The Romantic Period – Sheet Music & Scores

The turn of the 19th century saw the dawn of Romanticism. This artistic and cultural movement was constantly striving for new ideas and new beginnings, during a particularly turbulent time in social, political and natural history. Browse our sheet music and scores, and explore all the romantic masters and their works today.

Programme Music

The reason and order of the classical period were balanced out in the romantic period by emotion and imagination. The word romanticism is derived from the French literary terms roman and romantique. Programme music uses melodies and instrumental colours to tell a story, to take the listener on a musical journey. The most prominent of all program music is undoubtedly the symphonic poem, created, explored and developed by composers such as Franz Liszt and Bedřich Smetana.

Musical Elements of Romanticism

Compared to the Classical Period, the melodies of the romantic period became less and less regular and symmetrical, and the harmony more and more chromatic and dissonant. As the romantic period progressed, the possibilities of traditional tonality became more and more exhausted, and the beginning of the 20th century saw the departure from classical structure and form, and the movement towards modern and contemporary classical music.

In order to broaden the sound palate which set the mood and atmosphere for the romantic period, new instruments began to appear in the orchestra, and voices began to be deployed, choirs and soloists began to be introduced into traditional instrumental works. Throughout the 19th century, the fashion was expansion, both in music for Symphony Orchestra and in Choral Music, the forces grew and grew, far beyond the imagination of any of the classical composers of the previous century.

Romantic & Verismo Opera

In the 19th century, Opera flourished, be it Italian verismo, French "Grand Opera", or Wagner’s new world of music theatre. The most important opera composers of the 19th century were Giacomo Meyerbeer, Gioacchino Rossini, Gaetano Donizetti, Vincenzo Bellini, Jacques Offenbach, Richard Wagner and Giuseppe Verdi.

Important composers of the Romantic Period

• Franz Schubert – Sheet Music
• Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy – Sheet Music
• Frédéric Chopin – Sheet Music
• Johannes Brahms – Sheet Music
• Bedřich Smetana – Sheet Music
• Franz Liszt – Sheet Music
• Hector Berlioz – Sheet Music
• Anton Bruckner – Sheet Music
• Modest Mussorgsky – Sheet Music
• Nikolai Rimski-Korsakow – Sheet Music
• Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky – Sheet Music
• Antonín Dvořák – Sheet Music
• Jean Sibelius – Sheet Music
• Gustav Mahler – Sheet Music
• Sergei Rachmaninow – Sheet Music