The Humanistic Tradition, Book 5 Romanticism, Realism, and the Nineteenth-Century World

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The Romantic Ballet

64 CHAPTER 29 The Romantic Style in Art and Music

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In his brief lifetime—he died of tuberculosis at the age

of thirty-nine—Chopin created an entirely personal musi-

cal idiom linked to the expressive potential of the modern

piano. For the piano, Chopin wrote over 200 pieces, most

of which were short keyboard works, such as dances,

préludes, nocturnes (slow, songlike pieces), impromptus

(pieces that sound improvised), and études(instrumental

studies designed to improve a player’s technique). His

Etude in G-flat Major, Opus10, No. 5, is a breathtaking

piece that challenges the performer to play very rapidly on

the black keys, which are less than half the width of the

white ones.

Much like Delacroix, Chopin was given to violent mood

swings. And, as with Delacroix’s paintings, which though

carefully contrived give the impression of spontaneity,

much of Chopin’s music seems improvised—the impetuous

record of fleeting feeling, rather than the studied product of

diligent construction. The most engaging of his composi-

tions are marked by fresh turns of harmony and free tempos

and rhythms. Chopin might embellish a melodic line with

unusual and flamboyant devices, such as a rolling arpeggio

(the sounding of the notes of a chord in rapid succession).

His préludesprovide bold contrasts of calm meditation and

bravura, while his nocturnes—like the Romantic land-

scapes of Friedrich and Corot (see Figures 27.7 and

27.11)—are often dreamy and wistful. Of his dance forms,

the polonaise and the mazurka preserve the robustness of

the folk tunes of his native Poland, while the waltz mirrors

the Romantic taste for a new type of dance, more sensuous

and physically expressive than the courtly and formal min-

uet. Considered vulgar and lewd when it was introduced in

the late eighteenth century, the waltz, with its freedom of

movement and intoxicating rhythms, became the most

popular of all nineteenth-century dances.

The theatrical artform known as “ballet” gained immense

popularity in the Romantic era. While the great ballets of

Tchaikovsky—Swan Lake, The Nutcracker, andSleeping

Beauty—brought fame to Russia toward the end of the

1800s, it was in early nineteenth-century Paris that

Romantic ballet was born. By the year 1800, ballet had

moved from the court to the theater, where it was enjoyed

as a middle-class entertainment. Magnificent theaters, such

as the Paris Opéra (Figure 29.18), designed by Jean-Louis

Charles Garnier (1825–1878), became showplaces for

public entertainment.

The Neobaroque polychrome façade of the Paris opera

house reflects Garnier’s awareness that Greek architects

had painted parts of their buildings; but the glory of the

structure is its interior, which takes as its focus a sumptuous

grand staircase (Figure 29.19). Luxuriously appointed, and

illuminated by means of the latest technological invention,

Figure 29.18 JEAN-LOUIS CHARLES GARNIER, the façade of the Opéra,

Paris, 1860–1875. The 2200-seat theater is now used primarily for the production

of ballets. Both in its exterior design and in its lavish interior, it recalls the

palace of Versailles. The swampy foundation and underground lake that had to

be pumped out during the building’s construction were made famous in the

See Music Listening Selections at end of chapter. French novel The Phantom of the Opera(1909) by Gaston Leroux.