as for you fabrizio, a composer that is somewhat like beethoven in that "in between" period of classical and romanticism, I would say mendelssohn is in there. He helped spark the romantic period just like beethoven, and yet most of his music is fundamentally pretty classical like, if not even resembling some of Bach`s work.

The discussion earlier about chopin and Liszt, well, I don`t know much of liszt`s works, although I know he was quite the extraordinary pianist, but Chopin was the best piano composer of the 19th century in that he was so resourceful, so original, and made such an impact on the musical world following his lifetime that this fact can`t be denied.

I sincerely consider Mendesslohn as a romantic composer and not as Beethoven "in between" the previous period. Anyway, it is true that his style is more "clean" and "linear" than the typical romantic composer like Chopin, Liszt, Brahms and many others.

About Chopin, he was the first composer introducing "free-little" cadenzas inside the compositions and actually he began to broke the tradition of the "quadratura" (I don`t know how to say in English) of the 4+4 bars musical period... he was really a pioneer like Beethoven was.

Thank you for your discussions!

Sincerely,
Fabrizio.

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