Lecture Three -- Introduction to Romanticism 

"Full of cow-pats." Grieg, who hated and described of the music for "In the Hall of Mountain King" from Peer Gynt Suite no. 1  

There will be a quiz at the beginning of the period. Then we will try to introduce the Romantic era, not an easy task as the progression from Classicism to Romanticism is an evolutionary, not a revolutionary, one. The ultimate difference between Classicism and Romanticism has to do with expressive content, as Romantic-era composers attempted to express ever more in their music. For many Romantic-era composers, music became an inclusive art, a composite art, as they sought to paint pictures, describe increasingly complex emotions, and tell stories in purely instrumental terms. This lecture continues to briefly examine the legacy of Beethoven and the profound effect of Beethoven’s vision of music as self-expression on the music of the nineteenth century. Lastly we introduce four essential Romantic trends that will be studied in detail over the next few lectures: 1).the Romantic cultivation of heightened and personalized emotional expression; 2). Nationalism; 3). The Romantic fascination with nature, particularly the wilder aspects of nature; 4). And the Romantic fascination with the supernatural and the macabre. 

John Constable—The White Horse--1819 

Outline

 I. There are great difficulties in separating Classicism from Romanticism.

A.   There is great continuity of musical language from 1770 to 1900. 

B.  The period from the Classical era to the Romantic era marks an evolutionary, not revolutionary, change as many aspects of Classicism can be found in some of the most radical Romantic-era works. 

II.     What is meant by romanticism” or “romantic”? ( Much more on this later) 

A.   Romantic art is boundless, fantastic, and beyond the everyday. 

B.  The term was first applied to the poetry of early-nineteenth-century English poets. 

C.  Only later was it applied to the music of the nineteenth century as well. 

Ill.    Classical and Romantic music can best be distinguished in terms of their expressive content.

Musical Comparison:

Mozart, G Minor Symphony, fourth movement (1788)

Beethoven, Symphony no. 6, fourth movement, Storm’ (1808) 

A.   The Mozart G Minor Symphony is absolute music. 

B.  Beethoven’s Symphony no. 6 is descriptive (program) music.

IV.   The historical inevitability of musical Romanticism from the Baroque era to the Romantic era.

A.   Baroque opera recognized the musical validity of individual human emotion. 

B.  Classical-era homophonic forms and genres adapted the dramatic, essentially homophonic, elements of Baroque opera to the instrumental sphere. 

C.  Beethoven pushed the expressive envelope to next level—music as self-expression. The Romantic era lionized Beethoven as a heroic, god-like figure. 

D.  Ultimately, what differentiates Romantic-era music from Classical-era music is an ever-growing expressiveness—longer melodies, more complex harmonies, and bigger pianos and orchestras.

    1.  In the Classical era, form shaped expressive content.

    2.  In the Romantic era, expressive content increasingly shaped form.

 E.      In the nineteenth century, music became the “ultimate” Western art form. It is characterized by:

    1.  Heightened and personalized emotional expression and self-expression.

    2.  Increasing pictorial and literary descriptiveness.

    3.  The increasing adaptation of form to the expressive content of the music. 

V.    We will study and observe the following Romantic-era trends.

 A.   The first trend is heightened and often extreme emotional expression.

Musical Comparison:

Haydn, Symphony no. 88, first movement (1788)

Tchaikovsky, Romeo and Juliet, Love Theme, I869 (revised 1880) 

B.  The second trend is nationalism: self-expression and identification through the use of ethnic folk or folk-like music and subjects in concert works.

Musical Comparison:

Benda, Symphony in C (c. 1750) Smetana, Ma Vlast, Vlatava (1878) 

C.  The third trend is Romantic fascination with nature, particularly the wilder aspects of nature. (Remember Beethoven’s 6^th Symphony)

    1.  Europe’s population explosion during the nineteenth century was concentrated in the cities. The growing population of urbanites idealized nature.

    2.  Nature and the kinship between nature and the artist  was celebrated. 

D.    The fourth trend was Romantic fascination with the macabre, Gothic, and supernatural.

Musical Comparison:

      Franz Liszt: Mephisto Waltz No.1

      Symphony Fantastique—Next Week

VII.  Personal or self-expression in Romantic-era music. 

A.   Composers sought a “personal” sound and style. 

B.  With Beethoven, the emphasis in Western music shifted from “period” style to “personal” style.

Musical Comparison:

Corelli, Trio Sonata op. 2, no. 3, Fugue — an example of Baroque “period” music.

Beethoven, Symphony no. 5, first movement — a personal, self-referential piece of music.

       VIII. Changes in the size of the orchestra: 

The changes in orchestral forces can be shown most dramatically by comparing the Dresden Opera orchestra of 1768 with that specified by Richard Strauss (1864-1949) for a 1909 performance of his opera Electra. It is reputed that during the rehearsal Strauss was heard exhorting the orchestra: "Louder! Louder! I can still hear the singers!"  

DRESDEN OPERA ORCHESTRA OF 1768
1 Harpsichord for the Kapellmeister
1 Harpsichord for the continuo player
8 First Violins, 7 Second Violins, 4 Violas
3 'Cellos, 4 Basses
5 Oboes, 2 Flutes, 5 Bassoons, 2 Hunting Horns
Trumpets, Drums
Total: 46 pieces  

DRESDEN OPERA ORCHESTRA OF 1909 (Elektra )
8 First Violins, 8 Second Violins, 8 Third Violins
6 First Violas, 6 Second Violas, 6 Third Violas
6 First 'Cellos, 6 Second 'Cellos, 8 Basses
1 Piccolo, 3 Flutes, 2 Oboes, 1 English Horn
1 Heckelphone, 1 E-flat Clarinet, 4 B-flat Clarinets
2 Basset Horns, 1 Bass Clarinet, 3 Bassoons, 1 Contra Bassoon
4 Horns, 6 Trumpets, 1 Bass Trumpet
3 Trombones, 1 Contrabass Trombone
2 B-flat Tubas, 2 F-Tubas, 1 Contrabass Tuba
6-8 Tympani (2 players), Glockenspiel, Triangle
Tambourine, Small Drum, Birch Rod, Cymbals
Bass Drum, Tam-tam, Celesta, 2 Harps
Total: 119-121 pieces

 We continue with an historical perspective: What is Romanticism?

It is an attitude or intellectual orientation that was expressed by many works of literature, painting, music, and architecture in Western civilization over a period from the late 18th to the mid-19th century. Romanticism can be seen as a rejection of order, calm, harmony, balance, idealization, and rationality that was Classicism. It was also to some extent a reaction against the Enlightenment and against 18th-century rationalism and physical materialism in general. Romanticism emphasized the individual, the subjective, the irrational, the imaginative, the personal, the spontaneous, the emotional, the visionary, and the transcendental.

Here are some of the attitudes of Romanticism: a deepened appreciation of the beauties of nature; the senses or emotion over reason and intellect; a focus on genius or the hero; a new view of the artist as a supremely individual creator, for example Wagner, who felt that creative spirit is more important than strict adherence to rules; an interest in folk culture, and also, like Mary Shelley, an investigation of the for the exotic, the mysterious, the weird, the occult, the monstrous, the diseased, and even the satanic.

Water, water, everywhere, Nor any drop to drink. The Ancient Mariner.-- Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Literature:  

There was a new appreciation of the medieval romance, from which the Romantic movement derives its name. The romance was a tale or ballad of chivalric adventure whose emphasis on individual heroism and on the exotic and the mysterious was in clear contrast to the formality and artificiality Classical forms of literature.

Romanticism in English literature began in the 1790s with William Wordsworth, William Blake, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Wordsworth's "Preface" to the second edition of Lyrical Ballads, in which he described poetry as "the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings," became the manifesto of the English Romantic movement in poetry.

The Romantic movement in Germany was marked by a preoccupation with the mystical, the subconscious, and the supernatural. The most important of these authors was Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

Cultural nationalism caused imitation of native folklore, folk ballads and poetry, folk dance and music, and even previously ignored medieval and Renaissance works. The revived historical appreciation was translated into imaginative writing by Sir Walter Scott, who invented the historical novel. At about this same time English Romantic poetry had reached its height in the works of John Keats, Lord Byron, and Percy Bysshe Shelley.   Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, was a good example of books dealing with the supernatural, the weird, and the horrible.

Later, authors explored their nation's historical and cultural inheritance and on examining the passions and struggles of exceptional individuals or romantic situations.  Here are a few of my favorite authors; Jane Austin the Brontë sisters in England; Victor Hugo, and Alexandre Dumas in France; Alessandro Manzoni in Italy; Aleksandr Pushkin in Russia; and in pre-Civil War America such authors as Herman Melville and Edgar Allan Poe.

"Excellent ideas come to me every moment and if instead of executing them at the very moment they are clothed with the charm imagination lends them . . . one forgets, or what is worse, one no longer finds any interest in what seemed inspiring. " Eugène Delacroix

Visual arts: 

“In the 1760s and '70s a number of British artists at home and in Rome, including James Barry, Henry Fuseli, John Hamilton Mortimer, and John Flaxman, began to paint subjects that were at odds with the strict decorum and classical historical and mythological subject matter of conventional figurative art. These artists favoured themes that were bizarre, pathetic, or extravagantly heroic, and they defined their images with tensely linear drawing and bold contrasts of light and shade. William Blake, the other principal early Romantic painter in England, evolved his own powerful and unique visionary images”. In the next generation the great genre of English Romantic landscape painting emerged in the works of J.M.W. Turner and John Constable. These artists emphasized transient and dramatic effects of light, atmosphere, and colour to portray a dynamic natural world capable of evoking awe and grandeur.

In France the chief early Romantic painters were Baron Antoine Gros, who painted dramatic tableaus of contemporary incidents of the Napoleonic Wars, and Théodore Géricault, whose depictions of individual heroism and suffering in "The Raft of the Medusa" and in his portraits of the insane truly inaugurated the movement around 1820. The greatest French Romantic painter was Eugène Delacroix, who is notable for his free and expressive brushwork, his rich and sensuous use of colour, his dynamic compositions, and his exotic and adventurous subject matter, ranging from North African Arab life to revolutionary politics at home. Paul Delaroche, Théodore Chassériau, and, occasionally, J.-A.-D. Ingres represent the last, more academic phase of Romantic painting in France. In Germany Romantic painting took on symbolic and allegorical overtones, as in the works of P.O. Runge. Caspar David Friedrich, the greatest German Romantic artist, painted eerily silent and stark landscapes that can induce in the beholder a sense of mystery and religious awe”.  (see History of Art, NYU website)

Architecture:  Romanticism expressed itself in architecture primarily through imitations of older architectural styles and through eccentric buildings known as "follies." Medieval Gothic architecture appealed to the Romantic imagination in England and Germany, and this renewed interest led to the Gothic Revival.

Religion is the recognition of all our duties as divine commands.... Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.... Immanuel Kant

Philosophy:

More than anything else, the 17th and 18th centuries in Europe had been an era of discovery--a discovery not only of "new" worlds, but also of the laws of science which govern and explain the universe. It seemed that all problems of life could be and would be solved by the exercise of human Reason; that just as the orbits of the planets could be explained by application of Newton's laws, the ideal human society could be created by the reasonable application of similar laws.

Changes in philosophy swept through Europe at the beginning of the 19th century which influenced the rise of Romanticism and continued through the First World War. During the Classical Era the Declaration of Independence or Thomas Paine's Common Sense were documents that showed the highly organized, finely wrought, clearly proportioned forms of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven--especially what we call Sonata Form in its many manifestations--is a perfect musical expression of the supremacy of Reason.

By the end of the 18th century, however, people began to have less and less faith in Reason, Clarity, and Order as the most desirable qualities. In part this can be explained by disillusionment over the violent excesses of the Reign of Terror and the Napoleonic wars; in part simply as the normal ebb and flow and changing modes of human thought and expression throughout all of history. Philosophers, such as, Immanuel Kant, dared challenge the idea that Science, Sensory Perception, and Reason could determine reality and that Instinct, Imagination, Fantasy, and Emotion could often be more profound and better indicators of Truth. Also, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and his followers, such as Henry David Thoreau expressed the idea that Progress and Science were taking mankind away from its natural roots, away from the simple life in and with Nature which was ultimately the only source of human happiness. Their view of Nature as a force in itself, as a kind of lost Paradise toward which man instinctively is drawn, is a crucial element in Romanticism. [Not that Nature had not always been an important subject to artists, of all disciplines, in past ages: for example, Vivaldi, in the Four Seasons, or Beethoven, in the Pastoral Symphony. However, nature was viewed in by new 19^th century philosophers, as a mysterious and  independent of God, and an awesome and inspiring force by itself!]

People began to doubt the existence of God, or at least Objective Reality beyond the spiritual, the words "I feel" and "I imagine," or even "my intuition or instinct tells me," became more important than "I think" or "I see." Kant's influence (alongside Rousseau's) helped bring about a generation of philosophers, among them Fichte, Hegel, and later Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, who were to become, philosophical definers of the Romantic era.  

When one door closes another door opens; but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us. --Alexander Graham Bell

Science and Urban Life:

Another of the powerful new forces unleashed during the 19th century which changed the way people lived, thought, and felt--and wrote music--was actually one of the direct results of the growing knowledge of Science of the preceding centuries and of man's growing ability to control his world: the Industrial Revolution. It is enough to look at a very partial list of major technological inventions and the dates of their first use (cotton gin, galvanizing, steam engine, etc.) to see how many extraordinarily significant changes were witnessed by the first decade of the 19th century.

In 1829 the first railways were introduced in England and by 1850 most of Europe was closely connected in a way that could never have seemed possible short years before. Even more important than the enormous increase in mobility and communication was the change in lifestyle. Throughout all human history the overwhelming majority of people had lived, worked, and died in the country in a rural, agricultural existence. The 19th century saw an unprecedented and continuing growth of cities and urban life: indeed, by 1900 forty percent of Europeans lived in cities as opposed to ten percent in 1800.

As far the arts are concerned, perhaps the most significant aspect of the Industrial Revolution and the growth of urban life was the rise and eventual domination of the Middle Class. In all ages and societies the character of the arts is to a large degree determined by the society in which, and for which, they are created. This is especially true of music, a performing art, which depends on an audience for its very existence.

In earlier ages European composers had written and performed their music for a very small, well-defined group within society: for their fellow professional musicians, for the Church, for the aristocratic courts dominated by more or less music-loving noblemen--in short, for the various functions and rites of a highly formalized world. The vast majority of people had very little contact with this music, at most they might have access to simplified, popularized versions of certain works: indeed, other than traditional folk music the common people had precious little leisure time to enjoy music.

In 19th-century Europe, however, a new class began to appear, which was not of the old aristocracy nor of the Church or other official institutions, but which had the power, money and leisure to enjoy and cultivate the arts and eventually to dictate their taste and point of view. This Middle Class society had an entirely different mentality from the older, aristocratic world. They were less assured in social position, more open to new influences and fashions, generally more susceptible to change, less institutionalized, more intimate, less formal, in many ways less sophisticated, more apt to be impressed by the sensational, the exotic, and the emotionally gripping. All of this was reflected in the music of the Romantic era, an era in which the bourgeois salon largely replaced the aristocratic court as the principal theater of cultural activity.

Men, I'm getting out of Rome. Anyone who wants to carry on the war against the outsiders, come with me. I can offer you neither honours nor wages; I offer you hunger, thirst, forced marches, battles and death. Anyone who loves his country, follow me-- Giuseppe Garibaldi

Politics:

Another essential new ingredient in 19th-century Europe was the rise and extraordinarily rapid growth of Nationalism and new nations. The 1815 Congress of Vienna had created an artificial status quo which pretended to ignore the turbulence, new ideas, and sweeping changes of the Napoleonic era and return to an earlier age of well-established multi-national monarchies and empires. Though a series of revolutions which swept nearly all of continental Europe (especially in 1830 and 1848) failed to bear concrete fruit, by 1860 the face of Europe was radically and irrevocably altered by the creation of two major nation states, Italy and Germany, both formed from a mosaic of dozens of tiny city-states, federations, and former Imperial colonies and welded together by the burning flame of Nationalistic fervor. By the end of the century the remaining giant multi-national empires--Austria-Hungary, Russia, and Turkey--were disintegrating. Before the 19th century it is safe to say that the vast majority of Europeans--with the possible exception of the English and the French--had very little, if any, sense of national identity. By the end of the century, not only was nearly everyone strongly identifying himself/herself as a Pole, Serb, German, Greek, Rumanian, Czech, et al, but was seemingly ready and willing to die to establish the fact. The force of this literally unprecedented movement swept over all facets of life, certainly including music.

"Artists like Bach and Beethoven erected churches and temples on the heights. I only wanted...to build dwellings for men in which they might feel happy and at home" Grieg

"Suddenly a mist fell from my eyes and I knew the way I had to take."
Grieg, on his first meeting with a young Norwegian composer, Rikard Nordraak, 1864, decided to devote his musical career to composing in the spirit of Norwegian folk music and history

Music: (Which is what this class is about!)

Romantic Music, can very roughly. but conveniently be defined, as the period from the death of Beethoven in 1827 to the death of Mahler in 1911. Of course real history as it is lived by human beings does not divide itself so neatly; some elements of Romanticism were flourishing well before 1827 and LONG after 1911, and many strains of 20th-century music were already present before Mahler's death. Such arbitrary divisions are necessary, however, and within the larger framework of European history, this period coincides roughly with the age from the fall of Napoleon (in 1815) to the outbreak of World War I (in 1914).

Musical Romanticism was marked by emphasis on originality and individuality, personal emotional expression, and freedom and experimentation of form. Ludwig van Beethoven and Franz Schubert bridged the Classical and Romantic periods, for while their formal musical techniques were basically Classical, their music's intensely personal feeling and their use of programmatic elements provided an important model for 19th-century Romantic composers.

The possibilities for dramatic expressiveness in music were augmented both by the expansion and perfection of the instrumental repertoire and by the creation of new musical forms, such as the lied, nocturne, intermezzo, capriccio, prelude, and mazurka. The Romantic spirit often found inspiration in poetic texts, legends, and folk tales, and the linking of words and music either programmatically or through such forms as the concert overture and incidental music is another distinguishing feature of Romantic music. The principal composers of the first phase of Romanticism were Hector Berlioz, Frédéric Chopin, Felix Mendelssohn, and Franz Liszt. These composers pushed orchestral instruments to their limits of expressiveness, expanded the harmonic vocabulary to exploit the full range of the chromatic scale, and explored the linking of instrumentation and the human voice. The second phase of musical Romanticism is represented by such figures as Antonín Dvorák, Edvard Grieg, and Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky. Nationalism through music was seen in the works of the Czechs Antonín Dvorák and Bedrich Smetana and by various Russian, French, and Scandinavian composers.  The last  phase of musical Romanticism is represented by such late 19th-century and early 20th-century composers as Gustav Mahler, Richard Strauss, Sir Edward Elgar, and Jean Sibelius.

The Romantic opera in Germany began with the works of Carl Maria von Weber, while Romantic opera in Italy was developed by the composers Gaetano Donizetti, Vincenzo Bellini, and Gioacchino Rossini. The Italian Romantic opera was brought to the height of its development by Giuseppe Verdi. The Romantic opera in Germany culminated in the works of Richard Wagner, who combined and integrated such diverse strands of Romanticism as fervent nationalism; the cult of the hero; exotic sets and costumes; expressive music; and the display of virtuosity in orchestral and vocal music.  

Here is a chart of some of the important individuals the Romantic era:

Writers

Artists

Philosophers

Political Figures

People of Science and Technology

 Important events in the 19th century:

1800
Haydn, The Seasons, 1801
Beethoven, "Heiligenstadt Testament," 1802
Beethoven , Eroica Symphony, 1803
Napoleon occupies Vienna, 1805
Beethoven, Fidelio, unsuccessful performance 1805
Beethoven, Symphonies V & VI first performed, 1808
Goethe, Faust – Part I, 1808
Death of Haydn, 1809
Battle of Waterloo – Wellington defeats Napoleon, 1813
Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, 1813
Beethoven, Fidelio – successful performance, 1814
Congress of Vienna, 1814
Invention of the Metronome, 1815
Rossini, Il barbiere di Siviglia, 1816
Weber, Der Freischütz, 1821
Beethoven - Premiere of Ninth Symphony, 1824
Death of Beethoven, 1827
Death of Schubert, 1828
First performance of Berlioz, Symphonie Fantastique, 1830
Meyerbeer, Les Huguenots, 1836
Victoria crowned Queen of England, 1837
New-York Philharmonic Society formed, 1842
Wagner, Der Fliegende Holländer, 1843
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Communist Manifesto, 1848
Bach-Gesellschaft founded, 1850
Verdi, Il Trovatore and La Traviata, 1853
Liszt, Les Preludes and Faust Symphony, 1854
Henry David Thoreau, Walden, 1854
Berlioz, Te Deum, 1855
Berlioz, Les Troyens, 1858
Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species, 1859
Wagner, Tristan und Isolde, 1859
Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace, 1860
Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, 1865
Suez Canal opens, 1870
Verdi, Aida given at Cairo, 1871
Claude Monet, Impression: Soleil levant, 1874
Charles Ives born, 1874 (d. 1954)
Bizet, Carmen, 1875
Wagner, first performance of Der Ring des Nibelungen, Bayreuth, 1876
Brahms completes First Symphony, 1876
Mark Twain (1835-1910), Tom Sawyer, 1876
Death of Wagner, 1883
Metropolitan Opera House opens, New York, 1883
Gilbert and Sullivan, The Mikado, 1885
Verdi, Otello, 1887
Paris World's Fair, 1889
Dvorák, Symphony No. 9 (From the New World), 1893
Death of Brahms, 1897
Claude Debussy, Nocturnes, 1899
Arnold Schoenberg, Verklärte Nacht, 1899