Salon music

Salon music was a popular music genre in Europe during the 19th century. It was usually written for solo piano in the romantic style, and is often performed by the composer at events known as "Salons". Salon compositions are usually fairly short and often focus on virtuoso pianistic displays or emotional expression of a sentimental character. Common subgenres of salon music are the operatic paraphrase or fantasia, in which multiple themes from a popular opera are the basis of the composition, and the musical character-piece, which portrays in music a particular situation or narrative.

Salon composers
Many popular composers wrote at least a few pieces which fall into the category of salon music. Some pianists composed only salon music, but many of these specialists have become highly obscure. The following is a list of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century composers in whose work salon music was predominant.


 * Franz Behr
 * Carl Bohm
 * Mélanie Bonis
 * Georges Boulanger (violinist)
 * Teresa Carreño
 * Ignacio Cervantes
 * Emmanuel Chabrier
 * Cécile Chaminade
 * Frédéric Chopin
 * Charles Delioux
 * Benjamin Godard
 * Louis Moreau Gottschalk
 * Alphonse Hasselmans
 * Henri Herz
 * Jean-Chrisostome Hess
 * Rudolph G. Kopp
 * Théodore Lack
 * Georges Lamothe
 * Gustav Lange
 * Désiré Magnus
 * Jules Massenet
 * Fanny Mendelssohn
 * Ignaz Moscheles
 * Moritz Moszkowski
 * Charles Oberthür
 * Joseph O'Kelly
 * Georges Pfeiffer
 * Auguste Pilati
 * Juventino Rosas
 * Julius Schulhoff
 * Martinus Sieveking
 * Sidney Smith
 * Maria Szymanowska
 * Sigismond Thalberg
 * Francis Thomé
 * Francesco Paolo Tosti
 * Paul Wachs
 * Ethelbert Nevin

Well known performers

 * Adolf Busch
 * Fritz Busch
 * Pablo Casals
 * Emanuel Feuermann
 * Jascha Heifetz
 * Paul Hindemith
 * Fritz Kreisler
 * Pablo Sarasate
 * Rudolf Serkin
 * Jacques Thibaud