17 questions · Music
In the Romantic era (roughly 1820-1900) music became the language of feeling: more passionate, more colourful, often tied to stories and images. The orchestra grew, the piano sang, and composers like Chopin, Liszt, Brahms, Wagner, Verdi, Tchaikovsky and Grieg explored the full range from tender intimacy to towering drama. This pack bundles the most famous Romantic works: waltzes and nocturnes, operatic arias and ballet music, funeral marches and triumphant overtures. A short excerpt plays and you name the work. So you don't have to sit through a long, nondescript introduction, each piece starts at its most recognisable moment; playback stops on its own after the excerpt, and the replay button lets you hear it as often as you like. Every work also comes with background, so that mere recognition turns into real knowledge. All recordings are public domain or freely licensed (Wikimedia Commons). You'll train your ear for the rich colours and grand melodies that made this the concert hall's best-loved era.
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Which piece is playing?
Foto: Karl Anderson · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
In the Hall of the Mountain King
From Grieg's Peer Gynt music: a quiet, lurking theme that builds into a frenzied, eerie dance.
💡 Did you know? Grieg himself mockingly called it something that ‘reeks of cow-pats and Norwegian chauvinism.’
Foto: Karl Anderson · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Morning Mood
The famous flute melody over gentle strings: the very image of a sunrise, though Grieg had a desert scene in mind.
💡 Did you know? The piece opens the fourth act: set not in Norway but in North Africa.
Foto: Fritz Luckhardt / Adam Cuerden · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
The Blue Danube
The waltz is famous for its swaying main theme. The recording used here is already a short excerpt.
💡 Did you know? In Vienna the waltz is seen as an unofficial anthem and traditionally rings in the New Year.
Foto: Étienne Carjat · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
William Tell Overture
The overture moves through several scenes; its famous galloping finale (the ‘cavalry charge’) comes only late: a case where the start time pays off.
💡 Did you know? The galop became world-famous through the TV western ‘The Lone Ranger.’
Foto: Louis-Auguste Bisson · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Nocturne in E-flat, Op. 9 No. 2
Chopin's most tender nocturne: a singing, richly ornamented melody over a gently rocking accompaniment.
💡 Did you know? The nocturne as a genre was invented not by Chopin but by the Irishman John Field: Chopin perfected it.
Foto: Louis-Auguste Bisson · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Funeral March
The heavy, trudging march from Chopin's 2nd piano sonata is THE funeral-music cliché.
💡 Did you know? It was played at the funerals of Chopin himself, John F. Kennedy and Winston Churchill, among others.
Foto: Albert, Joseph · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Liebestraum No. 3
Liszt's rapturous piano piece, actually a love poem set to music: a melody wreathed in rippling runs.
💡 Did you know? Liszt sparked a Europe-wide hysteria dubbed ‘Lisztomania’: a forerunner of Beatlemania.
Foto: C. Brasch, Berlin (biography) · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Hungarian Dance No. 5
Fiery, with constant tempo shifts: the most famous of Brahms's Hungarian Dances in czardas style.
💡 Did you know? Brahms presented the tunes as arrangements: a dispute over authorship promptly followed.
Foto: Franz Hanfstaengl · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Ride of the Valkyries
The storming brass ‘ride’ from Wagner's ‘Valkyrie’: the epitome of dramatic, weighty operatic music.
💡 Did you know? The film ‘Apocalypse Now’ cemented the ride as a cinema cliché.
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