Classical period.
Start with: Symphonie fantastique (1830). Probably one of the most influential, innovative works in the history of classical music, Berlioz's great five-movement symphony is notable for its bold orchestration, programmatic structure, and vivid use of recurring musical themes, known as the idée fixe. It represents a landmark of Romantic music, combining intense emotion, imagination, and new symphonic forms.
Best Romantic composers: early Romanticism
4. Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)
Felix Mendelssohn was arguably the most talented child prodigy of all time. At the age of 15, his teacher was already claiming that Mendelssohn’s talents were equal to those of Bach, Haydn and Mozart. The following year, Mendelssohn composed one of his best loved works: the exhilarating, beautifully orchestrated Octet. Quite a feat for a lad of 16.
Graceful, beautifully balanced yet stormy at times, Mendelssohn's music incorporates the elegance and balance of the Classical era, while still evoking the fantasy of the Romantic.
Start with: A Midsummer Night’s Dream Overture, 1826: The music was written to accompany Shakespeare’s play, and its quicksilver, thrilling overture quickly became popular across Europe.
5. Fanny Mendelssohn (1805-1847)
Fanny Mendelssohn was Felix's older sister. Despite often being overlooked, she composed around 500 brilliant works. As a woman, she was not encouraged to pursue music as a career in the way her brother was, so did not get the same opportunities of travelling and education. Nevertheless, her music contains the complex virtuosity exhibited by her male contemporaries. Her work is light and poised in character.
Start with: String Quartet (1834). This dazzling quartet begins with short phrases being passed around between players creating an echoing effect. The second movement is the most lively and shows Baroque influences. The final movement is the most moving of the three.
6. Clara Schumann (1819-1896)
Clara Schumann was a gifted composer at a time where the profession was highly male-dominated. Her career began as a child prodigy pianist, taught by her father Friedrich Wieck who insisted on spending time teaching her harmony and counterpoint so she could go on to perform her own works.
Her talent earned Clara a prestigious place at the Society of the Friends of Music in Vienna. Undoubtedly her marriage to Robert Schumann influenced her music. The couple were known for sharing musical ideas with each other, and with their close friend Johannes Brahms. Three of the best Romantic composers in a room together? We'd love to have been a fly on the wall.
Start with: Piano Concerto (1836) This beautiful, distinctive concerto was written when Clara Schumann was only 16. The bold first movement demonstrates her original voice.
7. Robert Schumann (1810-1856)
German composer Robert Schumann was known for his piano music, Lieder and orchestral works. Before his marriage, Schumann was mostly seen as a miniaturist composer due to his fondness for writing short piano pieces and songs. Most of his music is inspired by literature and poems.
Schumann's music often has a passionate, impulsive quality - it often sounds like the composer's own volatile emotions (he suffered from mental illness later in life) being directly distilled onto the page. In this way, Schumann can perhaps be seen as the ultimate Romantic composer - the most emblematic example of a movement that prized emotion, passion, subjectivity and states of mind over the more objective concerns of the Classical era.
Start with: Piano Quintet (1842). The piano quintet form later become a popular cornerstone of chamber music, with famous examples composed by Brahms, Dvořák, Elgar and Shostakovich. Schumann's own essay in the genre is a perfect synthesis of Romantic ideals, with its alternating passion, energy and drama.
8. Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849)
The Polish composer Frédéric Chopin was a virtuoso pianist, child prodigy and master of Romantic composition. Most of his extraordinarily beautiful, sensitive and evocative musical output is written for solo piano, including 59 Mazurkas, 27 Etudes, 27 Preludes, 21 Nocturnes and 20 Waltzes.
Start with: 24 Preludes, Op. 28: In much the same vein as Bach’s famous piano cycle The Well-Tempered Clavier, Chopin moves through every key in sequence. The pieces are very short, yet filled with character.
9. Franz Liszt (1811-1886)
Composer, conductor, teacher, virtuoso pianist (he invented the piano recital): make no mistake, Franz Liszt was a whirlwind of energy during the heart of the Romantic era, and a hugely influential figure in the development of the classical piano repertoire. His incredible technical prowess on the piano, not to mention his dramatic good looks, made him a legendary performer.
For the energy and work ethic he brought to the piano repertoire, as well as for a prodigious talent for capturing atmosphere in music, Liszt deserves a place in our list of best Romantic composers.
Start with: Transcendental Etudes (1837): These 12 études are some of the most demanding works ever written for the pianist. They each have their own distinct character, too, from the lyrical 'Harmonies du Soir' to the turbulent 'Mazeppa'. As such, any pianist needs to be both technically and emotionally nimble.
Best Romantic composers: late Romanticism
10. Richard Wagner (1813-1883)
Wagner was a revolutionary operatic composer. He worked according to his theory that music, poetry and drama are inseparable. He used leitmotifs throughout his music - musical phrases that represent specific characters so listeners can identify physical action in the music.
Start with: The Ring Cycle (1876). An epic story of a magic ring spread across four full-length operas, the Ring Cycle is a big commitment - but, if you're attuned towards fantasy, drama and/or big, emotionally cathartic, harmonically daring music, a hugely rewarding one.
11. Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
Brahms followed the principles of form and counterpoint that were familiar to composers of the Classical era. The spirit of his music is, however, much more rooted in Romanticism. At times his music is intensely dark, and notoriously difficult to play.
Start with: Violin Concerto (1879). This demanding concerto, full of gypsy inflections, was written for violinist Joseph Joachim. Joachim advised Brahms while he composed the concerto, as Brahms had no experience of playing the violin. Dramatic, passionate, packed with emotion and verve, the Brahms fiddle concerto is always among the first to be mentioned in any discussion of the greatest violin concertos of all time.
12. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)
The Russian composer Tchaikovsky is known for his rich orchestration and tuneful melodies. He was hugely prolific, composing seven symphonies, 11 operas and three ballets. He also wrote concertos (his Violin Concerto and First Piano Concerto are both staples of the concerto repertoire) and chamber music. To add to his prodigious talents, Tchaikovsky is also one of the greatest ballet composers ever.
Start with: The Nutcracker (1892). Tchaikovsky’s third ballet is based on a story by the German fantasy writer ETA Hoffmann. And The Nutcracker is hugely innovative in terms of the sounds Tchaikovsky gets out of his orchestra. In Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, for example, he deploys a celesta, which has a uniquely magical, delicate sound like shards of light poking through the darkness.
Tchaikovsky had heard a celesta in Paris in 1891, and promptly asked his publisher to buy one, hoping to keep it a secret so that no other Russian would compose music for the instrument before him.
13. Antonin Dvořák (1841-1904)
The Czech composer Antonín Dvořák was experimental in his early compositions. As his primary job was as a viola player, however, he did not rely on these works for an income. His style became more Classical as he became influenced by the works of Liszt and Brahms. His music from the mid 1870s has a more nationalistic feel, as heard in his masterful, thrilling Slavonic Dances.
Start with: Symphony No. 9 ‘From the New World’, 1892-95: This symphony contains a range of memorable themes, hugely popular with audiences. It also famously incorporates influences from American music and culture.
14. Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)
Mahler is best known for his nine complete symphonies: immense works, full of emotion, abrupt changes of mood, and daring, colourful orchestration. His contemporaries did not have a high opinion of him, accusing him of being morbid, self-indulgent and derivative. But Mahler is actually a supreme synthesiser of different musical worlds and idioms. His unforgettable soundworld brings together folk music, military marches, waltzes, chorales and Lieder.
Mahler's reputation recovered dramatically midway through the 20th century, thanks to the passionate championing of his works by conductors including Bernard Haitink, Rafael Kubelik and, famously, Leonard Bernstein.
Start with: Symphony No. 2 (1888-94). Huge in scale (90 minutes long), this epic symphony sets out to do nothing less than tell the story of a life.
Best Romantic composers: opera
15. Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901)
Verdi is best known for his 25 celebrated operas, including Falstaff, Aida, Rigoletto and the longest and arguably the greatest, Don Carlos. His career really took off after his first opera, Oberto, which was put on at the La Scala opera house in Milan in 1839.
Alongside Mozart, Schubert and Tchaikovsky, Verdi was one of one of classical music's great melodists. He created some of opera's most beautiful arias, or songs - miniature gems that combine dramatic power with lyrical expression.
Start with: La traviata, 1853: Based on Alexandre Dumas' play The Lady of the Camellias, La traviata remains Verdi’s most popular opera.
16. Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924)
Italian composer Giacomo Puccini made his mark on opera. His music is effortlessly lyrical, influenced by Wagner and Verdi, yet also sharing similarities with more contemporary composers such as Debussy and Stravinsky.
Start with: La bohème, 1895: The tragic opera La bohème tells the story of a young poet who falls in love with a seamstress, but obstacles of poverty and illness get in their way.
Best Romantic composers: the 20th century
17. Jean Sibelius (1865-1957)
Sibelius's great breakthrough was his discovery of the Kalevala, a mythological epic about Finland. This great poem had a profound influence on Sibelius's soundworld, and many of his evocative tone poems are inspired by it, including the four-movement Lemminkäinen Suite with its famously atmospheric slow movement, 'The Swan of Tuonela'.
As such, much of Sibelius's wonderfully atmospheric music is hugely evocative of his native land, its landscapes, nature and folklore. Key features of his musical style include an economy of form (not for him Mahler's diktat that 'the symphony must be like the world. It must embrace everything'), imagery drawn from nature, and an often daring, modern harmonic language.
Start with: Violin Concerto (1904). Much loved for its emotional depth, dazzling virtuoso passages, and widescreen evocation of frosty Nordic landscapes, the Sibelius Violin Concerto features a tense, brooding first movement, a sweetly lyrical Adagio, and a frenetic, virtuosic Allegro finale that has been likened to the sound of two polar bears dancing.
18. Richard Strauss (1864-1949)
The idea that Romanticism, that quintessentially 19th-century movement, could be said to have survived until just beyond the Second World War takes some getting your head around. Yet that is what we have, more or less, in the case of Richard Strauss, arguably the last great flowering of Romanticism.
Strauss is best known as a composer of highly dramatic tone poems - depictions of dramatic narratives in music. He's also rightly revered as a superb orchestrator. When we asked orchestral musicians to name the pieces they love to play, Strauss came up a lot as he writes beautifully for so many of the instruments of the orchestra.
Start with: Also Sprach Zarathustra (1896): Strauss's 1896 tone poem Also Sprach Zarathustra is hugely dramatic and powerful, with one of the most iconic openings of any classical music work.
19. Sergey Rachmaninov (1873-1943)
The Russian composer, pianist and conductor Sergey Rachmaninov was, along with Strauss and Sibelius, one of the last great defenders of the Romantic tradition as the 20th century, and composers such as Stravinsky and Schoenberg, ushered in new, often dissonant elements into classical music.
In contrast to these often sparser, more angular music styles, Rachmaninov's music is instantly recognisable with its sweeping, swooning melodies, high emotional temperature, lush harmonies and often serious technical demands on the soloist. (Rachmaninov himself was one of the greatest pianists of all time).
Start with: Piano Concerto No. 2 (1900-01): Pretty much the distillation of mid-period Rachmaninov, the Second Piano Concerto has some achingly gorgeous melodies, naked emotion, and no little drama. It represented a triumphant return to composing for Rachmaninov, who had been plunged into depression after a disastrous first performance of his Symphony No. 1.