Romanticism is difficult to define in terms of a distinct historical period in music. The following chronology covers a large stretch of time broadly equivalent to the ‘long nineteenth century’ lasting from the French Revolution to the First World War, in which nearly all discussion of music and Romanticism is located. It concentrates on the period between the late 1790s and 1850, which covers both the eras usually associated with literary and artistic manifestations of Romanticism and music’s subsequent ‘Romantic generation’ of composers. After mid-century the examples given are generally more confined to music, reflecting the oft-noted sense that music’s purported ‘Romantic’ quality in this period was at variance with its surrounding culture.

1781

Mozart moves to Vienna. Kant, Critique of Pure Reason.

1782

Rousseau’s Confessions posthumously published.

1789

Outbreak of French Revolution. William Blake, Songs of Innocence.

1790

Death of Joseph II of Austria. Kant, Critique of Judgement. Goethe, Faust: A Fragment.

1791

Death of Mozart. Haydn travels to London. Thomas Paine, The Rights of Man.

1792

Beethoven, aged 21, arrives in Vienna. Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman.

1793

Execution of Louis XVI; French Revolutionary Terror.

1794

Fichte begins lecturing on the Wissenschaftslehre in Jena.

1795

Schiller, Aesthetic Education of Man, Goethe, Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship.

1796

Jean Paul, Siebenkäs.

1797

Emergence of early Romantic circle in Jena and Berlin. Wackenroder, Outpourings of an Art-Loving Friar. Coleridge writes Kubla Khan, or a Vision in a Dream. A Fragment. Birth of Schubert.

1798

Haydn, The Creation. First issue of the Athenäum published by the Schlegel brothers (six issues, until 1800). Wordsworth and Coleridge, Lyrical Ballads.

1799

Hölderlin, Hyperion. Wackenroder/Tieck, Fantasies on Art, Schleiermacher, On Religion, F. Schlegel, Lucinde. Goya, Caprichos.

1800

Novalis, Hymns to the Night. Schelling, System of Transcendental Idealism. Volta invents early form of electrical battery.

1801

Birth of Bellini. Act of Union between Great Britain and Ireland.

1802

Beethoven, Piano Sonatas, Op. 31. Chateaubriand, René. Schelling, Philosophy of Art.

1803

Birth of Berlioz. Jean Paul, Titan.

1804

Napoleon crowned Emperor of France by Pope in Rome. Beethoven, Eroica Symphony. Senancour, Obermann. Declaration of Independence in Haiti.

1805

British Navy defeats French fleet at Trafalgar. Wordsworth completes The Prelude. First volume of Des Knaben Wunderhorn published by Arnim and Brentano in Heidelberg. Birth of Fanny Mendelssohn, later Hensel.

1806

France defeats Prussia at the Battle of Jena; dissolution of Holy Roman Empire.

1807

Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit. Abolition of slave trade across British Empire.

1808

Premiere of Beethoven, Symphonies Nos. 5 & 6. Goethe, Faust, Part 1, Moore, first book of Irish Melodies.

1809

Death of Haydn. Birth of Mendelssohn. A. W. Schlegel, Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature.

1810

E. T. A. Hoffmann’s review of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. Birth of Chopin and Schumann. De Staël, On Germany. Caspar David Friedrich, The Monk by the Sea.

1811

Birth of Liszt. Luddite riots against industrialisation in English Midlands. Austen, Sense and Sensibility.

1812

Napoleon’s failed invasion of Russia. Byron, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, cantos 1 & 2. J. M. W. Turner, Snow Storm: Hannibal and his Army Crossing the Alps.

1813

Napoleon defeated in Peninsula War (cf. Beethoven’s Wellington’s Victory) and at Leipzig at the ‘Battle of Nations’. Birth of Wagner and Verdi.

1814

Field publishes first three Nocturnes; Schubert, ‘Gretchen am Spinnrade’. Scott, Waverley.

1815

Final defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo. Congress of Vienna. Schubert, ‘Der Erlkönig’, ‘Heidenröslein’.

1816

Beethoven, An die ferne Geliebte, Rossini, Il barbiere di Siviglia, Spohr, Faust.

1817

Byron, Manfred, Coleridge, Biographia Literaria.

1818

Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, vol. 1. Friedrich, The Wanderer over the Sea of Clouds. Mary Shelley, Frankenstein.

1819

Birth of Clara Schumann, née Wieck. Gericault, Raft of the Medusa. Peterloo Massacre in Manchester. Anti-Semitic Hep-Hep riots and repressive Carlsbad Decrees in German territories.

1820

Hoffmann, Life and Opinions of Tomcat Murr, Lamartine, Poetic Meditations, Shelley, Prometheus Unbound. Ørsted discovers connection between electricity and magnetism.

1821

Weber, Der Freischütz. Shelley, A Defence of Poetry. Constable, The Hay Wain. Death of Napoleon and Keats. Start of Greek War of Independence.

1822

Birth of Franck. Death of Hoffmann and Shelley.

1823

Schubert, Die schöne Müllerin.

1824

Premiere of Beethoven, Symphony No. 9. Birth of Smetana and Bruckner. Death of Byron.

1825

Mendelssohn, Octet. Opening of Stockton and Darlington Railway.

1826

Death of Weber. Mendelssohn, Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

1827

Death of Beethoven. Schubert, Winterreise. Heine, Book of Songs, Hugo, Preface to Cromwell, Delacroix, The Death of Sardanapalus.

1828

Death of Schubert. Auber, La Muette de Portici, Marschner, Der Vampyr. Paganini starts major European concert tour.

1829

Mendelssohn’s pioneering revival of Bach’s St Matthew Passion in Berlin, and journey to Scotland (inspiration for Hebrides Overture and ‘Scottish’ Symphony). Rossini, Guillaume Tell.

1830

July Revolution in Paris. Berlioz, Symphonie fantastique. Stendhal, The Red and the Black. Tennyson, first collection of Poems.

1831

Meyerbeer, Robert le diable, Bellini, La sonnambula and Norma. Faraday discovers principle of electromagnetic induction.

1832

Chopin, Nocturnes, Op. 9. Mickiewicz completes Dziady. Death of Goethe and Scott. Great Reform Act in Britain.

1833

Mendelssohn, ‘Italian’ Symphony. Birth of Brahms and Borodin.

1834

Berlioz, Harold in Italy. Schumann co-founds Neue Zeitschrift für Musik. Death of Coleridge.

1835

Chopin, Ballade No. 1, Donizetti, Lucia di Lammermoor, Schumann, Carnaval. Death of Bellini. Heine, The Romantic School, Leopardi, Canti.

1836

Meyerbeer, Les Huguenots. Cole, The Course of Empire. Dickens, The Pickwick Papers.

1837

Eichendorff, Poems. Accession of Queen Victoria to British throne. Cooke and Wheatstone patent the electric telegraph.

1839

Berlioz, Roméo et Juliette. Schubert’s ‘Great’ C major Symphony, rediscovered by Schumann, premiered under Mendelssohn’s direction. Introduction of photographic processes by Daguerre and Talbot.

1840

Gade, Echoes of Ossian Overture, Schumann, Liederkreis Op. 39, Dichterliebe. Birth of Tchaikovsky. Friedrich Wilhelm IV (‘the Romantic on the Throne’) becomes King of Prussia.

1841

Schumann, Symphonies Nos 1 & 4, Wagner, The Flying Dutchman. Birth of Dvořák.

1842

Mendelssohn, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, incidental music.

1843

Birth of Grieg. Kierkegaard, Either/Or.

1844

Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Poems. Turner, Rain, Steam and Speed – The Great Western Railway.

1845

Franz Brendel takes over Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, which becomes mouthpiece for the ‘New German School’. Merimée, Carmen.

1846

Berlioz, La Damnation de Faust. Hensel publishes first works.

1847

Death of Hensel and Mendelssohn. Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre, Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights.

1848

Revolutionary uprisings across Europe. Death of Donizetti. Liszt stops career as touring virtuoso and settles in Weimar as Kapellmeister. Founding of Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. Marx and Engels, The Communist Manifesto.

1849

Death of Chopin. Meyerbeer, Le Prophète. Wagner flees to Switzerland, pens Art and Revolution and subsequent tracts. Courbet, The Stone Breakers.

1850

Death of Wordsworth.

1851

Great Exhibition held in London’s Crystal Palace. Melville, Moby-Dick.

1853

Liszt, B minor Sonata, Verdi, Il trovatore and La traviata, Wagner begins composition of Das Rheingold. Schumann writes ‘Neue Bahnen’, promoting Brahms.

1854

Liszt introduces the term ‘symphonic poem’ to describe Les préludes. Schumann has psychological breakdown and is institutionalised. Hanslick, Vom musikalisch-Schönen.

1855

Whitman, Leaves of Grass (first version).

1856

Death of Schumann. Flaubert, Madame Bovary.

1857

Birth of Elgar. Liszt, A Faust Symphony. Baudelaire, Les Fleurs du mal.

1858

Birth of Puccini.

1859

Gounod, Faust, Wagner, Tristan und Isolde. Darwin, On the Origin of Species.

1860

Brahms and Joachim amongst four signees to a declaration objecting to Brendel and New German School. Birth of Mahler and Wolf.

1861

Unification of Italy. Start of the American Civil War.

1862

Birth of Delius and Debussy. Hugo, Les misérables.

1863

Premiere of Berlioz, Les Troyens (cut version). Helmholtz, On the Sensations of Tone.

1864

Death of Meyerbeer. Birth of Richard Strauss. Maxwell proves light is an electromagnetic wave.

1865

Birth of Nielsen, Glazunov, and Sibelius. American Civil War ends.

1866

Bruch, Violin Concerto No. 1. Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment.

1867

Opening of the Suez Canal.

1868

Grieg, Piano Concerto. Death of Rossini.

1869

Death of Berlioz. Brahms, A German Requiem. Tolstoy, War and Peace.

1870

Tchaikovsky, Romeo and Juliet fantasy-overture. Wagner, Beethoven essay. Start of Franco-Prussian War.

1871

Verdi, Aida. Eliot, Middlemarch. Unification of Germany.

1872

Mussorgsky, Boris Godunov. Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy.

1873

Birth of Rachmaninov.

1874

Bruckner, Symphony No. 4 (‘Romantic’), first version; Johann Strauss (son), Die Fledermaus; Verdi, Requiem. Birth of Schoenberg. Term ‘Impressionism’ coined to criticise Monet’s 1872 painting Impression: soleil levant.

1875

Bizet, Carmen, and death. Grieg, Peer Gynt.

1876

Premieres of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen at Bayreuth, and Brahms’s Symphony No. 1. Alexander Graham Bell patents the telephone.

1877

Thomas Edison demonstrates his new phonograph. Tolstoy, Anna Karenina.

1878

Dvořák, Slavonic Dances, Op. 46, Sullivan, H.M.S. Pinafore, Tchaikovsky, Symphony No. 4.

1879

Smetana, Má vlast.

1880

Offenbach, The Tales of Hoffmann, and death. Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov.

1881

Borodin, String Quartet No. 2.

1882

Wagner, Parsifal.

1883

Death of Wagner. Bruckner Symphony No. 7.

1885

Brahms, Symphony No. 4, Dvořák, Symphony No. 7.

1886

Franck, Violin Sonata. Death of Liszt.

1888

Franck, Symphony in D minor, Rimsky-Korsakov, Scheherazade. Nietzsche, The Case of Wagner. Strindberg, Miss Julie.

1889

Premieres of Mahler, Symphony No. 1, and Strauss, Don Juan. Tolstoy, The Kreutzer Sonata.

1890

Mascagni, Cavalleria rusticana. Death of Franck.

1891

Brahms, Clarinet Quintet. Hardy, Tess of the d’Urbervilles, Ibsen, Hedda Gabler.

1892

Leoncavallo, Pagliacci, Sibelius, En saga.

1893

Dvořák, Symphony No. 9 (‘From the New World’); Tchaikovsky, Symphony No. 6 (Pathétique), and death; Verdi, Falstaff.

1894

Beach, Gaelic Symphony, Debussy, Prélude à L’après-midi d’un faune, Dvořák, Cello Concerto. Beginning of Dreyfus affair in France.

1895

Rachmaninov, Symphony No. 1. Lumière brothers patent their cinématographe and screen first public films. Röntgen discovers X-rays. Trial of Oscar Wilde.

1896

Mahler, Symphony No. 3, Puccini, La bohème. Death of Bruckner and Clara Schumann. Marconi patents radio transmitter.

1897

Death of Brahms. Vienna Secession co-founded by Klimt. Tolstoy, What Is Art?

1898

Coleridge-Taylor, Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast. Rodin’s Monument to Balzac rejected. Zola publishes J’accuse.

1899

Elgar, Enigma Variations, Joplin, Maple Leaf Rag, Schoenberg, Verklärte Nacht. Yeats, The Wind Among the Reeds. Freud, Interpretation of Dreams.

1900

Elgar, The Dream of Gerontius, Puccini, Tosca.

1901

Rachmaninov, Piano Concerto No. 2. Death of Verdi. Thomas Mann, Buddenbrooks. Death of Queen Victoria.

1902

Debussy, Pelléas et Mélisande, Mahler, Symphony No. 5, Sibelius, Symphony No. 2. Klimt, Beethoven Frieze.

1903

Wright Brothers achieve first manned powered flight.

1904

Delius, Sea Drift, Puccini, Madama Butterfly. Death of Dvořák.

1905

Debussy, La Mer, Lehár, The Merry Widow, Strauss, Salome. Einstein, Special Theory of Relativity. Russo-Japanese War ends in victory for Japan.

1906

Ives, Central Park in the Dark, Smyth, The Wreckers.

1907

Rachmaninov, Symphony No. 2. Death of Grieg. Picasso, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon.

1908

Elgar, Symphony No. 1, Mahler, Das Lied von der Erde, Rachmaninov, The Isle of the Dead, Scriabin, Poem of Ecstasy, Schoenberg, String Quartet No. 2.

1909

Albéniz, Iberia, Mahler, Symphony No. 9, Schoenberg, Erwartung.

1910

Strauss, Der Rosenkavalier, Stravinsky, The Firebird, Vaughan Williams, Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis.

1911

Elgar Symphony No. 2, Nielsen Symphony No. 3, Sibelius Symphony No. 4. Death of Mahler. Amundsen beats Scott to South Pole.

1912

Bartók, Bluebeard’s Castle, Ravel, Daphnis et Chloé.

1913

Riots at premieres of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring in Paris, and at Berg’s Altenberg Lieder in Vienna. Proust, Swann’s Way.

1914

Outbreak of First World War.