Romance (music)

The term romance (Spanish: romance/romanza, Italian: romanza, German: Romanze, French: romance, Russian: романс, Portuguese: romance, Romanian: romanţă) has a centuries-long history. Applied to narrative ballads in Spain, it came to be used by the 18th century for simple lyrical pieces not only for voice, but also for instruments alone. The Oxford Dictionary of Music states that "generally it implies a specially personal or tender quality".

Typically, a Classical piece or movement called a "Romance" is in triple rhythm, with three beats in the bar.

Mozart subtitled the second movement of his piano concerto no. 20 in D minor (K.466) "Romanze" and his Horn Concerto has a Romance and Rondo.

Robert Schumann was particularly fond of the title for lyrical piano pieces.

Georges Bizet's "Je crois entendre encore" from The Pearl Fishers (1863) is labelled a romance in the score.

Giuseppe Verdi's "Celeste Aida" from Aida (1871) is labelled romanza.

Lieder by Franz Schubert:

Also No. 3b of Schubert's Rosamunde is a "Romanze."

So many composers in the French tradition wrote Romances sans paroles, "Romances without words", from the 1840s onwards that the radical poet Paul Verlaine in turn published a collection of his impressionistic poems as Romances sans paroles (1874).

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