Romantic music
As a music of romance ( romance of Old French romance, poetry ',' Roman ' ) refers to the dominant style of the music of the 19th century. The main characteristics of romantic music, the emphasis on the emotional expression, the resolution of classical forms, the expansion and eventually exceeding the traditional harmony and the connection of music with non-musical, often literary ideas ( program music). The orchestra was during the 19th century, constantly expanding to achieve the one hand, more and more exquisite coloristic nuances, secondly, to enable the use of all available means always more overwhelming impressions. In addition, elements of folk music were increasingly being incorporated, partly in the wake of realism, partly due to the national schools of smaller countries. Usually three portions of the romance be distinguished, although the exact assignments in the literature are not uniform.
Romantic Music - Definitions
The difficulties in the deliberate use of the terms " romance " and " romantic " for a particular direction or era in the music stir in particular from the fact that terms are taken, since the beginning of the 19th century, German literary Romanticism ( Novalis, Wilhelm Heinrich Wackenroder, Ludwig Tieck, the brothers August Wilhelm and Friedrich Schlegel, E. T. A. Hoffmann, Clemens Brentano, etc.) were connected. The long history of the terms " romantic " (in the 17-18. Century in the negative sense, for " as in the novel " ) and the substantivized form (the " Romantic " ) plays for the music only to the extent a role, as it later in the use of the word entered. Only by the German Romanticism, whose representatives were soon referred to as " romantic", the condition was given to speak in line to do so by a musical romance. Only since the 1830s, but their physiognomy more prominent, and it ends as an epoch in the strict sense as early as 1850. Pulses from this early and actual phase of musical romanticism, however, have continued to work.
The application of the romantic concept of the music references both an internal, albeit time- of-phase relationship between the Romantic movement in poetry, art theory and philosophy of musical Romanticism, on the other hand to a desired counter position to the music especially the Viennese classics ( Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven). The antithesis classically romantic was already familiar in the 18th century in England and was in contrast between German Romanticism and Weimar Classicism ( Friedrich von Schiller, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ) received a new, current dimension. However, for the Romantics themselves and advance for Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel ( aesthetics, 1818-29 ), but the remote stand them in his thinking, was also the older, about Johann Gottfried Herder and Christoph Martin Wieland mediated word usage valid, with the ancient "classical" christian- European " romantic " art was opposed. For terminological confusion continue contributing factor was that the romance is a concept of music was developed, which aimed at the essence of music par excellence. Thus, E. T. A. Hoffmann appeared - the only one of the romantic poet who had a deeper insight into the music of his time and himself a composer was - the instrumental music of Haydn, Mozart and especially Beethoven as the embodiment of " romantic music "because he was ever fulfilled the highest concept of music in it. ( ". , You [ie the instrumental music ] is the most romantic of all the arts - one might almost say, only pure romantic " ) The reasoning was as follows: "The music includes the people on an unknown realm; a world that has nothing in common with the outward world of sense [ ... ] and in which he leaves behind all determinable by concepts feelings, to indulge in the unspeakable. " Since the music of choice for the romantics (eg Wackenroder Hoffmann) by many as the epitome of was a comprehensive, entirely based in the emotional sphere, transcending - immaterial art, has the romantic concept of art, the 19th century never got away from that shaped the understanding of any music. In Arthur Schopenhauer's definition of music as the manifestation of the pure will, hence the " thing in itself " beyond appearances and terms culminated the romantic musical performances. Even Richard Wagner's ideal conception of music drama than all the arts overarching work of art ( " Gesamtkunstwerk " ) goes on ideas of the German romantics back ( for example, fusion of genres and arts, utopianism, sacralization of the artwork ), you still could assign Wagner's music dramas of romance without that.
Another embedding of designations romance and romantic results from the inclusion of the literary era designations " Biedermeier " and " pre-March " (ca. 1815-48 ). Although all phenomena in music can be subsumed under romanticism not since 1800 and the new romantic music grows from a soil that was prepared in 1800 next to and partly in the shadow of the Viennese classical music, so true but Heinrich Heine's word the "end of Wolfgang Goethe's art period " about 1831 so far on the music, as with the death of Beethoven (1827 ) and Franz Schubert (1828 ) a musical era ended and the romance in the German and French music all possibilities have been opened.
The Romantic Era
The first phase of the major bourgeois music, particularly in Germany between 1830 and 1850 may be referred due to substantial common criteria as romance. First " romantic " approaches are reflected in the choice of material of the German Singspiel since the 70s of the 18th century, which lead to Carl Maria von Weber's opera Der Freischütz (1821 ). ( Jessonda, 1823 1816, for example, Faust ), E. T. A. Hoffmann ( Undine, 1816), and not least in audible the contours of German romantic opera, however, already announced in some works of Ludwig ( Louis) Spohr the through-composed parts of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's the Magic Flute (1791 ). Overlaid by the musical idiom of the dominant French and Italian opera, The character of a national opera, which drew out all the stops of nature, spirits and especially the word romance, even in the later work of Weber was ( Oberon, 1826 Euryanthe, 1823). Meanwhile, the romantic physiognomy was still recognizable in the operas of Heinrich Marschner ( Der Vampyr, 1828 Hans Heiling, 1833) and stained Biedermeier, Albert Friedrich von Flotow and Lortzingstraße. But Richard Wagner began with works in the style of German Romantic opera ( The Flying Dutchman, 1843 Tannhäuser and the Singers' Contest at Wartburg, 1845; Lohengrin, 1850). The new atmospheric and picturereleasing function of harmonies and timbres those spheres and ideas were already in Freischütz (especially in the Wolf's Glen scene) conveys that have since inseparably linked with the romantic concept: the evocation of the blind Waltens or being of unfathomable nature and fate forces, the supernatural, the mythical legends reason and the magical past, which is the symbol of a utopian original state. There were also a popular - national song-like sound and the gesture of chivalrous recovery. The music was permeable to moods and scenic pictures that emerged from romantic motifs and soul records.
The lyrical inturned, romantic inspired poeticization, ie dissolution of their musical language reached its perfection in the music of Robert Schumann. It focuses on the excited by the works of Jean Paul and E. T. A. Hoffmann Piano Music (piano cycles, including Papillons Op 2, 1828-32; . Carnaval Op 9, 1834-35; .. Fantasy pieces op 12, 1832-37, Kinderszenen, Op 15, 1838, . Kreisleriana Op 16, 1838), and the songs in which Romantic poetry and music literally merge, for example, in the circle of Songs, Op.. 24 ( text by Heinrich Heine, 1849), in myrtles Op. 25 (1840 ) and Circle of Songs, Op. 39 ( text by Joseph Eichendorff, 1840). That Schumann Romance in advance in lyric piano piece ( character piece ) unfolded, is a sign of the radical departure of genres and structures of the Viennese classical music. Even in the romantic song whose poetry much is clear from the piano accompaniment in Schumann, compared to the songs of Franz Schubert of the new approach is fundamental; Schumann has received suggestions from the vorschubertschen song. Schumann symphonies ( 1841-51 ), the Piano Concerto Op. 54 ( 1st set in 1841, the 2nd and 3rd set in 1845 ) and the sonatas are transformed by romantic and poetic contents from the inside out. The opera Genoveva ( 1850), he sought also to open up the stage. Genuin is romantic in the music of Schumann one hand, the tendency to dissolution of boundaries and genre fusion in the character of an overarching poetic idiom and converging with Friedrich Schlegel's idea of a "progressive [ s ] universal poetry " ( 116 Athenäumsfragment ), in which it was a matter of " all separate to unite genera [ ... ] " to skip the barriers between the arts. On the other hand, part of the move away from complex, multi-unit architectures in favor of the lifted out of time right now unfolded " incident ", the resists thematic processing, the key features of musical romanticism. The resolution previously valid regulations and musical construction is taking place with the intention of supplying the new music, music -border levels. Since the death of Beethoven music has been repeatedly interpreted as expressions of an " unspeakable ".
Schumann and Frédéric Chopin discovered in piano music lyric eigenvalue of sound and figurative virtuosity for the mediation of poetry. Preceded in time is partly the romantic classicism of Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, the many would be attributed from the operas and instrumental music of Hoffmann, Spohr and others still. Especially in Mendelssohn's Songs without Words ( 1830-45 ) as well as in music to A Midsummer Night 's Dream ( 1842, Overture 1826 ) a sublime mood poetry appears in the virtuoso handling with embossed idioms. Reflections of nature and landscape images are just as essential elements such as the notion of weightless elves and bustle in his major works. The linked intimately with aspirations of literary Romanticism discovery and transfiguration of the music of the past (for example, Palestrina renaissance ), prepared by Carl Friedrich Zelter work at the Sing-Akademie zu Berlin and by Hoffmann art theoretical work ( Old and New Church Music, 1814) and compositions, was made available only through the history of music Mendelssohn performance of Johann Sebastian Bach's St. Matthew Passion in Berlin ( 1829) in its entirety. Many romantics studied with composers who had no direct contact with the Viennese classics. The centers of musical romanticism were preferably located in Northern and Central Germany (Berlin, Dresden, Leipzig). A romance in its own right unfolded in the piano music of Chopin ( Etudes Op 10 1829-32; .. Études Op 25, 1832-36, Preludes Op 28, 1836-39, . Mazurkas, nocturnes, ballades; concerts in E minor Op. 11, 1830 and F minor Op. 21, 1829). Also in the virtuoso boom his music is almost always steeped in melancholy and fatalism. Even more than in Schumann is in the works of Chopin, which were welcomed by Schumann thrilled the subjective gesture and the reflex to an ill - sensitive I felt that consumes in a romantic longing.
A specifically French Romanticism represents the instrumental music of Hector Berlioz. Key works such as the Symphonie fantastique ( 1830), Harold en Italie ( 1834), Symphony dramatique Roméo et Juliette (1839 ) and others aimed at contamination of genres by incorporating poetic or seals of the world literature ( William Shakespeare, Virgil, Goethe, George Gordon Byron ) derived and reinterpreted topic. They opened regions of the high-strung, unattainable longing, of intoxication, the Schweifens in dream worlds and the visionary fantasy, whose subject emerges the new (romantic ) picture of the artistic genius. The hybrid genre of program music and the symphonic poem - the latter particularly influenced by Franz Liszt and propagated again taken up later by Richard Strauss - also springs from the ideas of Romanticism.
Also the Italian and French opera between 1830 and 1850 are romantic impacts unmistakable. Preliminary Vincenzo Bellini's soft - elegiac melody, but not the less knows the cheering passion has been always seen as a genuine romance. They also meet in the operas of Gaetano Donizetti, but then occurs in the early work of Giuseppe Verdi into the background again. Rather secondary are also romantic traits in the French Grand Opera ( Giacomo Meyerbeer, Daniel -François- Esprit Auber ). State of the scenic, decorative effort romantic internalization counter there, has raised Romantic only on the edge of the dramatic Verdi relentless nerve of his music. Is about the fate of drama and the historical and symbolic drama, on the whole, the opera of the 19th century, linked to the European Romanticism, which in France with François -René de Chateaubriand ( Génie du Christianisme, 1802), Alphonse de Lamartine, Victor Hugo, Alfred de Musset and Charles Baudelaire, had effected in Italy with Alessandro Manzoni and Giacomo Leopardi and in England with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Byron, Percy Bysshe Shelley and John Keats a spiritual change.
Early Romanticism
The transition of Viennese Classicism to Romanticism found in the work of Ludwig van Beethoven. Thank typical romantic elements encountered in his works for the first time. However, the most important representative of the actual early Romantic Franz Schubert, significantly, the outstanding songwriter. In this field his work is complemented by Carl Loewe's ballads. Important for the development of German opera, Carl Maria von Weber, especially with its popular Freischütz. There are also fantastic and horrible substances by Heinrich Marschner, and finally the light-hearted comic opera Albert Lortzingstraße while Louis Spohr was mainly known for his instrumental music. Arrested yet mostly classical is the work of Johann Nepomuk Hummel, Ferdinand Ries, and the Frenchman George Onslow.
Italy experienced in the early Romantic period, the heyday of the bel canto opera, associated with the names of Gioachino Rossini, Gaetano Donizetti and Vincenzo Bellini. While Rossini are primarily today the comic operas known, often only by their rousing overtures, Donizetti and Bellini outweigh tragic content. The most important Italian composer of instrumental music this time was the legendary " devil violinist " Niccolo Paganini.
In France, on the one hand developed the light comic opera that their representatives are François Adrien Boieldieu, Daniel -François- Esprit Auber and Adolphe Adam, the latter also known by its ballets. You can also the famous eccentric composer and harpist Robert Nicolas -Charles Bochsa quote ( seven operas). In addition, the grand opera came up with grandiose stage sets, ballets and large choirs. Its first representative was Gaspare Spontini, its principal Giacomo Meyerbeer.
In other European countries, the development of music now took an upswing. The Irishman John Field wrote the first nocturnes for piano, in Denmark looked Friedrich Kuhlau and the Swede Franz Berwald wrote four very idiosyncratic symphonies.
High Romanticism
The high romance can be divided into two phases. In the first phase, the actual romantic music reaches its climax. The Pole Frédéric Chopin explored in his character pieces and dances for piano hitherto unknown feeling of depth. Robert Schumann, at the end of his life in spiritual darkness, him in person as in music really represents the prototype of the passionate, shaded by tragedy romantic artist His idiosyncratic piano pieces, chamber works and symphonies should a lasting influence on the following generation of musicians. Franz Liszt, the German minority in Hungary entstammend, was both idolized a piano virtuoso, but lay on the other hand, with its harmonious bold symphonic poems also the foundation for the progressive " New German School". Also committed to the program music, the technique of Idée fixe was ( theme ) of the Frenchman Hector Berlioz, who significantly extended the orchestra. Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy was based again on the more classical forms and was a role model especially for Scandinavian composers such as the Dane Niels Wilhelm Gade.
In the opera, dominated in Germany nor the light operas of Otto Nicolai and Friedrich von Flotow, when Richard Wagner wrote his first romantic operas. The early works of Giuseppe Verdi oriented still at the bel canto ideal of the older generation. In France, was developed by Ambroise Thomas and Charles Gounod, the Opéra Lyrique. The Russian music was their own language in the operas of Mikhail Glinka and Alexander Dargomyzhsky.
The second phase of the high romance, sometimes called neo-romanticism runs parallel with the style of realism in literature and the visual arts. In his second work half Wagner has now developed its leitmotif technique with which he holds the through-composed arias without four-part Ring of the Nibelung; the orchestra is treated symphonic, chromaticism achieved in Tristan and Isolde their outermost point. A whole group of disciples is under the influence of the progressive ideas of Wagner, among them, for example, Peter Cornelius. In contrast, a conservative opposition of many composers who Johannes Brahms, who is a logical continuation of the classic sought in symphonic, chamber music and song, was due to the depth of feeling and a masterful composition technique to standard-setting model was created. At this party be reckoned among others, Robert Volkmann Friedrich Kiel, Carl Reinecke, Max Bruch, Josef Gabriel Rheinberger and Hermann Goetz.
In addition, were some significant loner on the plan, under which Anton Bruckner particularly stands out. Although Wagner's followers, his form clear style was significantly different from that composer. Thus derived, for example, the block-like instrumentation of Bruckner's nine symphonies from the registers of the organ here. In the ideological struggle against the enemies of Wagner, he was portrayed by his followers as an adversary of Brahms. Felix also Draeseke, originally starting " future music in classic form ," wrote Liszt, a composer stands between the parties.
Even Verdi reached, albeit in a different way than Wagner, the way to through-composed music-drama. His immense charisma made in Italy, all other composers fade, so Amilcare Ponchielli and also Arrigo Boito, who was also the librettist of his later operas Otello and Falstaff.
In France, however, first of all triumphed light entertainment in the form of social criticism operettas by Jacques Offenbach. The lyric opera culminated in the works of Jules Massenet, while in Carmen by Georges Bizet moved the first time the realism. A bridge to the German music beat Louis Théodore Gouvy. The operas, symphonies and chamber music works extremely versatile Camille Saint- Saëns as were the ballets by Léo Delibes more traditionally oriented. New orchestral colors were found in the compositions by Édouard Lalo and Emmanuel Chabrier. The native Belgian César Franck was accompanied by a revival of the organ music, the Charles -Marie Widor, Louis Vierne, and later Charles Tournemire continued.
In almost all European countries, is now a specific national romanticism began to emerge. Begun by Glinka Russian national flow was continued in Russia by the " Group of Five ", so of Mily Balakirev, Alexander Borodin, Modest Mussorgsky and Nikolai Rimsky- Korsakov and César Cui. Western -oriented were Anton Rubinstein and Pyotr Tchaikovsky, whose ballets and symphonies gaining considerable popularity.
The Czech national music reasoned Bedrich Smetana with his operas and symphonic poems Liszt oriented. The symphonies, concertos and chamber works by Brahms, Antonín Dvořák, however, have a role model. In Poland Stanisław Moniuszko was the leading opera composer in Hungary Ferenc Erkel. Norway brought Edvard Grieg, creator forth lyrical piano works, songs and orchestral works, such as the Peer Gynt Suite, his best-known composer; England's voice rang with the oriented Brahms, especially as a choral composer and symphonist make, Hubert Parry and Arthur Sullivan's operetta the bizarre.
Late Romanticism
In the late Romantic period, also called post-romanticism, traditional forms and elements of music are further resolved. An ever more colorful orchestral palette, an ever-increasing array of musical means, to the achieving of tonality to its limits, exaggerated emotions and an increasingly more individual musical language of individual composers are typical features; the music is performed on the threshold of modernity.
Thus, the symphonies of Gustav Mahler reached previously unknown proportions, give partially the traditional four movements, and often contain vowel shares. But behind the monumental façade leads into the modern expressivity of the fin de siècle. This psychological expressiveness contain in miniature the songs of Hugo Wolf, miniature dramas for voice and piano. More committed to tradition, especially oriented to Bruckner, the symphonies of Franz Schmidt and Richard Wetz, while Max Reger in his numerous instrumental works indeed resorted to the polyphony of Bach, but they harmoniously very boldly advanced. Among the many composers of Reger 's successor Julius Weismann and Joseph Haas protrude. Among the outstanding late-romantic composers continues to be one of the idiosyncratic Hans Pfitzner. Although traditionalist and a staunch opponent of modern currents are not a few of his works on musical progress of time quite close. In following the bulged primarily as an opera composer Walter Braunfels and the Symphony Orchestra Wilhelm Furtwängler be mentioned.
But of course the opera stage was particularly suitable for heightened emotions. Were quite well-behaved nor the folk and fairy tale opera by Engelbert Humperdinck, Wilhelm Kienzl and Siegfried Wagner, the son of Richards. But already Eugen d' Albert and Max von Schillings overwrought with a German variant of realism nerves. Erotic symbolism is found in the stage works of Alexander von Zemlinsky and Franz Schreker. Even further to the limits of tonality Richard Strauss Salome and Elektra went with before he again trod traditional way with the Rosenkavalier. Related to the works of Strauss in style to show the compositions Emil Nikolaus von Reznicek and Paul Graeners.
In Italy, also dominated during this time still the opera. Here the Verismo, an exaggerated realism, which could easily turn on the opera stage into Striking and melodramatic developed. So Ruggero Leoncavallo, Pietro Mascagni and Umberto Giordano have been known only by one opera, despite their extensive work. Only the work of Giacomo Puccini has completely received in the repertoire of opera houses, although he frequently was accused of sentimentality. Despite some veristic works Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari was mainly as a reviver of opera buffa. Ferruccio Busoni, temporarily living in Germany advocates a modern classicism, leaving behind a rather conventional, little performed work. Thus, the instrumental music was really only with the Ottorino Respighi impressionist-influenced back their place in Italian music.
The term Impressionism is derived from the painting, and how there he developed in music in France. In the works of Claude Debussy, the structures disintegrated in the finest nuances of rhythm, dynamics and timbre. Was prepared this development in the works of Vincent d' Indy and especially in the songs and chamber music of Gabriel Fauré. All subsequent French composers were more or less influenced by Impressionism. The most important among them was Maurice Ravel, a brilliant virtuoso orchestra. Albert Roussel processed only exotic subjects before Ravel as neoclassical tendencies anticipated. Gabriel also Pierné, Paul Dukas, Charles Koechlin, and Florent Schmitt treated Symbolist and exotic oriental fabrics. The loner Erik Satie was spun Creator piano pieces and the next generation idol.
Hubert Parry and the Irishman Charles Villiers Stanford initiated in England the late Romantic period, which had its first significant representative in Edward Elgar. While he revived the oratory and symphonies and concertos wrote to Frederick Delius dedicated with its own variant of Impressionism particularly small orchestra images. Ethel Smyth wrote in a style reminiscent of Brahms especially operas and chamber music. The most significant Symphony Orchestra of his country was Ralph Vaughan Williams, whose works were inspired by English folk songs and music of the Renaissance. Gustav Holst was incorporated Greek mythology and Indian wisdom teachings in his work. Very idiosyncratic composers in the transition to modernity were also Havergal Brian and Frank Bridge.
In Russia, Alexander Glazunov adorned his traditional compositional technique with a colorful orchestral palette. The mystic Alexander Scriabin dreamed of a synthesis of colors, sounds and scents. Sergei Rachmaninoff wrote melancholic pathetic piano pieces and concerts full of intoxicating virtuosity, while the Piano Works of Nikolai Medtner are lyrical.
In the Czech Republic was Leoš Janáček, deeply rooted in the music of his Moravian home, with the development of intonation in his operas new areas of expression. Also in the music of Zdeněk Fibich, Josef Bohuslav Foerster, Novák Vítězslav and Josef Suk, the domestic sounds are unmistakable. Contrast, can be found in the work of Karol Szymanowski Poland next influences of folklore, a slightly morbid exoticism and later neo-classical measure.
The most important Danish composer Carl Nielsen, known for symphonies and concertos. Even more dominant in his country is the position of the Finn Jean Sibelius, another Symphony of melancholy expressiveness and clean lines design. In Sweden, the works of Wilhelm Peterson -Berger, Wilhelm Stenhammar and Hugo Alfvén show a typical Nordic conservatism, and also the Norwegian composer Christian Sinding traditional.
The voice sounded Spain now after a long time, first in the piano works by Isaac Albéniz and Enrique Granados, then in the operas, ballets and orchestral works of impressionist-influenced Manuel de Falla. Finally, with Edward MacDowell and Amy Beach also occurred the first important representative of the United States. But already the work of Charles Ives only belonged to the part of the late Romantic to - much of it was already radically modern and pointed far into the 20th century.
Romantic music as a universal experience
Despite divergent directions and forms the romantic impulses were up to the middle of the 19th century chained together so that one can speak with due caution from a romantic era in which also counter-movements came into play. Although up to the beginning of the 20th century and beyond romantic contents and settings, and in some works as examples always came back to the breakthrough (from Wagner's opera Tristan and Isolde, 1857-59, about Johannes Brahms, Anton Bruckner and Gustav Mahler to Schoenberg, for example, Transfigured Night, 1899, expressly especially in the works of Hans Pfitzner ), the network of relationships is too loosely woven than that sufficient reasons of late romantic or neo-Romanticism could be no question. The romantic world and experience of being pulled away from their binding to an epoch. That Romantic music, ultimately resists the fixation on a time-limited and geographically localized era, probably goes to their innermost motives back: Repeal real temporality (for example in the music of Viennese classics ), laying down the boundaries between the arts, evocation of the past as a distant Ideal image ( transfigured distance), tendency to dematerialization ( rapture ) the sound ( at all the art assets), consequently the sublimation, spiritualization, rejection of the Enlightenment ( night symbolism ), intrusion of the irrational. Furthermore, the following criteria are: emphasis and brokenness, tendency to "open" form, the subjectification of any experience, so any artistic statement anmutet as a reflection of an experience on the subject.
It follows the disintegration and dissolution of the subject ( " longing for death ," Thomas Mann ). With the equation of self and the world ( " Even then I am the world ," Tristan, Act 2 ) and the redemption through self-dissolution beat Wagner in Tristan the basic theme of romance on, but gave him unexpectedly new dimensions. From the romantic producing " artificial paradises " ( Baudelaire ), the idea of l'art pour l'art, overcome them is one of the main trends in the artistic actions of the present revealed. The opposing forces against the romantic, resulting in the second half of the 19th century encouraged everywhere ( Brahms, Bruckner, Mahler ) and can be traced to the constructivist directions in the art of the 20th century, were always marked by a recovery of objectivity, reality and disempowerment of arbitrary subjective.