With lively text and historically accurate full-color illustrations, this handsome volume reviews the most important aspects of nineteenth-century European Romanticism in music and the other arts. Young readers discover how one of the era's greatest composers and pianists, Frédéric Chopin, related to the many other major figures of this important movement, and they find out how and why he composed music in a radically new style. They learn about the evolution of the piano as Romantic music's single most important instrument. Readers are also introduced to the ideas that inspired art songs (or lieder), the craft of piano construction, salon music, the development of music conservatories, and much more. Here is a vivid picture, not only of an outstanding composer, but also of a fascinating era in music and art.
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Born near the Polish capital of Warsaw in 1810, Chopin was recognized from childhood as a musical genius. He developed rapidly as a piano virtuoso, and by 1831 he'd settled in Paris, which was then Europe's most important center for the new wave of Romantic artists, writers, and musicians. Chopin composed some of the most important piano music of all time, including his Nocturnes, Mazurkas, Ballades, Polonaises, and other important pieces in various Romantic forms. Afflicted with tuberculosis, Chopin spent much of his adult life in poor health. He died in Paris in 1849.
Chopin and Romantic Music
This volume explores the fascinating development of Romanticism-a movement that swept through the European arts during much of the nineteenth century and bred major figures in music, painting, and poetry. Focusing on Chopin as a central figure in the Romantic arts, this fascinating chronicle touches on the lives and works of his predecessors, contemporaries, and followers. Romantic composers include Schubert, Berlioz, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Liszt, Wagner, Brahms, and many others.
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