Music of the Romantic Period
Code: 100639 ECTS Credits: 6| Degree | Type | Year |
|---|---|---|
| Musicology | OB | 3 |
Contact
- Name:
- Francesc d'Assis Cortes Mir
- Email:
- francesc.cortes@uab.cat
Teaching groups languages
You can view this information at the end of this document.
Prerequisites
No specific prior knowledge is required to take the course, although adequate and sufficient knowledge of music theory and harmony is desirable.
Objectives and Contextualisation
1. To identify the different trends and models that emerged in the Romantic period of music
2. To learn the technical characteristics for each movement, tendency, and model of this chronological period – in terms of composition, performance, and reception.
3. To analytically reason through musical listening regarding the main characteristics of Romantic works.
4. To be able to justify the stylistic tropes, compositional techniques and the links that unite them with the aesthetics of each period.
5. To be able to use the bibliography and musicographic sources of the aforementioned historical period with critical knowledge and scientific correctness.
Competences
- Critically analyse musical works from any of the points of view of the discipline of musicology.
- Identify and compare the different channels of reception and consumption of music in society and in culture in each period.
- Know and understand the historical evolution of music, its technical, stylistic, aesthetic and interpretative characteristics from a diachronic perspective.
- Make changes to methods and processes in the area of knowledge in order to provide innovative responses to society's needs and demands.
- Relate concepts and information from different humanistic, scientific and social disciplines, especially the interactions which are established between music and philosophy, history, art, literature and anthropology.
- Relate knowledge acquired to musical praxis, working with musicians through the analysis and contextualisation of different repertoires, both related to historical music and to the different manifestations of contemporary music.
- Students must be capable of applying their knowledge to their work or vocation in a professional way and they should have building arguments and problem resolution skills within their area of study.
- Students must be capable of communicating information, ideas, problems and solutions to both specialised and non-specialised audiences.
- Students must have and understand knowledge of an area of study built on the basis of general secondary education, and while it relies on some advanced textbooks it also includes some aspects coming from the forefront of its field of study.
- Take sex- or gender-based inequalities into consideration when operating within one's own area of knowledge.
- Use digital tools and interpret specific documentary sources critically.
Learning Outcomes
- Analysing ideas about an artistic phenomenon in a given cultural context.
- Analysing the creators of an artistic phenomenon in a specific cultural context.
- Analysing the recipients of an artistic phenomenon in a specific cultural context.
- Apply the conceptualisation of philosophy, history, literature and anthropology to musical research.
- Assess the reliability of sources, select relevant data and contrast information.
- Communicate using language that is not sexist or discriminatory.
- Consider the subject as a whole and identify the context in which the processes studied are inscribed and their interrelationship with the elements and factors that are involved in their sociohistorical development.
- Contextualise new tendencies in musical creation in general historical evolution and observe its incorporation in the sociopolitical panorama in which they are framed.
- Contextualise musical works in their hsitorical and cultural setting from a critical perspective.
- Correctly identify the essential repertoire and the main composers of each historical period.
- Critically identify the different orientations of musical praxis that musicians apply to the music of each hsitorical period.
- Define the processes of periodisation and stylistic classification and usual typology in the historical conceptualisation of the musical fact.
- Identify and critically assemble the basic bibliography that has shaped the field of study.
- Identify and critically place different musical typologies in their historical periods.
- Identify phenomena of the circulation of ideas in music proficiency.
- Identify situations in which a change or improvement is needed.
- Identify the complexity of music reception processes.
- Identify the stylistic properties of each historical period.
- Identifying the context of the historical processes.
- Identifying the specific methods of history and their relationship with the analysis of particular facts.
- Integrate knowledge acquired in the production of clear and concise appropriate to the academic and specialist communication.
- Interpret the most important theoretical texts of each period.
- Interrelate technological and scientific changes in each period with the creation and reception of music.
- Link the periods of the history of music to periods of the history of art, in their similarities and differences.
- Present knowledge about the history, art or other cultural movements.
- Produce correct, precise and clear argumental and terminological writing of knowledge acquired, both in the area of musical specialisation and dissemination.
- Propose new experience-based methods or alternative solutions.
- Recognise in musical praxis element of different cultures and different historical periods.
- Solve problems of a methodological nature in the area of musicology.
- Use specific vocabulary of history correctly.
- Use the vocabulary of musicology related to each period of history.
Content
1. Origins and significance of the concept of “Romanticism”. Periodization.
2. New determinants of the musical event: the phenomenon of genius, virtuosity, consumption and Western bourgeois society.
3. Musical language during the 19th century.
4. From the beginnings to 1830.
5. The ideological and aesthetic turn between 1830 and 1848: the romantic plenitude.
6. Late Romanticism: monumentality versus intimacy.
7. The rise of orchestral music: musical societies and the phenomenon of the concert.
8. The emergence of “peripheral” musical nationalisms.
9. The symbiosis between music and the arts at the turn of the 20th century
Activities and Methodology
| Title | Hours | ECTS | Learning Outcomes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Type: Directed | |||
| Master class | 25 | 1 | 2, 3, 1, 4, 26, 7, 9, 12, 17, 15, 25, 10, 11, 19, 20, 14, 18, 21, 22, 23, 29, 30, 31, 24 |
| Musical analysis | 13 | 0.52 | 2, 3, 1, 4, 26, 7, 9, 12, 17, 15, 25, 10, 11, 19, 20, 14, 18, 21, 22, 23, 29, 30, 31, 24 |
| Text commentary and listening | 10 | 0.4 | 2, 3, 1, 4, 26, 7, 9, 12, 17, 15, 25, 10, 11, 19, 20, 14, 18, 21, 22, 23, 29, 30, 31, 24 |
| Type: Supervised | |||
| Commentaries, lectures, listening and orchestration | 20 | 0.8 | 2, 3, 1, 4, 26, 7, 9, 12, 17, 15, 25, 10, 11, 19, 20, 14, 18, 21, 22, 23, 29, 30, 31, 24 |
| Type: Autonomous | |||
| Article reading and study | 30 | 1.2 | 2, 3, 1, 4, 26, 7, 9, 12, 17, 15, 25, 10, 11, 19, 20, 14, 18, 21, 22, 23, 29, 30, 31, 24 |
| Search for information | 37 | 1.48 | 2, 3, 1, 4, 26, 7, 9, 12, 17, 15, 25, 10, 11, 19, 20, 14, 18, 21, 22, 23, 29, 30, 31, 24 |
The course will combine theoretical and practical aspects, while ensuring a cross-cutting connection of knowledge. There will be practical activities and lectures. Individual study and work done in the classroom will also be taken into account.
Annotation: Within the schedule set by the centre or degree programme, 15 minutes of one class will be reserved for students to evaluate their lecturers and their courses or modules through questionnaires.
Assessment
Continous Assessment Activities
| Title | Weighting | Hours | ECTS | Learning Outcomes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Content Consolidation Exercises | 35% | 9 | 0.36 | 2, 3, 1, 4, 6, 26, 7, 9, 12, 17, 15, 25, 10, 11, 19, 20, 13, 14, 18, 16, 21, 8, 22, 27, 28, 23, 29, 30, 31, 5, 24 |
| Group task. Analysis and Presentation | 30% | 4 | 0.16 | 2, 3, 1, 4, 6, 26, 7, 9, 12, 17, 15, 25, 10, 11, 19, 20, 13, 14, 18, 16, 21, 8, 22, 27, 28, 23, 29, 30, 31, 5, 24 |
| Written Test | 35% | 2 | 0.08 | 2, 3, 1, 4, 6, 26, 7, 9, 12, 17, 15, 25, 10, 11, 19, 20, 14, 18, 21, 22, 23, 29, 30, 31, 24 |
To pass the course, the student must obtain an average of 5/10.
During the course, the following assessable activities will be carried out:
- A first partial exam with the theoretical content and listening sessions covered in class that will be graded up to 9/10. The remaining point will be obtained from asynchronous online content consolidation activities. This activity makes up 35% of the overall grade.
- A second partial exam with the theoretical content and listening sessions covered in class that will be graded up to 9/10. The remaining point will be obtained from asynchronous online content consolidation activities. This activity makes up 35% of the overall grade.
- Assignment (Analysis and presentation). A group assessment of 2 exercices will be required, which will involve: a symphonic orchestration of a fragment of a piano reduction, and one presentation and defence of selected works from the 19th-century repertoire. It will be graded by rubrics that will be available as soon as the work is requested. 30% of the overall mark.
In case of partial failure of the tasks, the students may only opt for the retake of 2 of the evaluation items, on the date set by the Faculty, providing that they have obtained a minimum average of 3,5/10. The maximum grade in the retake exams and tasks is a 5/10.
In the event that tests or exams cannot be taken onsite, they will be adapted to an online format made available through the UAB’s virtual tools (original weighting will be maintained). Homework, activities and class participation will be carried out through forums, wikis and/or discussion on Teams, etc. Lecturers will ensure that students are able to access these virtual tools, or will offer them feasible alternatives.
If the student delivers one of the tasks or participates in one of the written tests, this will be considered as course participation. Therefore, only the student who has not participated in any evaluation items during the course may be considered as "not assessed."
In the event of a student committing any irregularity that may lead to a significant variation in the grade awarded to an assessment activity, the student will be given a zero for this activity, regardless of any disciplinary process that may take place. In the event of several irregularities in assessment activities of the same subject, the student will be given a zero as the final grade for this subject.
SINGLE ASSESSMENT
Three evidences will be taken into account on a date that will be indicated once the course has started on the Virtual Campus: a written exam with the contents of the first part (35%), a written exam with the contents of the second part (35%), and the delivery of an analysis paper (30%). The continuos assessment system will be applied for retaking the single assessment elements.
Use of Artificial Intelligence:
For this subject, the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies is allowed exclusively in support tasks, such as bibliographic or information searches, text correction or translations. The student must clearly identify which parts have been generated with this technology, specify the tools used and include a critical reflection on how these have influenced the process and the final result of the activity. The lack of transparency in the use of AI in this assessable activity will be considered a lack of academic honesty and may lead to a partial or total penalty in the grade of the activity, or greater sanctions in serious cases. If there is no critical reflection that contrasts the suitability, or not, of the information found, it will be subtracted from the grade obtained
Bibliography
AISLING, Kenny; WOLLENBERG, Susan (ed). Women and the Nineteenth-Century Lied, Routledge, 2019.
di BENEDETTO, Renato. Historia de la música, 8. El siglo XIX, primera parte. Madrid, Turner Música, 1987.
CASARES, Emilio (ed); ALONSO, Celsa (ed). La música española en el siglo XIX. Oviedo, Servicio de Publicacions de la U. de Oviedo, 1995.
CASINI, Claudio. Historia de la música. El siglo XIX, segunda parte. Madrid, Turner Música, 1987.
DAHLHAUS, Carl. La idea de la música absoluta. Barcelona, Idea Books, 1999.
EINSTEIN, Alfred. La música en la época romántica. Madrid, AlianzaMúsica, 1986.
PLANTINGA, Leon. La música romántica. Madrid, ed. Akal, 1992.
SARSON, Jim. The Cambridge History of Nineteenth-Century Music. Cambridge University Press, 2001.
TAYLOR, Benedict. The Cambridge Companion to Music and Romanticism. Cambridge University Press, 2021.
Software
No necessary
Groups and Languages
Please note that this information is provisional until 30 November 2025. You can check it through this link. To consult the language you will need to enter the CODE of the subject.
| Name | Group | Language | Semester | Turn |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| (PAUL) Classroom practices | 1 | Catalan | first semester | morning-mixed |
| (TE) Theory | 1 | Catalan | first semester | morning-mixed |