How do lovers of the romantic era judge the music of that time?
Johann Strauss was ‘the waltz king.’ Well-crafted music meant to be popular more than serious art music. It is the whipped cream confection of the romantic era. Richard Strauss was a very late romantic composer with a some modern tendencies. He lived well into the 20th century but is not considered a truly ‘modern’ composer. (ditto Sibelius, Rachmaninov). By no stretch of the imagination is Stravinsky considered a romantic composer. You are misinformed on this point. Stravinsky is considered by many to hold a similar position in music history in the 20th century that Bach holds for the 18th century. From your list, Beethoven is a classical era composer and all his music, even the later work with its ‘romantic’ tendencies, is classical. To be very general, any piece of music that ‘works’ is to be considered successful. This is as true of a pop song or a Strauss Waltz as it is for a Beethoven string quartet or the Webern sonata for ‘Cello. The rest of what determines the ‘worth’ of a pie
