The Romantic period
Lesson details
Learning outcome
I can identify key features of music in the Romantic period and analyse a broad range of Romantic genres.
Key learning points
- In the Romantic period, composers often focused on creating dramatic, emotive and highly expressive music.
- It used complex chromatic harmony and varied textures, timbres and articulation to create vivid musical moods.
- Many composers wrote programme music, using techniques like leitmotif to tell stories or evoke images through music.
- The orchestra became larger and more powerful and, as well as symphonies and concertos, tone poems became a key genre.
- The piano was important, with composers like Chopin exploiting its expressive and virtuosic qualities in various genres.
Keywords
Romantic period - the period of Western classical music between roughly 1820 and 1910
Programme music - music that tells a story or creates an image of something
Chromatic - notes that are from outside the key, creating more complex harmony
Leitmotif - a short musical idea that represents a character, place or idea
Virtuosic - music that shows off a performer’s technical skill
Common misconception
Romantic music is related to love and romance.
This is not the case - the name is not related to that. Romantic composers focused on creating expression, emotion and evocative moods in their music. Sometimes this would have links with love, but not always.
Teacher tip
Exploring programme music is a good entry point to Romantic music. Consider exploring some programmatic compositions, focusing on how the musical elements are used to create a certain mood, image or emotion. Liszt's tone poems and piano works are a good starting point, or Tchaikovsky's ballet music.
Licence
except where otherwise stated. See Oak's terms & conditions (Collection 2).Lesson video
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Prior knowledge starter quiz
6 Questions
Q1.Which period of Western classical music came before the Romantic period?
Q2.Music that tells a story or paints a picture is called music.
Q3.Which instrument family grew the most during the Romantic period?
Q4.Match each keyword to its meaning:
the “home” note of the scale
the fifth note of the scale
harmony using notes outside the key
Q5.Which of these instruments became especially important in the Romantic period?
Q6.The Romantic period lasted from about 1820 to about ...
Assessment exit quiz
6 Questions
Q1.Which of these best describes music of the Romantic period?
Q2.A short musical idea that represents a character, place, or idea is called a .
Q3.Match the genre to its description:
large-scale work for orchestra, usually in several movements
one-movement orchestral work describing a story or image
a soloist with orchestral accompaniment
Q4.Which of these composers is most associated with the Romantic piano?
Q5.When music uses notes outside the scale or key, this is called harmony.
Q6.What did composers use to tell stories through music in the Romantic period?
To help you plan your 10 music lesson on: The Romantic period, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs...
To help you plan your 10 music lesson on: The Romantic period, download all teaching resources for free and adapt to suit your pupils' needs.
The starter quiz will activate and check your pupils' prior knowledge, with versions available both with and without answers in PDF format.
We use learning cycles to break down learning into key concepts or ideas linked to the learning outcome. Each learning cycle features explanations with checks for understanding and practice tasks with feedback. All of this is found in our slide decks, ready for you to download and edit. The practice tasks are also available as printable worksheets and some lessons have additional materials with extra material you might need for teaching the lesson.
The assessment exit quiz will test your pupils' understanding of the key learning points.
Our video is a tool for planning, showing how other teachers might teach the lesson, offering helpful tips, modelled explanations and inspiration for your own delivery in the classroom. Plus, you can set it as homework or revision for pupils and keep their learning on track by sharing an online pupil version of this lesson.
Explore more key stage 4 music lessons from the The Western Classical Tradition: extended unit, dive into the full secondary music curriculum, or learn more about lesson planning.