A historic period of Western Art music that sounds the most interesting to me, can be classified as the Romantic period (ca. 1820-1900). This period excites me the most, because industrialization and nationalism were beginning to occur at this point of time, and these were the main historical events that I have learned about throughout my school years. So it’s exciting to me to now learn about the type of music that has been distinctively played during this time period. Within the textbook, students may describe this periods type of music as it had added emotional depth into their songs. Meaning, this periods songs made people more alive and made people to start experiencing emotions from their music. For instance, there were people starting to perform as “soloists in private salons”, “in outdoor venues” and added “superhuman technique”(10) when music was being played. Moreover, during this period, artists had begun to explore “new sounds, textures, harmonies”, and even “folk melodies and rhythms”(10). In my opinion, this had made music to become more powerful and personal to its listeners. 

Furthermore, by listening to Giuseppi Verdi (1813-1901), in my opinion, his music did sound like the type of music that I had expected to hear from the Romantic period. The reason why is because while listening to one of his most famous piece called “La Traviata”, I imagined myself sitting in the opera and listening to his orchestra playing. For one, I did hear the orchestra becoming more dramatic throughout this piece, as it had stated in the textbook that during this time period, the “orchestra doubled in size”(10). Lastly, I envisioned myself to become very emotional, because his music became more dramatic and sharp when it was being played.