page_title: Music of Germany
section_title: Romantic era
hierarchical_section_title: Music of Germany / Classical music / Romantic era
caption_attribution_description: English: Richard Wagner, Munich Slovenščina: Nemški skladatelj sl:Richard Wagner (okrog leta 1871).
context_page_description: Germany claims some of the most renowned composers, singers, producers and performers of the world. Germany is the largest music market in Europe, and third largest in the world.
  German classical music is one of the most performed in the world; German composers include some of the most accomplished and popular in history, among them Johann Sebastian Bach, Georg Friedrich Händel, Ludwig van Beethoven, Felix Mendelssohn, Johannes Brahms, Robert Schumann and Richard Wagner. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was among the composers who created the field of German opera. One of the most famous film score composers is Hans Zimmer.
  German popular music of the 20th and 21st century includes the movements of Neue Deutsche Welle, Disco, Metal/Rock, Punk, Pop rock and Indie. Famous female singers were Marlene Dietrich and Hildegard Knef. German Electronic music gained global influence, with Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream being pioneer groups in this genre. The Electro and Techno scene being internationally popular with Paul van Dyk and Scooter.
  Germany hosts many large rock music festivals. The Rock am Ring and Rock im Park festival is among the largest in the world.
context_section_description: The following century saw two major German composers come to fame early—Ludwig van Beethoven and Franz Schubert. Beethoven, a student of Haydn's in Vienna, used unusually daring harmonies and rhythm and composed numerous pieces for piano, violin, symphonies, chamber music, string quartets and an opera. Schubert created a field of artistic, romantic poetry and music called lied; his lieder cycles included Die schöne Müllerin and Winterreise.
  Franz Schubert was extremely prolific during his lifetime. His output consists of over six hundred secular vocal works (mainly Lieder), seven complete symphonies, sacred music, operas, incidental music and a large body of chamber and piano music. He is ranked among the greatest composers of the late Classical era and early Romantic era.
  Early in the 19th century, a composer by the name of Richard Wagner was born. He was a "Musician of the Future" who disliked the strict traditionalist styles of music. He is credited with developing leitmotivs which were simple recurring themes found in his operas.
  Carl Maria von Weber was a composer, conductor, pianist, guitarist and critic, one of the first significant composers of the Romantic school. His operas Der Freischütz, Euryanthe and Oberon greatly influenced the development of the Romantic opera in Germany. Felix Mendelssohn was a composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early Romantic period. He was particularly well received in Britain as a composer, conductor and soloist. He wrote symphonies, concerti, oratorios, piano music and chamber music. Robert Schumann was a composer and influential music critic. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest composers of the Romantic era. Schumann's published compositions were written exclusively for the piano until 1840; he later composed works for piano and orchestra; many Lieder (songs for voice and piano); four symphonies; an opera; and other orchestral, choral, and chamber works. Johannes Brahms honored the music pioneered by Mozart and Beethoven and advanced his music into a Romantic idiom, in the process creating bold new approaches to harmony and melody.
  The later 19th century saw Vienna continue its elevated position in European classical music, as well as a burst of popularity with Viennese waltzes. These were composed by people like Johann Strauss the Younger. Richard Strauss was a leading composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems. Strauss, along with Gustav Mahler, represents the late flowering of German Romanticism after Richard Wagner, in which pioneering subtleties of orchestration are combined with an advanced harmonic style.
caption: Richard Wagner
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