“To say the word romanticism is to say modern art - that is, intimacy, spirituality, color, aspiration towards the infinite, expressed by every means available to the arts.” Charles Baudelaire. The Romantic era in classical music symbolized an epochal time that circumnavigated the whole of Western culture. Feelings of deep emotion were beginning to be expressed in ways that would have seemed once inappropriate. Individualism began to grip you people by its reins and celebrate their unique personalities and minds. Some youth began to wear their hair long, their beards scraggly and unkept, and their clothing was inspired by the outlandish and the flamboyant. Music morphed from a once tangible aural stimulant into music marked by its decent into the depths of human emotions most of which were not rational. Classical music became a stream of consciousness, a vehicle to convey their countless emotions. In the Romantic Period, music now voiced what, for centuries, people had been too afraid to express. The culture, the composers, and the music of the Romantic era changed classical music profoundly. The Romantic era classical music manifested itself as a time of the irrational and peculiar, a time that allowed many people the opportunity to express their inmost convictions through the music.
The culture of the Romantic Period marks an era shrouded in astonishing and rapid change, socially and economically. In Europe, between the years 1825 and 1900, enormous technological developments occurred. With the Industrial Revolution full force, the inventions of railroads and steamboats satisfied an insatiable desire for speedy travel and transportation of goods. Photography was changing the way in which history was...
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The Romantic Period existed as a testament to the epochal changes that occurred between the years of 1825 and 1900. Culture was colored by the changing of ideals and moral principles, music was composed to capture the frailty and fallibility of human emotion, and composers of this age allowed themselves to be guided by their emotions and injected these powerful feelings into their works. Music was no longer a means to convey class and refinement; music had become a vehicle by which composers could rid themselves of sophistication and instead express their deepest feelings and thoughts often cloaked by the twelve, humble semi-tones that make up all Western music ever written. The Romantic culture, the Romantic music, and the Romantic composer could be considered subversive as they served to reinvent classical music for the rest of time.
For almost half a century, the musical world was defined by order and esteemed the form of music more highly than the emotion that lay behind it. However, at the turn of the 19th century, romantic music began to rise in popularity. Lasting nearly a century, romantic music rejected the ideas of the classical era and instead encouraged composers to embrace the idea of emotionally driven music. Music was centered around extreme emotions and fantastical stories that rejected the idea of reason. This was the world that Clara Wieck (who would later marry the famous composer, Robert Schumann) was born into. Most well known for being a famous concert pianist, and secondly for being a romantic composer, Clara intimately knew the workings of romantic music which would not only influence Clara but would later become influenced by her progressive compositions and performances, as asserted by Bertita Harding, author of Concerto: The Glowing Story of Clara Schumann (Harding, 14). Clara’s musical career is an excellent example of how romantic music changed from virtuosic pieces composed to inspire awe at a performer’s talent, to more serious and nuanced pieces of music that valued the emotion of the listener above all else.
Before the turn of the 20th century, art and music have gone through radical evolutions to express the environment, politics, and beliefs of both the artist and the composer. After the rediscovering of creating art and music in the Renaissance Period, each individual tries to reinterpret and recreate works of art from their perspective. In the Impressionist era, art and music once again made a radical evolution for others to view and listen to. Among these individuals, Russian composer Igor Stravinsky and Spanish artist Pablo Picasso would make such changes that even longtime fans of their works would find them both shocking and offensive during their time. In this paper, we will view specifically Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring” and Picasso’s “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon”.
Tolmachev, I. (2010, March 15). A history of Photography Part 1: The Beginning. Retrieved Febraury 2014, from tuts+ Photography: http://photography.tutsplus.com/articles/a-history-of-photography-part-1-the-beginning--photo-1908
The Romantic era is where we start to see a shift in classical music. Composers started to express more of their own emotions into their pieces. Beethoven was one of the first composers to transition. This lecture is interesting that we delve deeper into the life and mind of Beethoven. Not only did he advance the Classical Style, but he also paved the way into Romanticism. He was viewed as a transitional figure as well as a “creative genius.” Beethoven was a true master of music. His ability to swiftly establish solidarity in pairing different keys with unexpected notes was incredible. This innovation expanded the harmonic realm and created a sense of a vast musical and experimental space through which music moved in a piece. Along with his development of themes and motifs, which were usually by means of modulation, he was truly able to distinguish himself and his works from those of any prior composer.
The industrial revolution in 19th century England saw one of the biggest changes in terms of social, cultural and philosophical values and in turn saw big reaction in the arts. The period brought with it advancements in materials, progression in scientific theory and change in social structure. Art and Architecture broke away from political and religious powers whom previously dictated the artistic genre, allowing artists greater freedom to express themselves. Along with this prosperity and excitement of the new industrial world came an uncertainty about changing times. Reaction to the rationalism of the Neo-classicism and the idealisation of the industrial age artists sought to place emphasis on drama over harmony and emotions over rational reason. Artists in this time where less worried about the traditional canons of how to paint and placed a focus on using painting techniques to heighten the feelings or points they were expressing. These circumstances of the period ultimately resulted in the artistic movement we now know as the romantic period. The romantics were seeking express human emotion and promote artistic individuality to save social values from the clutches of the rational machine age.
As the many socio-political rebellions of the late eighteenth-century accepted new social orders and new ways of life and notion, so composers of the period broke new musical ground by attaching a new emotional depth to the preponderating classical forms. Throughout the remainder of the nineteenth-century, artists of all kinds became intent in declaring their subjective, personal emotions. "Romanticism" gained its name from the romances of medieval times, long poems describing stories of heroes and chivalry, of distant lands and far away places, and often of unattainable love. The romantic artists are the first in history to provide
Romanticism can be seen as a dismissal of the statutes of the request, quiet, amicability, equalization, romanticizing, and objectivity that encapsulated Classicism by and vast and late eighteenth-century Neoclassicism individually. It was likewise to some degree a response against the Enlightenment and against eighteenth-century realism and physical realism when all is said in done. Romanticism underscored the individual, the subjective, the silly, the innovative, the person, the unconstrained, the enthusiastic, the visionary, and the
Romanticism was a reaction to the Enlightenment as a cultural movement, an aesthetic style, and an attitude of mind (210). Culturally, Romanticism freed people from the limitations and rules of the Enlightenment. The music of the Enlightenment was orderly and restrained, while the music of the Romantic period was emotional. As an aesthetic style, Romanticism was very imaginative while the art of the Enlightenment was realistic and ornate. The Romanticism as an attitude of mind was characterized by transcendental idealism, where experience was obtained through the gathering and processing of information. The idealism of the Enlightenment defined experience as something that was just gathered.
Roughly from 1815 to 1910, this period of time is called the romantic period. At this period, all arts are transforming from classic arts by having greater emphasis on the qualities of remoteness and strangeness in essence. The influence of romanticism in music particularly, has shown that romantic composers value the freedom of expression, movement, passion, and endless pursuit of the unattainable fantasy and imagination. The composers of the romantic period are in search of new subject matters, more emotional and are more expressive of their feelings as they are not bounded by structural rules in classical music where order, equilibrium, control and perfection are deemed important (Dorak, 2000).
In the 19th century the world experienced many dramatic changes related to politics, economics and culture. Music would never be the same after this period. During these years musicians, influenced by the Romantic movement in literature, neglected the formalism and aims of Classicism (Bohle p1861), and developed Musical Romanticism as a way to express their feelings free of traditional musical structures.
The Romantics era lasted from the year 1798 to the year 1834 and is an era full of changes. In this era the artists had freedom to express what they felt through their arts of work. Therefore, the works of art and the music during this period are truly expressive. Nationalism is also widely expressed by many artists during this era. This era is mostly shaped by many talented artists that became recognized nationally and worldwide. The classical rules were broken in this era and no more political oppression subsided in the streets of England. The air smells like freedom to the people living there, and new boundaries were open to those who decided to pursue their dreams. The artists give life to their imagination in their published works of art. “In various forms, Romances shared a feature that Victorians would take as exemplary of the literary (if not the polemical) imagination of the age: a turn even an escape form the tumultuous and confusing here-and-now” (The Romantics and Their Contemporaries 11). The Romantic era gave the world the supernatural and the mysterious side of art. Creativity also is a word that defines the Romantic era because it gave life to its lit...
"Photography in the Victorian Era." . N.p., 16 Feb 2013. Web. 17 Mar 2014. .
Romantic music was a different form of music that didn’t focus on religion, political or social tendencies. According to Lawrence Kramer the author of the book Why Classical Music Still Matters, “historically, the ideal of romantic love, tended to substitute for broader schemes of political, social, vocational, or religious meaning, as part of an increasing general tendency to rely on private rather that public schemes of fulfillment.” Meaning that romanticism had an impact on music in which religion, political and social meanings were substituted by a new form that rely on private situations instead of general public situations. This music form influenced the most in modern music because most of them are not based on
n : traditional genre of music conforming to an established form and appealing to critical interest and developed musical taste [syn: serious music]
Beginning with Beethoven, the Romantic period of classical music blossomed out of a time of strict patterns and structures. Romantic, in musical terminology, is defined as “a period of music, art, and literature (mostly the 1800s and beginning of the 1900s) that’s often characterized by the unabashed expression of emotion.” Musicians of this period fully expressed emotions and poured their heart and soul into the pieces they played. Moreover, composers created masterpieces full of life and luster that entranced the people of the 19th century.