Editing Romantic music (section)

===High Romantic===
{{unreferenced section|date=November 2024}}
{{See also|Neo-romanticism|War of the Romantics}}
[[File:Richard Wagner, Paris, 1861.jpg|thumb|right|upright=0.8|[[Richard Wagner]] in Paris, 1861|alt=A photograph of the upper half of a man of about fifty viewed from his front right. He wears a cravat and frock coat. He has long sideburns and his dark hair is receding at the temples.]]
The high romanticism can be divided into two phases. In the first phase, the actual romantic music reaches its peak. The Polish composer [[Frédéric Chopin]] explored previously unknown depths of emotion in his character pieces and dances for piano. [[Robert Schumann]], mentally immersed at the end of his life, represents in person as well as in music almost the prototype of the passionate romantic artist, shadowed by tragedy. His idiosyncratic piano pieces, chamber music works and symphonies should have a lasting influence on the following generation of musicians.

[[Franz Liszt]], who came from the German minority in Hungary, was on the one hand a swarmed piano virtuoso, but on the other hand also laid the foundation for the progressive "[[New German School]]" with his harmoniously bold [[symphonic poems]]. Also committed to program music was the technique of the [[Idée fixe (music)|Idée fixe]] (leitmotif) of the Frenchman [[Hector Berlioz]], who also significantly expanded the orchestra. [[Felix Mendelssohn]] was again more oriented towards the classicist formal language and became a role model especially for [[Scandinavia]]n composers such as the Dane [[Niels Wilhelm Gade]].
In opera, the operas of [[Otto Nicolai]] and [[Friedrich von Flotow]] still dominated in Germany when [[Richard Wagner]] wrote his first romantic operas. The early works of [[Giuseppe Verdi]] were also still based on the Belcanto ideal of the older generation. In France, the [[Opéra lyrique]] was developed by [[Ambroise Thomas]] and [[Charles Gounod]]. [[Russian music]] found its own language in the operas of [[Mikhail Glinka]] and [[Alexander Dargomyzhsky]].

The second phase of high romanticism runs in parallel with the style of realism in literature and the visual arts. In the second half of his creation, Wagner now developed his [[Leitmotif|leitmotif technique]], with which he holds together the four-part [[ring of the Nibelungen]], composed without [[arias]]; the orchestra is treated symphonically, the chromaticism reaches its extreme in [[Tristan and Isolde]]. A whole crowd of disciples is under the influence of Wagner's progressive ideas, among them, for example, [[Peter Cornelius]]. On the other hand, an opposition arose from numerous more conservative composers, to whom [[Johannes Brahms]], who sought a logical continuation of classical music in symphony, [[chamber music]] and song, became a model of scale due to the depth of the sensation and a masterful [[Musical technique|composition technique]]. Among others, [[Robert Volkmann]], [[Friedrich Kiel]], [[Carl Reinecke]], [[Max Bruch]], [[Josef Gabriel Rheinberger]], and [[Hermann Goetz]] are included in this party.

In addition, some important loners came on the scene, among whom [[Anton Bruckner]] particularly stands out. Although a Wagner supporter, his clear-form style differs significantly from that of that composer. For example, the block-based instrumentation of Bruckner's symphonies is derived from the registers of the organ. In the ideological struggle against Wagner's adversaries, he was portrayed by his followers as a counterpart of Brahms. [[Felix Draeseke]], who originally wrote "future music in classical form" starting from Liszt, also stands between the parties in composition.

Verdi also reached the way to a well-composed [[Italian opera|musical drama]], albeit in a different way than Wagner. His immense charisma made all other composers fade in Italy, including [[Amilcare Ponchielli]] and [[Arrigo Boito]], who was also the librettist of his late operas Otello and Falstaff.
In France, on the other hand, the light muse triumphed first in the form of the socio-critical [[operettas]] of [[Jacques Offenbach]]. Lyrical opera found its climax in the works of [[Jules Massenet]], while in the Carmen by [[Georges Bizet]], realism came for the first time. [[Louis Théodore Gouvy]] built a stylistic bridge to German music. The operas, symphonies and chamber music works of the extremely versatile [[Camille Saint-Saëns]] were, as were the ballets of [[Léo Delibes]], more tradition-oriented. New orchestra colors were found in the compositions of [[Édouard Lalo]] and [[Emmanuel Chabrier]]. The Belgian-born [[César Franck]] was accompanied by a revival of organ music, which was continued by [[Charles-Marie Widor]], later [[Louis Vierne]] and [[Charles Tournemire]].

A specific national romanticism had by now emerged in almost all European countries. The national Russian current started by Glinka was continued in Russia by the "[[The Five (composers)|Group of Five]]": [[Mily Balakirev]], [[Alexander Borodin]], [[Modest Mussorgsky]], [[Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov]], and [[César Cui]]. More western oriented were [[Anton Rubinstein]] and [[Pyotr Tchaikovsky]], whose [[ballets]] and symphonies gained great popularity.
[[Bedřich Smetana]] founded [[Czech Republic|Czech]] national music with his operas and the Symphony poems oriented towards Liszt. The symphonies, concerts and chamber music works of [[Antonín Dvořák]], on the other hand, have Brahms as a model. In Poland, [[Stanisław Moniuszko]] was the leading opera composer, in Hungary [[Ferenc Erkel]]. Norway produced its best-known composers with [[Edvard Grieg]], creator of lyrical piano works, songs and orchestral works such as the Peer-Gynt Suite; England's voice resonated with the Brahms-oriented [[Hubert Parry]] and symphonist, as well as the comic operas of [[Arthur Sullivan]].