| A Liszt performance in Berlin, 1842 By Adolf Brennglass From Märkisches Museum, Berlin |
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The early 1800s were the age of Romanticism, an artistic movement that stressed emotion, imagination, and self-expression on a heroic scale. The same period saw the rise of a new kind of performer: pianist-composers who dazzled their listeners with dramatic, emotional playing. Manufacturers produced bigger, louder, and more resonant pianos to accommodate the virtuosity of the passionate new music, and to fill the increasingly large concert halls where audiences flocked to hear it. These artists were the first musical superstars; they would not be the last. | |
| Grand Piano, 1854 Maker: Erard, London SI photograph by Robert C. Lautman |
