That old question that always comes back to haunt

[Chaszz]

IF Goethe in his 'Sturm und Drang' period of the 1770s is considered an early Romantic poet (as I read last night in an introduction to a recent translation of his 'Faust') why cannot the Romantic tendencies in Haydn and Mozart of this period (which may have been influenced by the immense popularity of Goethe from the very beginning of his career) ALSO be considered Romantic music; AND if Goethe is considered both a Romantic and a Classicising poet, which he is, then WHY cannot Haydn and Mozart be condidered both Classicists AND early Romantics in proportion as they expressed some of each tendency; AND we all know where this train of thought is leading me... (I know that Peter will answer this with one crack of the ruler, but still......)

[This message has been edited by Chaszz (edited 06-06-2005).]

[MusicallyInclined]

Maybe the literary movement was ahead of the music one?

[Amalie]

I think Chaszz's comments are very a propos.
Goethe is very much a unique figure and whilst he spans both the classical and romantic era, and whilst it is true Faust and some of his poetry is very romantic in inspiration, I always myself feel that he was by inclination and education very much a classicist. He also lived a long time and so saw the death of the Ancien Regime and the rise of the new industrial world.
I certainly don't think that in any way that one could call Haydn a romantic when every fibre of his being belonged to the older world of political and religious certainties. You could make a case for the later Mozart, I suppose being an early romantic. But I think he really belonged to Haydn's world and he died really before the momentous events in Europe unfolded.
As I say, I think comparison with Goethe is probably a bit misleading because he is such a unique figure and musical forms are necessarily more prescriptive than literature, meaning I suppose, that it is more difficult to articulate new musical language, but then there was this chap called 'Beethoven' !!.

------------------

~ Courage, so it be righteous, will gain all things ~

[This message has been edited by Amalie (edited 06-07-2005).]

[Peter]

Originally posted by Chaszz:
IF Goethe in his 'Sturm und Drang' period of the 1770s is considered an early Romantic poet (as I read last night in an introduction to a recent translation of his 'Faust') why cannot the Romantic tendencies in Haydn and Mozart of this period (which may have been influenced by the immense popularity of Goethe from the very beginning of his career) ALSO be considered Romantic music; AND if Goethe is considered both a Romantic and a Classicising poet, which he is, then WHY cannot Haydn and Mozart be condidered both Classicists AND early Romantics in proportion as they expressed some of each tendency; AND we all know where this train of thought is leading me... (I know that Peter will answer this with one crack of the ruler, but still......)

[This message has been edited by Chaszz (edited 06-06-2005).]

It is a very good question and I think musicallyinclined has the answer! The Romantic literary movement was ahead and it served as inspiration which is why Lieder became one of the foremost expressive means of composers such as Schubert, Schumann and Brahms. Interestingly E.T.A.Hoffman did refer to Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven as 'Romantic composers', but this was without the benefit of hindsight where we can now see a different approach to tonality and form which distinguishes the next generation of composers in the early 19th century. I do accept that the terms used are far from ideal, but they do at least provide some means of classification rather than pure dates.


------------------
'Man know thyself'

[Sorrano]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but from what I recall of classroom lectures, the literary movement has always been ahead of the musical movements.

[Droell]

Originally posted by Chaszz:
IF Goethe in his 'Sturm und Drang' period of the 1770s is considered an early Romantic poet (as I read last night in an introduction to a recent translation of his 'Faust') why cannot the Romantic tendencies in Haydn and Mozart of this period (which may have been influenced by the immense popularity of Goethe from the very beginning of his career) ALSO be considered Romantic music; AND if Goethe is considered both a Romantic and a Classicising poet, which he is, then WHY cannot Haydn and Mozart be condidered both Classicists AND early Romantics in proportion as they expressed some of each tendency; AND we all know where this train of thought is leading me... (I know that Peter will answer this with one crack of the ruler, but still......)

[This message has been edited by Chaszz (edited 06-06-2005).]

This is an easy one. Literature is one man writing whatever he likes.

Music is a team effort & it's a team effort even if you're writing music for solo performer - you still have to perfect the instrument before it can be played in a more grandiose manner.

So far as an orchestra is concerned, so many things had to happen before the 5th symphony could arrive, including simply finding enough instruments of sufficient quality that could play together & not sound like a mess. There were considerable problems with ensemble, with tuning, with direction. Berlioz & Mendelssohn made significant & essential advances just in conducting, in the decades after B's death.

Then there's the matter of stylistic techniques. Beethoven's 5th (to use a well-known example) did not spring fully formed out of a bottle. It was the end result of hundreds of orchestral experiments going back to at least 1750. Beethoven was heavily indebeted to his predecessors, especially to the symphonic experiments of Haydn & Mozart (who, after all, were his neighbors in Vienna). For that matter, Mozart was on the verge of writing fully romantic music when he died. Beethoven picked up the slack, but not before he had made his own, very extensive, experiments. This was one of the secrets behind his early improvisations. He would sit, stony-faced at the piano, while the audience wept: These were experiments to him, the results of which he then incorporated into his later works. The effect the 5th has on audiences is not the result of mere chance.

To make romantic music, you need a lot of good instruments, you need a lot of trained musicians in one place at one time, you need composers with genius & experience, you need money to finance it all. All of this was available to Mozart. The only thing he lacked was time to figure it all out & make some use of the results.

Results are another interesting matter. Why does Schubert's music sound more like Haydn than Beethoven? Because Haydn's scores were in print & available for study. The parts to Beethoven's 5th & 6th symphonies were published in 1809, but the full scores were not published until 1826. This is typical: Composers held back publishing their best work so they could make money giving exclusive concerts. This continues to this day: The score of Orff's Carmina Burana is rented, not sold, as is the score of Respighi's Pines of Rome. This makes it harder for composers to learn from each other & reminds me of the story of the young Mozart copying out Palestrina from the memory of a single performance in Rome - which nearly got him & his father arrested.

So the time lag between Goethe & Beethoven can be more than accounted for. Literature is easy compared to this stuff.

[Chaszz]

Well, when I said " AND we all know where this train of thought is leading me..." I assumed that everyone would know what I meant. But of course the newer members were not here for the years-ago debates on whether or not Beethoven was a Romantic composer. The information I read on Goethe opened the issue up again for me.

As a very brief summation, I said yes on emotional grounds and Peter said no, I think (if I am not misrepresenting Peter's view) on mostly technical grounds, having a lot to do with whether in sonata form one goes into sharp keys or flat keys for the second theme and/or for the development (I am not sure which), sharp keys in the Classical and flat keys in the later 'true' Romantics. The interesting note above on gradual instrumental development would, in my view, be included under the technical heading. To my mind, this is a bit of a narrow definition of Romantic. Do any of the more recent members agree with me that in many ways Beethoven is a Romantic, if not in the narrow
technical definition?

[Peter]

Originally posted by Chaszz:
Well, when I said " AND we all know where this train of thought is leading me..." I assumed that everyone would know what I meant. But of course the newer members were not here for the years-ago debates on whether or not Beethoven was a Romantic composer. The information I read on Goethe opened the issue up again for me.

As a very brief summation, I said yes on emotional grounds and Peter said no, I think (if I am not misrepresenting Peter's view) on mostly technical grounds, having a lot to do with whether in sonata form one goes into sharp keys or flat keys for the second theme and/or for the development (I am not sure which), sharp keys in the Classical and flat keys in the later 'true' Romantics. The interesting note above on gradual instrumental development would, in my view, be included under the technical heading. To my mind, this is a bit of a narrow definition of Romantic. Do any of the more recent members agree with me that in many ways Beethoven is a Romantic, if not in the narrow
technical definition?

Just to clarify my technical points Chaszz -The main difference is the use of tonality and harmonic tension. Beethoven's opinions on the Romantic Spohr highlight the difference in approach - "Spohr is so rich in dissonances; pleasure in his music is marred by his chromatic melody." In other words Beethoven was complaining at the weakening of the tonal structure - a characteristic of early Romantic composers.




------------------
'Man know thyself'

[Chaszz]

Originally posted by Peter:
Just to clarify my technical points Chaszz -The main difference is the use of tonality and harmonic tension. Beethoven's opinions on the Romantic Spohr highlight the difference in approach - "Spohr is so rich in dissonances; pleasure in his music is marred by his chromatic melody." In other words Beethoven was complaining at the weakening of the tonal structure - a characteristic of early Romantic composers.

This makes much more sense to me as a real difference than in the misunderstanding I took away last time about whether one uses sharp or flat keys. BUT doesn't the classicist Mozart often use chromaticism? Just to check that I know what chromaticism is - I THINK it is characterized by a close sequence of ascending or descending notes of the scale including all the sharps and flats - - thus opening up the possibility of using various chords less related to the tonic and dominant than in non-chromatic music. Correct me if I am wrong, please. But if I am somewhat on the mark, then didn't Mozart often do this? Or, if he did do it, am I perhaps barking up the wrong tree in that he used chromatic runs but didn't then wander off to unwonted areas in his chord relationships?



[This message has been edited by Chaszz (edited 06-07-2005).]

[Peter]

Originally posted by Chaszz:
This makes much more sense to me as a real difference than in the misunderstanding I took away last time about whether one uses sharp or flat keys. BUT doesn't the classicist Mozart often use chromaticism? Just to check that I know what chromaticism is - I THINK it is characterized by a close sequence of ascending or descending notes of the scale including all the sharps and flats - - thus opening up the possibility of using various chords less related to the tonic and dominant than in non-chromatic music. Correct me if I am wrong, please. But if I am somewhat on the mark, then didn't Mozart often do this? Or, if he did do it, am I perhaps barking up the wrong tree in that he used chromatic runs but didn't then wander off to unwonted areas in his chord relationships?

[This message has been edited by Chaszz (edited 06-07-2005).]

Yes of course Bach, Mozart and Beethoven used chromaticism, but it was always fully integrated within a diatonic framework leaving the tonic chord as master. To see what I mean and where this new use of chromaticism was heading take the opening of the prelude to Tristan which really defies traditional harmonic analysis - it is the dissonance (always on the main beat)that Wagner concentrates on at the expense of the resolution - taken to its ultimate conclusion we arrive at the atonal music of Schoenberg.

------------------
'Man know thyself'

[Sorrano]

I don't think it's a matter of which style uses more chromatic material but how the material is handled. The classicists prepare the non-harmonic tones "properly", that is according to a set of rules, and resolved them properly. The romanticists often did not resolve the tones--or at least tended to flirt more with the sound of non-harmony in a less conventional manner.

Another major issue, for me, at least, is the breakdown of the sonata-allegro form. Of course, composers such as Brahms and Bruckner (while expanding the form) still kept the integrity of the form. Other (more romantic) composers tended more towards a freer form (I think of Liszt and his tone poems). I think of classicism as a period of balances and rules while the romantic period is of spontaneouty (pardon the spelling on that).

[Droell]

Originally posted by Sorrano:
I don't think it's a matter of which style uses more chromatic material but how the material is handled....

Another major issue, for me, at least, is the breakdown of the sonata-allegro form....

I think of classicism as a period of balances and rules while the romantic period is of spontaneouty (pardon the spelling on that).

The reason the question, "what is romantic music?" keeps coming back is because it doesn't have a musical answer. If it did, it would have been found long ago. So let's look somewhere else.

The shift from classical to romantic did not happen for the same reasons as earlier - and later - stylistic shifts.

Earlier "styles" were not all that coherent anyway. The primary factor behind style is who is paying the composer. Ornate, elaborate, formal styles were usually found with composers to princes & bishops. Shifting from one style to another was largely a matter of whim. One day a composer got out of bed & found he was too tired to write another fugue. So he decided to write something else. Or his employer got bored. Or remarried.

When composers write for a public audience, as opposed to a private or ecclesiastic one, they have always tended to write romantic music. Purcell learned a lot about writing music when he wrote for the theatre. A lot of Telemann's music is lush, to say nothing of Vivaldi. What we accept as Baroque & Classical are mainly the result of composers captured by princes & bishops with sophisticated tastes. Pre-romantic composers with independent sources of income - like Handel & Telemann - often had broader musical styles.

So no surprise that when the aristocratic life support system could no longer support the plethora of composers that succeeded Mozart, that they would go directly to the public for support. That means pop music.

Romantic, eg, pop music, started in Italy with opera. In his lifetime, opera was Mozart's biggest money-maker. One of the principal changes that marks the beginning of what is taken as "romantic" was the rise of public orchestral concerts as a compliment to popular opera.

And it's interesting to note that public orchestral concerts, once the details were worked out (eg, no 4 hour marathons with two symphonies, a concerto, a strange piece for soloists, chorus, orchestra & piano & a bunch of other minor pieces), that orchestral concerts lasted about as long as a Shakespearian play. Once you move away from songs (eg, opera), the most effective way to fill that time is with a few long works. Which means a larger orchestra, a soloist, lots of simple melodies with complex harmonies, etc.

Music has long been divided between chamber & orchestral. Orchestral music should be divided between what was meant to be played privately, and what was meant for public consumption. When this is done, the long roots of romantic music become clear.

Do I get to have "junior" after my name forever? I think I would like that.

[Sorrano]

Originally posted by Droell:

The reason the question, "what is romantic music?" keeps coming back is because it doesn't have a musical answer. If it did, it would have been found long ago. So let's look somewhere else.

Romantic, eg, pop music, started in Italy with opera. In his lifetime, opera was Mozart's biggest money-maker. One of the principal changes that marks the beginning of what is taken as "romantic" was the rise of public orchestral concerts as a compliment to popular opera.

So, you are saying that pop music is romantic music? But if you can't identify what romantic music is how do you know there was even a shift in that direction?