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1/11/2015 Print Romanticism (music) Table of Contents How to Cite This Article Romanticism, in music, a comprehensive term defying strict chronological assignment. Throughout history, Classicism and Romanticism, despite incompatible philosophies, have alternated, overlapped, and coexisted. Romanticism, however, unlike Classicism, is neither an ideology nor a school. Other eras are identified by elements and characteristics that constitute style, but the Romantic period cannot properly be identified as a style or an isolated movement. Although it possesses certain easily determined characteristics, these are found in the music of other eras as well. A study of some 40 Romantic composers and their works discloses extreme variance in range and intensity among their individual romanticisms. To a degree, however, all seem to have had in common a manifest determination to hear "a different drummer" (Thoreau). The Romanticist demands maximal and optimal involvement of self. He resolutely affirms the validity of personal experience, feeling, imagination, introspection, and judgment. He exalts the senses and emotions. His outpourings vary from gentle lyricism to overwhelming passion. He enjoys the celebration of nature, rhapsodizes freedom of spirit and action, and delights in the whimsical, improbable, fabulous, and allegorical. He is fascinated by legend, folklore, mythology, medievalism, and demonology. He is absorbed with heroism, idealism, fate, agony, ecstasy, damnation, redemption, and apotheosis. He identifies more readily with the sentimental than with the rational. Refusing to subordinate content and feeling to Classical forms or to formal method, the Romantic composer embraces free expression and originality. He experiments with form, rebels against strict adherence to traditional rules, and applauds irregularity and diversity of treatment. Above all, he champions personalism —the ultimate value and reality of the individual. Finally, the Romantic composer reveals his—or the performing artist's—own personality. History Romanticism dawned as a movement in Europe toward the end of the 18th century and intensified during the second quarter of the 19th. During the 19th century, conservatories were established to improve the quality and quantity of trained musicians. Improvement in manufacturing techniques resulted in the production of instruments in greater abundance at lower cost. Orchestral resources were augmented by the inclusion of untraditional instruments, innovative orchestration, and the development of valved brass instruments that could execute passages previously impossible to play. No achievement of the era was of greater significance to composers, performers, and audiences than the advancement of the piano to preeminence among solo instruments. By 1830 the piano had reached substantially its present state. Pedals added new sonority and harmonic richness. With increased volume and the capability of delivering delicate contrasts in color and shading, the piano could meet every challenge to musicianship and virtuosity in the literature. Knowledgeable audiences clamored for firsthand contact with renowned personalities communicating an increasing repertoire of Romantic concert music through this versatile, personal instrument. By the 1880s, Romantic music had reached almost a point of surfeit, though a number of postRomantics continued to compose well into the 20th century. By 1915, however, Romanticism as a movement was exhausted and decadent, though it remains a continuing influence. Program Music A major development in the Romantic era was the evolution of instrumental program music, in which the composer, through literary or pictorial associations, suggests extramusical ideas, images, impressions, or emotional states. The 19th century produced four types of program music. http://go.grolier.com/print?id=033573000&type=0ta&product_id=ea&authcode=eafull 1/4 1/11/2015 Print 1. The program symphony, retaining the multimovement form of the classical symphony, employs a unifying idea throughout the work. Beethoven in his hymn to nature, the Sixth Symphony (1808; Pastoral), provided intimations of a new genre by describing each of the five movements according to the scene it portrays. The program symphony reached its consummate expression in Hector Berlioz' Symphonie fantastique (1830), in which he initiated an extended melodic theme he called the idée fixe ("fixed idea"). Berlioz, perhaps the most daringly original composer of all time, developed the modern symphony orchestra and was the first of the virtuoso conductors. 2. The concert overture, derived from the opera overture, is a descriptive work in one movement employing the classical sonataallegro design. The bestknown examples are two overtures by Felix Mendelssohn—A Midsummer Night's Dream (1826) and The Hebrides (1832)—and Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky's overturefantasy Romeo and Juliet (1869, revised 1881). 3. Incidental music, usually an overture and a succession of shorter segments, is designed to accompany various scenes of a play or to serve as entr'actes. If the overture is in sonataallegro form and suitable for performance as a concert piece apart from the play, it may be classified also as a concert overture. Beethoven's music after Goethe's Egmont (1810) is a pioneer of incidental music. Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night's Dream, which includes the overture mentioned above and 12 segments added in 1842, is a prime example of incidental music. Others include Edvard Grieg's two suites from the music for Ibsen's drama Peer Gynt (1876). 4. The symphonic poem, or tone poem, conceived by Franz Liszt, is the 19th century's only original contribution to the large musical forms. Like the concert overture it is a one movement work, but its form is freer, and its flexibility permits its being shaped according to the literary idea that inspired it. Liszt called the short, incisive themes "germmotives." Modified by transformation, the germmotives supply the unifying element of the story. The best known of Liszt's 13 symphonic poems is Les Préludes (1850). Other celebrated examples are Claude Debussy's Prélude à l'aprèsmidi d'un faune (1894) and Paul Dukas' L'Apprenti sorcier (1897). The halfdozen masterpieces of Richard Strauss, such as Also sprach Zarathustra (1896), represent the full maturity of this genre. Composers Ludwig van Beethoven, who bridges the Classical and Romantic eras, provides early examples of Romanticism in several of his piano sonatas. He did not suggest all the epithets by which they are identified, but their romantic subtitles indicate a measure of the programmatic response from those who first heard them. Pathos, passion, and love of nature became personal revelation and communication in Beethoven's Pathétique (1799), Moonlight (1800), Pastoral (1801), Appassionata (1804), and Farewell, Absence, and Return (1809). In addition to the Pastoral Symphony and Egmont Overture, Beethoven explored Romanticism in such other overtures as Prometheus (1801), the two Leonore overtures for his only opera, Fidelio (1805, 1806), and Coriolan (1807). Franz Schubert's luminous Romanticism is reflected in his instrumental music—in the lyrical flow of unsurpassed melodies, radiant orchestral colorings and sonorities, unique orchestration of woodwinds and brasses, and ability to make the instruments sing. His noblest contribution is the elevation and transformation of song, especially the folk song, into a great vehicle of musical expression, the art song. This music was nurtured by lyric poetry, a distinguishing mark of German Romanticism, beginning with Goethe. Although many of Schubert's songs follow traditional strophic form (employing the same music for several stanzas), he introduced a style called durchkomponiert ("throughcomposed"), in which the music changes according to the story line, seeking expression of every shade of meaning in the text. The piano http://go.grolier.com/print?id=033573000&type=0ta&product_id=ea&authcode=eafull 2/4 1/11/2015 Print accompaniment, far exceeding its traditional role of melodic and harmonic support, establishes the mood in the introduction and then paints a vivid background in close conjunction with the words. The result is perfect balance, coherence, and unity in the wedding of music and poetry. After Schubert the most important composers of songs were Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms, Grieg, Hugo Wolf (whose works stand as possibly the highwater mark in song literature), and Gustav Mahler. Richard Strauss' best songs, the product of his earlier years, rank among the greatest in artsong literature. The instrumental counterpart of the art song is the short lyric character piece for the piano. Beethoven's bagatelles (1782–1802) are among the earliest examples. Programmatic titles used by various Romantic composers include romance, nocturne, impromptu, intermezzo, capriccio, moment musical, album leaf, song without words, waltz, polonaise, mazurka, prelude, novelette, march, polka, country dance, and (of larger proportion) ballade and rhapsody. Masters of such character pieces are Schubert, Mendelssohn, Frédéric Chopin, Schumann, Liszt, and Brahms. Chopin is the greatest composer for a single instrument—the piano. Brahms' transcendent choral and chamber music and his works in the larger forms—symphonies, concertos, and choralorchestral masterpieces, including Ein deutsches Requiem (1857–1868)—place him in the vanguard. Anton Bruckner was a religious mystic whose profound sacred works and symphonies reflect Austrian Catholic traditions. Camille SaintSaëns is best known for the C Minor Symphony for organ (1886); the fanciful Carnaval des animaux (1886), featuring two pianos; and the grand opera Samson et Delilah (1868– 1877). Charles Gounod's Faust, a French lyric opera, is said to be performed more than any other opera. Bedřich Smetana was the founder of Czech nationalism in music. His most celebrated work, the symphonic poem Vltava (1874; The Moldau), epitomizes love of country. All his music is programmatic, and some of it is autobiographical. Opera composers of signal importance include Carl Maria von Weber, who wrote the first Romantic opera, Der Freischutz (1821), and Giacomo Meyerbeer, who helped stabilize the grand opera format. The foremost Italian opera composers of the early Romantic era were Gaetano Donizetti, Vincenzo Bellini, and Gioacchino Rossini. Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia (1816) remains one of the most popular comic operas. Mikhail Glinka led the movement toward Russian nationalistic music with his opera Ruslan and Lyudmila (1842). He laid the foundation for a later group of Russian composers, the "Mighty Five"—Aleksandr Borodin, César Cui, Miri Balakirev, Modest Mussorgsky, and Nikolai RimskyKorsakov. Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov, first performed in 1874, is a masterpiece of musical theater. Richard Wagner was the greatest composer of symphonic opera. His innovations include continuous narrative; the use of leitmotiv, a concise musical figure symbolizing an object, character, place, or idea; making the orchestra the unifying element in the opera; and taking chromatic harmony to its highest point. Giuseppe Verdi, the most prolific of the later Italian opera composers, opposed Wagner's concept of orchestral supremacy, holding fast to the Italian ideal of the singers' opera. Though most of his operas are tragedies in the grand manner, his masterpiece and last work is the comic opera Falstaff (1893). Other Romantic composers include César Franck, the greatest composer of French instrumental music in the last half of the 19th century, and Georges Bizet, who wrote the masterpiece of French lyric drama, Carmen (1875), with its exotic Spanish rhythms and idioms. Tchaikovsky was the greatest of the Russian symphonists. Antonín Dvořák, the Bohemian nationalist, observed the forms and traditions of Beethoven, Schubert, and their disciple Brahms, while filling his compositions with the melody, rhythm, and color of Czech folk music. He is best known for the symphony From the New World (1893). PostRomantic Era Romantics The music of Giacomo Puccini, a successor to Verdi, flows with lyric charm and warm sentiment. His greatest operas include La Bohème (1896), Tosca (1900), Madama Butterfly (1904), the oneact comic opera Gianni Schicchi (1918), and his most polished score, Turandot, which lacked only the finishing touches when he died in 1924. http://go.grolier.com/print?id=033573000&type=0ta&product_id=ea&authcode=eafull 3/4 1/11/2015 Print Debussy, the great impressionist composer, achieved exquisite effects through subtle, exotic harmonies, rhythms, and haunting melodies. He established the French song as a national art form. The early works of Finland's Jean Sibelius are in the Romantic tradition. The Swan of Tuonela (1893), inspired by the Finnish epic the Kalevala, and the symphonic poem Finlandia (1899) breathe the spirit of Finnish nationalism. The Russianborn Sergei Rachmaninoff wrote music of rich emotional content, as in the C Minor Piano Concerto (1901), echoing in the 20th century the melancholy Russian soul. Lara G. Hoggard University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill How to cite this article: MLA (Modern Language Association) style: Hoggard, Lara G. "Romanticism (music)." Encyclopedia Americana. Grolier Online, 2015. Web. 11 Jan. 2015. Chicago Manual of Style: Hoggard, Lara G. "Romanticism (music)." Encyclopedia Americana. Grolier Online http://ea.grolier.com/article?id=033573000 (accessed January 11, 2015). APA (American Psychological Association) style: Hoggard, L. G. (2015). Romanticism (music). Encyclopedia Americana. Retrieved January 11, 2015, from Grolier Online http://ea.grolier.com/article?id=033573000 ™ & © 2015 Scholastic Inc. All rights reserved. http://go.grolier.com/print?id=033573000&type=0ta&product_id=ea&authcode=eafull 4/4