I know what you mean about the so-called Romantic period. A lot of big noise, heavy orchestration and heart-on-sleeve, and above all, Wagner, the biggest charlatan dead-ender of the lot. But delve a bit deeper and you find some lovely solo piano music by Schumann and late Brahms (Chopin leaves me cold but that's just me), delights-sans-lugubriousness from Mendelssohn and some sheerly beautiful orchestral music by Tchaikovsky. And his sublime Serenade for Strings. And I hope you're not counting my hero Beethoven as "Romantic." There's a clarity of vision and inventiveness, as well as wit and humour, in Beethoven that I find lacking in Berlioz, Liszt, Bruckner, Elgar, Mahler and a lot of Brahms (though his fourth symphony is a gem).