The classic romantic beethoven

[orpheus]

Originally posted by Chaszz:
But Romanticism was late getting to music and was lready pretty well-established in German and English literature by the time Beethoven matured (say, around 1803), and needed only to be transplanted to music and painting. Beethoven need not have anticipated anything in terms of the general esthetic, philosophical and emotional environment, which was already Romantic among the younger people by the time he sat down to write the Eroica.

Actually I disagree. But this will very quicly degenerate into a semantic argument if we are not careful, arguuing about what "romanticism" is or is not. But anyway, Charles Rosen in his book "The Romantic Generation" gives a very convincing argument that romanticism actually began in music. He shows that it was music's indefinability that opitmomised romantic ideals, and this had a huge influence on the austro-german romantic movement. But of course the term "romantic" was used by Beethoven's contempories to mean something else again, that's where the semantic danger rears its ugly head time after time!

[Ahmad]

Originally posted by Joy:
In the many books I've read on Beethoven this subject always seems to be split right down the middle. Some authors see him as strictly classical with classical forms and others as a romantic-classical or even just plain romantic! Musically he seems to be strictly classical, but some of his ideas seem to be somewhat belonging to the romantic era, am I right??

I agree with you Joy...

[Chaszz]

Originally posted by orpheus:
Actually I disagree. But this will very quicly degenerate into a semantic argument if we are not careful, arguuing about what "romanticism" is or is not. But anyway, Charles Rosen in his book "The Romantic Generation" gives a very convincing argument that romanticism actually began in music. He shows that it was music's indefinability that opitmomised romantic ideals, and this had a huge influence on the austro-german romantic movement. But of course the term "romantic" was used by Beethoven's contempories to mean something else again, that's where the semantic danger rears its ugly head time after time!

Yes, and as Peter has said, Haydn composed music that could, emotionally, be classified as romantic, but is would not be accurate to call him a Romantic composer. And there was the Sturm and Drang movement in German literature in the 1770s and 80s. But Romanticism as a distinct
movement is frequently dated from the poetry that Wordsworth and Coleridge were writing and publishing in 1798 as 'Lyrical Ballads'.
This predates its characteristic masters in music and painting.

[Rod]

Originally posted by Marta:
Hi Rod.

Of course, nothing in this world is isolated, everything is interconnected.
But what Peter wanted to express is that every great composer uses the elements of music (form, harmony, rhythm, melody) to express their subjective artistic creativity in a very personal and individualistic way, and also each had different things to express according to their personal inner world. I think this is why even the great composers from the same period don't sound the same. Each is unique.

Marta

I define Romantic as music that has the following roughly defined characteristics: overt sentimentality; tendancy towards the melodramatic; superficiallity, self indulgence. Using these criteria it is possible for me to class many composers as Romantic, but not Beethoven.


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"If I were but of noble birth..." - Rod Corkin

[Marta]

Originally posted by Rod:
I define Romantic as music that has the following roughly defined characteristics: overt sentimentality; tendancy towards the melodramatic; superficiallity, self indulgence. Using these criteria it is possible for me to class many composers as Romantic, but not Beethoven.

Hi Rod.

Tis is YOUR perception of Romantic music.
Personally, I don't agree with your perception at all. I don't see *superficialty, overt sentimentality, tendency towards melodramatic and self indulgence* in the music of the great Romantic composers as Brahms, Bruckner...etc, I see intense deep emotions and drama, as in Beethoven's music too.

Seems to be that we have totally a different perception and opinion about the meaning of the word Romantic.
For me the chief difference between Classicism and Romanticism in ONE word is:
Classicism - Objectivity (the world models)
Romanticism - Subjectivity (the individual)

We can disscus extensively the *when*, *how* and *why* those two currents manifested in our world, but for me just the fact that Music is a 100% a subjective art, means that the element of Romanticism will be present in it.

Marta

[Rod]

Originally posted by Marta:
Hi Rod.

This is YOUR perception of Romantic music.
Personally, I don't agree with your perception at all.
Marta

I humbly stated this was a view as it applies to me. I remember there was a time when I would omit this factor and rightly feel no shame. I must be getting old these days.


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"If I were but of noble birth..." - Rod Corkin

[This message has been edited by Rod (edited May 14, 2003).]

[Marta]

Originally posted by Rod:
I humbly stated this was a view as it applies to me. I remember there was a time when I would omit this factor and rightly feel no shame. I must be getting old these days.

Hi Rod.

Exactly, always our comments and opinions will be based in personal perceptions and beliefs, they are subjective.
Now, music for it's nature, being the expression of emotions, feelings and moods through sound, will have different effects in each of us, again is subjective.
Where we can put a line in which a composition is *overtly sentimental* or *melodramatic*?, is like asking were is the line between cold and hot.
What for some will feel as to sentimental, anothers could feel it as intense deep emotions.......again subjective.

This was my point in this discussion, that music is subjective, from the composer intentions and from the listener perception.
That for me is *individuality*.

Marta

[Chaszz]

Originally posted by Marta:
Hi Rod.

Exactly, always our comments and opinions will be based in personal perceptions and beliefs, they are subjective.....

Marta

I think there's another aspect here, outside our own subjectivity, which is that to some extent most of us take into account the judgments of posterity. I don't like Schumann's music, but I don't doubt he's a great composer, because his reputation shows that he's appealed strongly to a great many serious listeners.*

This used to be a difference between Rod and many of us here, because I felt in my early days here that Rod had no concern for the judgments of posterity or for other board members, and argued strongly that only Beethoven and Handel were great composers. After a lot of back and forth, paricularly with Handel and Bach, he likely still believes that, but I think he's a bit less insistent on it now, more tolerant, and in his own words may be getting older. At any rate, when other composers are praised here, he is somewhat less likely to reply that that composer has no merit, than he was before. I shouldn't be speaking for him, but that is my take.

*I have a worse problem in that I'm a jazz fan, and after decades of trying have never been able to find anything much of interest in most of the music of Duke Ellington, universally acclaimed as one of the greatest in the art form.


[This message has been edited by Chaszz (edited May 14, 2003).]

[lysander]

This is a complex and fascinating area and I can really only give an outline of some brief notes of my take on this subject.

Classicism, undoubtedly appealed to a corpus of knowledge and rules which the artist or musician related to in some way.
Now of course Geniuses can internalize these rules and produce their own synthesis of what they are trying to communicate.
The point about Romanticism is that we seem to instinctly know what it is, ie. a sublime mysterious often wild sense of otherness, like the English romantic poets, but after their fashion they still work along self-generated rules and dictates.

Romanticism is very puzzling precisely because it seems to have no outside or inside to it, philosophically speaking.
We simply seem to get with this music a sense of oneness, what Germans called 'einfuhlung' connecting the music with the listener so that for the duration of it, we are the music and Beethoven is playing on us in a mystical sense in the sense that Wittgenstein said, "there are no thoughts, only the process of thinking that happens through the medium of humans"
So philosophically there is no subjective listening but only one musical sensorium and one collective listening, not individual listeners listening subjectively to the music. (complex huh!)

But then it depends how you assess Wittgenstein.

On this reading Beethoven's music as all the great composers involves us in a mystical union where there is only the music and not the listener, which we are all part of.
Classicism may have promted the romantic backlash and I am not suggesting that this 'einfuhlung' sense is not present when we listen to any great music, it is just that romantic music, however broadly defined is infested throughout with this feeling so that it is its defining characteristic and philosophical lodestar.




[This message has been edited by lysander (edited May 14, 2003).]

[Ahmad]

Great guys ..great argumentation....!
After all ...I'd like to know who's your favourite romantic composer -romanticism in its academic meaning of course!- ..for me Chopin is no.1 , I'm fond of his great piano works..especially his etudes ..opus 10-12,25-11,25-12 ...

[Marta]

Originally posted by Ahmad:
Great guys ..great argumentation....!
After all ...I'd like to know who's your favourite romantic composer -romanticism in its academic meaning of course!- ..for me Chopin is no.1 , I'm fond of his great piano works..especially his etudes ..opus 10-12,25-11,25-12 ...

Hi Ahmad.

For me is very hard to name only one, the 19th Century has so many great composers, that is almost impossible for me to decide in only one.
I love Chopin too, as a pianist how I could not, but he composed almost exclusively for the piano, then if I have to mention one....probably will say Brahms.

Marta

[Chaszz]

Originally posted by Ahmad:
Great guys ..great argumentation....!
After all ...I'd like to know who's your favourite romantic composer -romanticism in its academic meaning of course!- ..for me Chopin is no.1 , I'm fond of his great piano works..especially his etudes ..opus 10-12,25-11,25-12 ...

I am totally addicted to Wagner

[orpheus]

Originally posted by lysander:
This is a complex and fascinating area and I can really only give an outline of some brief notes of my take on this subject.

Classicism, undoubtedly appealed to a corpus of knowledge and rules which the artist or musician related to in some way.
Now of course Geniuses can internalize these rules and produce their own synthesis of what they are trying to communicate.
The point about Romanticism is that we seem to instinctly know what it is, ie. a sublime mysterious often wild sense of otherness, like the English romantic poets, but after their fashion they still work along self-generated rules and dictates.

Romanticism is very puzzling precisely because it seems to have no outside or inside to it, philosophically speaking.
We simply seem to get with this music a sense of oneness, what Germans called 'einfuhlung' connecting the music with the listener so that for the duration of it, we are the music and Beethoven is playing on us in a mystical sense in the sense that Wittgenstein said, "there are no thoughts, only the process of thinking that happens through the medium of humans"
So philosophically there is no subjective listening but only one musical sensorium and one collective listening, not individual listeners listening subjectively to the music. (complex huh!)

But then it depends how you assess Wittgenstein.

On this reading Beethoven's music as all the great composers involves us in a mystical union where there is only the music and not the listener, which we are all part of.
Classicism may have promted the romantic backlash and I am not suggesting that this 'einfuhlung' sense is not present when we listen to any great music, it is just that romantic music, however broadly defined is infested throughout with this feeling so that it is its defining characteristic and philosophical lodestar.


[This message has been edited by lysander (edited May 14, 2003).]

I am sorry, I don't really understand all of what you are saying here, but I think what you are getting at is that Romanticism is somehow something, sublime and indefinable. Perhaps I misunderstand, but if not I must say I disagree. Romaticism is completely definable, as it is only a word and nothing more or less than that. It's just that there are no right or wrong definitions, only those that seem to reflect a commonality of agreement between the likes of us. What is perhaps interesting, however, is to consider what "Romanticism" meant - as an ideal, aesthetic etc. - for those composers to which we are referring. From this perspective it genuinly has meaning beyond a mere word and sheds light on the music itself as we come to get at the ideas behind it, ot inspiring it. Otherwise, as I siad earlier in this thread, we end up going in semantic circles.

[John Rasmussen]

Originally posted by Ahmad:
Great guys ..great argumentation....!
After all ...I'd like to know who's your favourite romantic composer -romanticism in its academic meaning of course!- ..for me Chopin is no.1 , I'm fond of his great piano works..especially his etudes ..opus 10-12,25-11,25-12 ...

Disregarding Beethoven for the moment, I would have to pick Gustav Mahler. Not only did he write great music (sure, I know I'll draw a firestorm with that comment), but he represented the Romantic ideal better than any other: making his own forms, infusing his music with a compelling intensity (which some may dismiss as melodrama), and insisting on the sureness of his instinct. (Chaszz, if you haven't discovered Mahler yet, I'm sure you will respond to his music as profoundly as to Wagner's. Let me know if it's otherwise.)

Actually, there are some twentieth-century composers who must be numbered among the Romantics: Howard Hanson, whose neo-romanticism was deliberate, and Dmitri Shostakovich, who despite the oppressions he lived with in Soviet Russia left a body of work as profound and individual as any of the greats.

[John Rasmussen]

We all have such passionate view about Beethoven, and about classic and romantic, that I really ever doubt we'll come to agreement about whether Beethoven was one or the other. And we see so many different aspects of his greatness. For some, it's the mastery or the expansion of musical form. For others it's his intensity and power. And many can point to no single quality but merely count him the greatest.

We talk about multiculturalism; well, here it speaks!