A Survey of Iconic Piano Compositions by Important Composers of The Romantic Era

Abstract

The Romantic Era is often referred to as a time full of strong energy and passion; music became more expressive, programmatic, and associated with literature, visual arts, and philosophy. Since the piano occupied a very important position in this period, piano music became one of the most prominent genres of that time. Some of the leading composers include Franz Schubert, Robert Schumann, Frédéric Chopin, Johannes Brahms, Franz Liszt, and Sergei Rachmaninoff, all of whom composed and published a huge number and variety of works for piano. The German romantic composer, Schumann produced piano works which were closely related to the literature of that period, and his personal struggles were reflected in his unique piano works. Schumann enjoyed writing large sets of character pieces, which were usually associated with descriptive titles and texts. Chopin, unlike Schumann, would simply designate those types of works as nocturnes, scherzos, preludes, and then gathered them into collections. The Hungarian composer Liszt created a large number of piano works including many character pieces and piano transcriptions. Liszt was not the only one who loved to transcribe other composers’ works. Both the Italian composer Busoni and the Russian composer Rachmaninoff also made many transcriptions, such as the Chaconne in D minor BWV 1004 by J. S. Bach’s, Liebesleid and Liebesfreud by Fritz Kreisler, all of which are transcribed from works for violin. Many of these works quickly achieved and maintained iconic status within the huge Romantic piano repertoire. This dissertation project consisted of three recitals by performing with performances of selected works by Robert Schumann, Frédéric Chopin, Franz Liszt, Ferruccio Busoni and Sergei Rachmaninoff. The recitals were presented at the Gildenhorn Recital Hall in the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center of the University of Maryland. Live compact disc recordings of the three recitals can be found in the Digital Repository at the University of Maryland (DRUM).