Chapter 24 – The Romantic Era: Trends

THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

As we concluded from the earlier descriptions of how the role of music and the musicianchanged, there was a profound economic shift in the Romantic Era. If there is any truth to the tongue in cheek Golden Rule of the Arts and Sciences--”he who has the gold makes the rules”--the gold had changed hands once more.

Corresponding closely to the beginning and ending dates of the Classical Era was the Industrial Revolution, an era that represents one of the most profound changes in the history of Western culture and the world. Some historians cite it as important to human history as the harnessing of fire.

While not completely uniform across society, the standard of living in general—as well as the wages—of many people steadily increased at a rate more robust than any early economist dared to imagine. Increased efficiency in steam power and metal refining physically changed the infrastructure of society. Textile manufacturing became a drivingforce in the economy.

And. . . corresponding nearly as closely to the Romantic Era was the Second Industrial Revolution which saw booms in railroads, factories, the beginnings of the internal

Illustration 1: Camille Pissarro, "Boulevard desItaliens" (1897)

combustion engine, and the harnessing of electricity and the first wireless radio transmissions; not to mention the ability to make a record of sound vibrations air and reproduce them in mass quantities.

It is not just the technology and the inventions that drove the era, but the secondary effects caused by the economic machine that set the tone for the Romantic zeitgeist.

All of that change—within a century and a half—created an upheaval in society unlike anything seen before.

So, it shouldn’t be surprising that we see an upheaval in music and art unlike anything seen before.

THE CELEBRATION OF THE INDIVIDUAL

One way to understand how different the Romantic Era is from the Classical is to look atthe biographical events in a composer's life. Many of the early pre-Romantic era composers had difficult, even tragic lives—but you will almost never hear that in their music.

In Beethoven's music, you can hear his struggles. You can hear his declaration of victory.You can hear the personality of his music change with his progressing deafness. You canhear his excitement with the rejection of the monarchy and the liberation of the masses. His music is not about everyman, but about one man: Beethoven.

A couple of centuries earlier we heard a profound change in music as the effects of religion on society dwindled and a powerful monarchy filled the vacuum.

We hear a similar profound change in the 19th century.

Two events that were at least indirectly responsible for this change would be the American and French revolutions that broke down a political and economic structure that had been in existence for thousands of years.

The philosophy of a government by and for the people happening during this time? Not surprising that we would hear music by and for the people.

THE ORCHESTRA

The orchestra is perhaps the most unique musical invention in human history with its rich tradition of meticulously crafted musical instruments, meticulously detailed system of notation (made possible by increased general literacy and the ability to mass produce music), the social institutions and rituals that have grown up around public concerts (not to mention that they had to be available for public concerts in large halls could take place), and the economies that allowed musical instrument makers to refine their crafts to the highest degree (remember that musicians and instrument makers have always traditionally embraced the most modern technology available). The same economic changes allowed musicians to devote their careers to performance; that allowed composers and conductors to do the same, etc.

We should not be surprised that the greatest change happened during the Industrial Revolutions with all of the ripple effects that went through society.

At the beginning of the 19th century, the average number of members in an orchestra numbered in the mid-30s. By the end of the century, the average orchestra had over 100 regular musicians and had evolved into a powerful instrument capable of extremes in volume, a much wider array of timbres, and musical effects that would have been impossible earlier.

Growth like this does not happen at random. One very important factor was the invention of valves for brass instruments.

“Natural” (i.e. valveless) brass instruments are limited in the notes they can play. They can generally sound a few important notes in whatever key they happen to be in at the time. In much symphonic music, this meant that they were mostly used for punctuation at the end of sections or for emphasis and reinforcement of harmonies. While it may suggest that these instruments were nearly useless, that's not the case—many ingenious composers were able to work around the limitations of the instrumentsi.

Following the invention of valves, brass instruments were now able to hit every chromatic note that the strings and woodwinds could. Composers made good use of this and discovered that brass instruments could be extremely loudii. So, the logical solution to keep them from drowning out other sections was to make the other sections larger to balance the sound.

With these innovations, the orchestra was free to grow into a very large, complex, and prestigious musical organization. Many of those organizations are still in existence.

By the end of the 19th century we see an autocratic international superstar conductor controlling every nuance of an orchestra's sound. The conductor as a stand-alone figure became common in the early 1800s. Composer Felix Mendelssohn and Louis Spohr, a pupil of Beethoven, are thought to be among the first to use a baton (stick) to conduct rather than a rolled up sheet of paper or a violin bow. Composers took advantage of this by creating music that needed a complex and nuanced guidance that only a stand-alone conductor could provide.

Louis Spohr wrote, “I took my stand with the score in front of the orchestra, drew my conducting stick from my pocket, and gave the signal to begin. Some of the directors had been alarmed, but when I besought them to grant me at least one trial, they became pacified. The symphonies and overtures that were to be rehearsed were well known to me, and in Germany I had already directed their performance. I could therefore not only give the tempi in a very decisive manner, but also indicate to the wind instruments and horns all their entries, which ensured to them a confidence such as hitherto they had not known there. They played with a spirit and correctness such as till then they had never been heard to play with.”

While not strictly a typical orchestral instrument, the piano, a favorite instrument of many Romantic composers, experienced a similar reinforcement with manufacturers creating models with a richer tone and increased dynamic range.

THE RISE OF THE VIRTUOSO PERFORMER

The concept of an artist as being celebrated for his instrumental ability is probably as oldas music itself. J.S. Bach was certainly a good example of someone known for an astounding ability on the organ. A contemporary of his, Antonio Vivaldi was known for being an extraordinarily talented violinist. Mozart was a very gifted pianist as well.

However something different began to happen in the early 1800s, specifically the virtuoso composer/performer. A virtuoso is a special label given to someone with technical ability beyond his peers, someone who can perform the most difficult music with ease and generally do it with at least a little showmanship.

The first real example—and still one of the best—was Nicolo Paganini (1782 – 1840). Paganini showed impressive talent as a child and began playing publicly at a very early age. One account tells of how in his teens he borrowed a very fine Guarnerius violin for a concert. Paganini played so well that the owner refused to take it back afterward—and this was not the last time in his life that someone was so impressed with his playing that

he was given an instrument. Paganini owned an impressive array of violins, including seven different ones made by Antonio Stradivari.

He became quickly known throughout Europe for his musical ability. He was gifted withlarge hands that could easily run up and down the fretboard of the violin (possibly a result of Marfan's syndrome) and an an extremely acute sense of hearing. Paganini did a few tricks that mystified audiences (such as retuning the violin strings to achieve effects otherwise impossible), but he also practiced a great dealiii.

At one point he began to lose audience members because the rumor began to spread that he had sold his soul to the Devil for his ability to play the violin. He was just that good (and audiences were that unsophisticated). Paganini had to take out newspaper ads saying that he had not sold his soul, but was just a very good violinistiv.

Hungarian composer performer Franz Liszt (1811 – 1886) is another example of the virtuoso performer. In his early 20s he heard a concert by Paganini and resolved to become the Paganini of the piano.

Liszt succeeded. Like his inspiration, Liszt was also gifted with innate musical ability and physical structure of his hands sufficient to achieve his goal. Acclaimed by his contemporaries as the greatest living pianist, Liszt was also not above a little showmanship and publicity. Contemporary accounts describe audience members scrambling to the stage for a handkerchief that he left behind and ripping it into pieces tocome away with a souvenir—some episodes ending in fights over other “souvenirs” he deliberately planted.

Many of his compositions and arrangements were showcases for his own concerts, but he also composed in a wide variety of genres including much orchestral music and his compositions still frequently show up on current concert programs.

A very important question to ask is, “Why did these two artists and their unique style emerge then?” Why didn't we see a Paganini or a Liszt emerge fifty years earlier, or a hundred years earlier? While Liszt's music is somewhat dependent on the more robust, fuller sounding piano of his era, that wasn't the case with Paganini—he was playing violins made over a century earlier.

The answer is that we see musicians playing a different role in society, because the structure of society changed. There was room—perhaps one could even say a need—for musicians who fired the imagination and created their own hysteria worthy of a modern rock star. Musicians no longer had to be servant. Taking Lizst again as an example, he became so wealthy from his performances that for the last 30 years of his life he gave almost all of his concert fees to charity.

Other virtuoso pianists followed in Lizst's footsteps—Ignaz Moscheles, Sigmund Thalberg, Anton Rubinstein, Clara Schumann, to name just a few. Other violinists, singers, and performers of other instruments also became well known as virtuosi.

We also see evidence of a changing role of music in society. For the last few centuries music had been an important factor in the lives of the middle and upper classes. Being able to perform music was typically a part of one's education and a part of one's entertainment. When composers began to freelance, an important part of their income came from selling music to publishers, who would in turn print them and sell copies to consumers—the middle class who would perform the music.

With Liszt, Paganini, and a large group of awe-inspiring performers, there was little chance that the average person could handle the technical demands of their music, and probably just as little chance that the printed music would be in demand.

While commercial recordings didn't become a serious factor in the income of musicians until the early 20th century, there were hints of a change coming. In the mid 1800s, programmable musical instruments were being invented, specifically something called a pianola, also known as a player piano. This invention began to foreshadow the change of music as being something ephemeral and personal to something not limited by geography or time, a salable commodity in and of itself.

In all of this, we can see an evolution of the role of music in the Romantic era turning sharply toward our modern view.

THE RISE OF NATIONALISM

A very logical extension of a composer's individual story and vision was his own country's history and culture. Known as nationalism, one obvious approach was to create pieces of music based around folk tales and history of one's country. Another way was to incorporate elements of his country's folk music.

In the Romantic Era we begin to see musical styles branching off into distinct “dialects” as opposed to a universal harmonic language heard in earlier eras. While earlier composers would occasionally write music that incorporated obvious folk music themes,it was far and away the exception rather than the rule.

With late Romantic Music, even when the composer is not deliberately writing music in the style of his country's folk heritage, a good listener can often tell the nationality of thecomposer—the styles are that distinct.

Among the famous “schools” of nationalist composers were a set of Russians which include Modeste Mussorgsky, Nikolai Rimski-Korsakov, Alexander Borodin, and Piotr Illych Tchaikovsky. Polish composer Frederic Chopin composed mostly piano music, much of it based on music and dances of his native Poland.

Czechoslovakian composer Bedrich Smetana produced a set of orchestral pieces about his country Ma Vlast which translates as “My Fatherland”. One of his string quartets is subtitled My Life. It would be hard to get more nationalistic or personal than those two.

His countryman Antonin Dvorak worked a lot with the music of their homeland—but Dvorak’s interest didn't stop there. Dvorak spent time abroad in a country that had formed a little more than a century earlier and heard the makings of its own folk music style and was fascinated by it. He predicted that when this new country realized how unique its own folk music was and began to take advantage of it, it would finally find itsown true national style.

While visiting that country, he composed a symphony subtitled, “From the New World” and it is thought to incorporate folk music elements of his own native Czechoslovakia aswell as that of his host land.

The country he visited was, of course, the United States. Dvorak was very taken with themusic that he heard. One of his pupils was Harry Burleigh, a talented African-American composer and arranger. Burleigh, returning the favor, taught Dvorak music from his ownheritage. Dvorak was said to have especially loved the spiritual “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot”.

The music he admired was the roots of what we call jazz—the most significant major contribution of the United States to the music of the world by far.

THE ART SONG AND THE SONG CYCLE

Not all Romantic music was on a large grandiose scale. One type of music that became an important part of the era is known as the “art song”, “lied” (in German), or “chanson”(in French).

The art song is essentially a high quality poem (usually not written by the composer) performed by a singer with piano accompaniment. Topics were love, philosophical observations, short stories, etc.

Romantic art songs were generally written for recitals and other performances rather than simple self-entertainment. They are generally very intimate and challenge a performer's ability to incorporate subtle expression.

These songs were first heard in the Renaissance and are not all that different from popular songs of the 20th century and all the way up to contemporary pop music.

Most of the leading figures of the Romantic era composed these songs. Some of the most notable were Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms, Hugo Wolf, Gustav Mahler (although most of his were with orchestral accompaniment instead of piano). The most talented and prolific was Franz Schubert (1797-1828), who composed over 600 in his very short life—almost a fourth of them in the year 1815.

Some writers, instead of just writing one stand-alone poem, would write a series of poems that told an entire story. When set to music, these are called a song cycle and verymuch parallel modern “concept” albums. The first major song cycle was An Die Ferne Geliebte (“To the Distant Beloved”) composed by Beethoven to poetry of Alois Jeitteles.

Two of the finest song cycles are Die Schoene Mullerin and Die Winterreise, both tragic love stories composed by Franz Schubert.

PROGRAM MUSIC

The definition of program music is “music composed to deliberately depict a non-musical story”v. Program music has been composed since at least the Renaissance. Baroque composer Antonio Vivaldi's best known compositions are four violin concerti that explicitly illustrate four poems about each of the four seasons.

Beethoven clearly indicated his sixth symphony is about nature, although he wanted the music to convey an impression of his feelings rather than specific events.

One of the first true program symphonies was composed by French composer Hector Berlioz and first performed in 1830, just three years after Beethoven's Death.

The concept of extra-musical meaning — one could almost consider it to be the 19th century parallel to “multi-media” – was a very useful tool for Romantic composers who were looking to expand the envelope of expression in any way they could. History and literature provided inspiration for many works, including a number of important ones based on works of Shakespeare. These included sonatas, symphonies, etc.

The overture—an introductory piece to an opera or a play, often in simple sonata form—was meant to set the mood for the upcoming work and introduce musical themes heard later. Many of these overtures are musical summaries of the dramatic work they introduce.

Liszt expanded this and began composing “tone poems”, one movement program worksfor orchestra based on extra-musical themes. Les Preludes, Prometheus, and Hamlet arethree of his most famous.

One of the composers who followed in Lizst's footsteps was German Richard Strauss who composed a number of tone poems that have become concert staples, including one loosely based on a book by Frederich Nietzsche by the name of Thus Spake Zarathustra. Three other Strauss tone poems that became well know are Till Eulenspigel’s Merry Pranks, Don Juan, and Death and Transfiguration.

THE ROMANTIC HERO

With its emphasis on the personality of the artist, the Romantic era can be said to view the artist as the hero. It was not just the music that interested the audiences, it was the great struggle embodied in the creation of his work—the image of one lone man against overwhelming odds. Again, Beethoven stands out as an ideal prototype of that. Mozart, who died a generation earlier under somewhat mysterious circumstances, would also fit that image.

As artists became independent creative icons and captured the public's imagination, it is only natural that they became legends. The “Romantic Hero” began as a specific personality type in literature—of the self-centered artist, driven by his creativity. Most also had a tragic flaw which led to their early downfall without ever achieving their highest goals.

It's also not that significantly different from the way we tend to look at our creative artists today.

Sadly, numerous composers of the Romantic era became part of this image by living tragically short lives—Schubert, Bizet, Schumann, Mendelssohn, etc.

OPERA

Along with every other medium, opera reflected society's new paradigm.

The two leading operatic composers of the late Romantic era were Giuseppe Verdi and Richard Wagner from Italy and Germany respectively. Both created works that are still among the most popular and dramatically powerful works in the repertoire.

There were similarities between the two. Both became involved in the politics of their respective countries (Wagner having to flee for his safety at least once). Both are credited with a transformation of the operatic style of aria/recitativevi found in the 18th century. Each created numerous nationalistic works based on histories and myths from his respective homeland.

One of the best examples of this was a series of four Wagner operas collectively entitled “The Ring of the Nibelung.” With a total time in the vicinity of 17 hours (sometimes even longer) they presented one long continuous and complex story based on Norse mythology. Wagner’s intention was to have the first opera (Das Rheingold) performed inthe afternoon; the second opera (Die Walkure) that same evening; Siegfried, the next night, and then Gotterdammerung the third night. With the extraordinary demands placed on the singers and instrumentalists (not to mention audiences), at a minimum it isoften stretched out over five days in modern performances.

One of Wagner's operas, Tristan und Isolde, is cited as being a major milestone in the breakdown of tonal harmony. Tonal harmony is built around a series of expectations and gratification—achieved by reaching the final harmony. This gratification is often delayed (for the sake of keeping expectations going) until it arrives in the form of a satisfying endingvii. Tristan und Isolde is a tragic love story built on a series of expectations that end in defeat. Wagner matched his music to this story, creating a new way of dealing with musical theory and one that helped lead the way to some of the more radical musical styles of the early 20th century. You may remember the origins of opera in the early 1600s as being based around mythology and larger than life characters. One important nineteenth century trend was opera verismo, opera based on the stories of ordinary people.

Giacomo Puccini, another Italian opera composer, extended this tradition into the next era until his death in 1924. His famous operas include Madame Butterfly, a tragic love story of an American soldier and the Japanese woman he became involved with during an assignment in Japan. Puccini's most famous opera is La Boheme, a story of four starving artists and a poor young woman who comes into the life of Rodolfo, a poet.

THE PIANO

In the early 1700s, an Italian instrument maker by the name of Bartolomeo Cristofori perfected a mechanism for a keyboard instrument that would allow the volume of individual keys to be controlled by how hard they were pressed by the performer. Unlikethe previous dominant keyboard, the harpsichord, it was now possible to make individual notes and musical lines stand out through volume in addition to articulation.

While it is a product of the Baroque era, it was not embraced by Baroque composers. However, it became an essential element in the style of the Classical Era and composers such as Haydn and Mozart wrote a great deal of music for it, including music solo musicand concerti.

A very important contributor to the piano literature of the late 1700s and early 1800s was Beethoven. His 32 piano sonatas span a wide variety of style and some present formidable difficulties—as his music began to be written not for the average person for self-entertainment, but as a vehicle for the performer.

Beethoven as a performer was noted for pushing the envelope in trying to get extremes of volume. There is at least one humorous account of a friend asked to turn pages for Beethoven during a performance. The writer tells of his frustration at trying to follow Beethoven's nearly illegible writing and alternating turning pages with trying to pull strings and hammers out of the piano that Beethoven broke during his performance by playing the keys harder than they were designed for.

Pianos began to be made that could take this powerful playing and evolved to the smooth and powerful concert instrument we are familiar with today.

The piano became an important part of the output of many great Romantic composers. Notable ones include Robert Schumann (who started off as a gifted pianist but accidentally paralyzed one of his fingers and ended his career as a performer), Felix Mendelssohn, the virtuoso Franz Liszt.

Among the top tier of great Romantic composers is Frederic Chopin. Known for the beautiful nuances in his compositions and a compositional style where the piano becomes a very fluid lyrical instrument (overcoming its roots as a percussion instrument) Chopin is a rarity. For history to consider a person a “great composer”, generally the person has composed in almost all mediums. Chopin's output of music wasdominated by solo piano, with a small amount of chamber music for strings, two concerti, and a few compositions for piano and orchestra.

THE REDISCOVERY OF J.S. BACH

The music of J.S. Bach is one of the most influential bodies of work in Western culture. Bach's music and approach to tonality is studied as the foundation of modern music theory, which has had an impact on virtually everything in Western music and that Western music has influenced. His approach to tonality—via The Well Tempered Clavier—opened the path for the next two centuries of tonal harmony. That tonal harmony opened the pathway for the sonata cycles and the great symphonies of the Romantic Era.

Ludwig van Beethoven's second setting of the Mass Ordinary, the Missa Solemnis, is considered by many to be his finest musical composition and one of the greatest of all compositions in Western History. In rankings, it is Bach's setting of the same mass ordinary—the B-minor Mass—that is often the only piece of music ranked higher than Beethoven's.

It might then be surprising to learn that for nearly a century after his death, Johann Sebastian Bach was almost completely unknown by the general public.

Bach composed music during an era where there were no copyrights, no recordings, and little financial incentive to publish. Compositions were generally composed for occasions and then shelved. To compose music for later generations wouldn't be on the radar screen for well over a century. Out of a catalog that numbers over 1000 entries, he published less than ten works during his lifetime.

By his death, the Classical style had taken a firm hold and even his own sons considered his music to be old fashioned and out of style. This is not to say that Bach was completely unknown and lost influence—Mozart familiar with Bach's music. The youngBeethoven played the Well Tempered Clavier and there is evidence that he was interested in Bach over his entire life.

The Romantic composer Felix Mendelssohn (1809 – 1847) is almost single-handedly responsible for the Bach revival in the Romantic Era. Mendelssohn began staging publicconcerts of Bach's music, including a famous performance of Bach's St. Matthew's Passion in 1829. Bach's genius was embraced by the musical public and has never fallenout of style since.

THE SYMPHONY

The symphony was a major mode of expression in the Classical Era and typically the longest form of instrumental music. With its dependence on tonal harmony—setting a “home base”, creating tension by getting away from it, and then gratification by returning to it—it was a very popular form. When he died at age 35, Mozart had completed 41 of them. Haydn finished 104 of them by his death at age 77.

By the time we finish with the Romantic era, it was a monumental struggle for composers to compose more than Beethoven's nine symphonies. Brahms and Schumann only completed four.

This is certainly not an indication of a composer's talent; instead, it was more likely the demands of a market that expected more of its creative artists. Haydn was able to follow a fairly defined formula for the sonata-cycle. Later artists felt more compelled to re-invent the wheel, something that can be seen in the extreme variety of forms and moods.

First performed only a few years after the death of Beethoven, French composer Hector Berlioz composed his Symphonie Fantastique, a program symphony in which the protagonist falls hopelessly in love with a young woman, is rejected and in his despair, attempts suicide with a drug. Instead, he has a series of disturbing hallucinations, including one where he believes he has been beheaded.

Other important symphonies of the early Romantic era include works by Felix Mendelssohn (especially the last three of his five), Franz Schubert (nine with one lost, another incomplete), and Robert Schumann (four).

Brahms' first symphony, performed in 1876, was nicknamed “The Tenth” by music critics at the time because they felt it was the first symphony that was a worthy successor to Beethoven's ninth. Taking over two decades of work before he was satisfiedwith it, Brahms added only three more. All four are four movements long, instrumental, and follow in the formal footsteps of some of Beethoven's symphonies.

Gustav Mahler worked a very busy life as a conductor, able to compose only during breaks. His output is almost entirely symphonies, almost half using voices. A very superstitious man and believing that no one would make it past Beethoven's 9, he composed a set of songs for voice and orchestra Das Lied von der Erde which he considered a symphony but refused to give it a number, saying it was his way of cheating the curse. He then composed his self-numbered ninth symphony and died shortly after finishing it; sketches for a tenth were left incomplete. Mahler's symphonies scarcely fit into the mold of the Classical structure he inherited from Haydn, but seem instead to take their cue from some of the experimental ones by Beethoven.

Outside of Germany and Austria, the most important late Romantic symphonic composer Piotr Tschaikovsky, a Russian who composed six numbered symphonies and an unnumbered program symphony. Anton Dvořák from Czechoslovakia is also seen as an important symphonic contributor, known to concert audiences mostly for his 9th symphony subtitled From the New World, completed in Spillville, Iowa when he was on an extended stay in the United States.

The last great symphonist in the conservative tradition was the Austrian composer AntonBruckner. Bruckner composed nine numbered symphonies (his last one incomplete when he died) as well as two early “student” symphonies that never made the official numbering scheme. Almost all of his symphonies pay homage to Beethoven's ninth by starting quietly with tremolo (rapidly bowed) strings.

THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA

To finish a survey of some of the trends of the Romantic era, it is probably fitting to close with a reference to a work by German writer Frederich Nietzsche.

Thus Spake Zarathustra is a novel of the character Zarathustra, an “overman” who has gone beyond the rest of the human race. Nietzsche's point is that “God is dead”, suggesting that humans have evolved to the point where religion is not necessary to dictate morality or motivate human behavior.

Two important compositions that draw from Thus Spake Zarathustra are the third symphony of Mahler and the tone poem “Thus Spake Zarathustra” by Richard Strauss, which is the source of the iconic theme from the Stanley Kubrick film, 2001: A Space Odyssey.

To put this into perspective—when we started Western music history, the Church and religion dominated music. Studying Medieval art and music is essentially a study of church history. Many surviving secular Medieval songs make deeper religious references than some of today's sacred music.

Studying Romantic art and music is often a study of historical, literary, and artistic trends.

Within a few short centuries, we have traveled between two extremes. Obviously today, religion is still a factor in the lives of many, a motivator in politics, but we see its impacton art and music during the Romantic era almost non-existent.

The above list of trends and innovations hits the highlights of the era, but is in no way anexhaustive survey of the richness of the Romantic era.

If anyone ever wanted a laboratory where we could turn music and art loose in a fertile environment and see what happened, he need look no further than the Romantic Era. While the profound changes to music may not have been predicable, they were certainly a logical outcome of freedom of expression. They were made possible by the tremendous growth of technology, which set in motion equally unprecedented economic growth.

One of the signs of a stagnant society is arts that change very little.

One of the signs of a dynamic, prosperous, and intellectual society has always been an explosion of the boundaries of the arts. In these times of great change, it is almost impossible to exaggerate the effects economic changes have on the arts.

It should be pointed out that many of these works discussed represent some of the radical developments of the era. There was—and still is—a lot of conventional music being composed. However, even the outliers tell a great deal about the Romantic period (not to mention that they are still very popular today)—just as our most avant garde and radical art speaks about us and the boundaries that are able to be pushed.

The Romantic Era--the celebration of the individual, his individual vision, his individualfreedom of expression. It is the solitary journey of the visionary artist that turned him into an icon, a hero.

It is his voice we hear in this era. Not the voice of an institution, a government or the people around him.

The artist’s voice. And because it resonates so loudly within us, we should realize that it is also an echo of our own.

i One trick was to have instruments pitched in two different keys so that each instrument could fill in a few of the notes the other one missed. A second one is that most of them can swap out tubes of different lengths that would allow them to change key—of course, with enough rests built into the music to give the player time to make the change. And, there are also some brilliant exceptions like the Bach 2nd Brandenburg Concerto where the trumpet part plays a melody nearly as complex as any other of the solo instruments.

ii We are not the first era to like our music LOUD.

iii Paganini was a master innovator on his instrument and discovered new potential in the violin. He eventually did teach a number of pupils and, today, his most difficult music is played regularly by many musicians, some in their early teens. A few musical scholars debate whether he was actually good enough to play some of his most difficult published music. However even the most technicallychallenging ones have been performed and recorded by many modern musicians. Regardless, he deserves tremendous credit for understanding the potential of the instrument and pushing the extremes of violin playing.

iv 20th century blues musician Robert Johnson had the same rumor said about him.

v While the dramatic flow of program music is meant to follow an outside story line, good program music should be able to be understood and enjoyed even if one doesn't know the program.

vi 18th century operas were generally divided into two types of music: aria, a section where the music was developed and more important than the words which were often a vehicle for delivering a beautiful or powerful melody. A recitative served the opposite function—text was “recited” with a very primitive melody, with the purpose of moving the plot along.

vii Listen to the ending of the Beethoven 5th symphony reaching the triumphant key of C major, reinforcing it over and over and over. . . and then some more; certainly a reason many feel there is something personal there, more than just a piece of music.

Material copyright 2016 by Gary Daum, all rights reserved. All photos and illustrations by Gary Daum unless otherwisenoted. Unlimited use granted to current members of the Georgetown Prep community.