Romantic Virtuosity
As the many socio-political revolutions of the late eighteenth-century established new social orders and new ways of life and thought; composers of the time period broke new musical ground by adding a new emotional depth to the prevailing classical forms.
This period is known as the Romantic period. It accured approximately from 1820 to 1920. Artists became intent in expressing their subjective, personal emotions. "Romanticism" derives its name from the romances of medieval times -- long poems telling 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 give to themselves the name by which they are identified.
The Romantic Movement in music co-insides with a general Romantic movement in all arts. At this period, the arts of literature and painting began to influence music. In the Romantic era, music acquired poetic or philosophical meaning. Antiquity, folklore, history and exotic cultures were examined as possible sources of inspiration. Romanticism in literature appears to precede the first signs of Romantic music (for example Goethe [1749-1832] and Wordsworth [1770-1850]). The Romantic Movement was fostered especially by a number of German writers and poets. Their influence on musicians was pervasive and enduring. Weber and Wagner were attracted by the legends of Northern Europe; Schumann by the pseudo-philosophic romantic literature of his day; Chopin by his national poet Mickiewicz; Berlioz by the earlier romantic poet Shakespeare; Liszt by the contemporary French romantic poet Lamartine and by various French romantic painters, and so on. Thus, an explosion of music by poetry, fiction, ph...
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... could deny that they were and are virtuosos.
Bibliography:
Bibliography
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http://www.ipl.org/exhibit/mushist/rom/index.htm#liszt
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Sachs, Harvey "Virtuoso: the life and art of Niccolo Paganini, Franz Liszt, Anton Rubinstein, Ignance Janpaderweski, Fritz Kreisler, Pablo Casals, Wanda Landowska, Vladimir Horowitz."
Thames and Hudson, New York 1982
Sadie, Stanley. "The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians"
Macmillan Publishers Limited, London 2001 Volume 26 P 789
Schonberg, Harld C. "The lives of the great Composers"
W.W. Norton, New York 1997
"The Romantic Period" George Town Prep. School.
http://www.gprep.org/~music/musikbok/chap14.html
The romanticism era was a movement in history that mainly focused on visual arts, music, and literature. This era was happening between 1800 and 1860. The romanticism period is sometimes observed as a reaction to the Industrial Revolution. One of this era’s longest lasting effects was its effect on politics and nationalism. Paintings during this time had an emotional appeal. Bringing light to the feelings of horror, wonder, and apprehension/fear. The modern term “romantic” is said to be derived from the romanticism period.
Romanticism first came about in the 18th century and it was mostly used for art and literature. The actual word “romanticism” was created in Britain in the 1840s. People like Victor Hugo, William Wordsworth, and Percy Bysshe Shelley had big impacts on this style of art. Romanticism is an art in which people express their emotion. Whatever they believed is put into a picture, painting, poem, or book. Romanticism goes deep into a mind. It is very deep thinking and it’s expressing yourself through that deep thinking. Romanticism is the reaction to the Enlightenment and the enlightenment aka the “Age of Reason” took place during the 1700s to 1800s. The enlightenment emphasized being rational and using your mind; on the other hand, romanticism focuses on emotion and imagination. It says don’t just focus on rationality and reason.
The Romantic period is chronologically defined by the 19th century. It was an era of great turmoil. With the French Revolution, the American Civil War, the Franco-Prussian War, the Crimean War, the Spanish-American War and various revolutions across Europe, a great sense of upheaval was felt by the bourgeoisie and upper class struggling to maintain their affluent lifestyle during this time period. The revolutionaries who were fighting for their rights and independence felt a great sense of freedom, pride and other intense emotions. These intense emotions helped identify the Romantic period. Characteristics of the Romantic period help define it as a whole, and allow for the overall appreciation for the music ...
As humans, we constantly wonder why. Why did this happen? Where did this come from? Music plays a central role in our society and our culture and so we must ask ourselves: where did it come from? The Baroque period has had a tremendous impact on modern day music. The Baroque period gave birth to dozens of musical inventions and innovations including an increased reliance on discordance and the institution of 7th chords and inversions. For these reasons and many more, we can agree that the Baroque period has been a strong influence on modern day music and even our lives. Clearly, the Baroque period is not alive back then but living right now.
...rtuosity in Clara Schumann's Piano Compositions." Musicological Explorations 11 (Spring 2010): 45-90. Academic Search Complete. Web. 17 Nov. 2013.
Romanticism was an artistic and literary movement that began in the late 18th century Europe that stressed the individual’s expression of emotion and imagination, glorification of the past and nature, and departure from forms of classicism. The movement emerged as a reaction against the ideas
The Romantic period was an expressive and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century and peaked in the 1800s-1850s. This movement was defined and given depth by an expulsion of all ideals set by the society of the particular time, in the sense that the Romantics sought something deeper, something greater than the simplistic and structured world that they lived in. They drew their inspiration from that around them. Their surroundings, especially nature and the very fabric of their minds, their imagination. This expulsion of the complexity of the simple human life their world had organised and maintained resulted in a unique revolution in history. Eradication of materialism, organisation and society and
John Warrack, author of 6 Great Composers, stated, “Any study of a composer, however brief, must have as its only purpose encouragement of the reader to greater enjoyment of the music” (Warrack, p.2). The composers and musicians of the Renaissance period need to be discussed and studied so that listeners, performers, and readers can appreciate and understand the beginnings of music theory and form. The reader can also understand the driving force of the composer, whether sacred or secular, popularity or religious growth. To begin understanding music composition one must begin at the birth, or rebirth of music and the composers who created the great change.
This is the second volume of Richard Taruskin's historical work, and it highlights composers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. He examines the progression of different styles and eras of music.
The term romantic first appeared at sometime during the latter half of the 18th Century, meaning in quite literal English, "romance-like", usually referring to the character of mythical medieval romances. The first significant jump was in literature, where writing became far more reliant on imagination and the freedom of thought and expression, in around 1750. Subsequent movements then began to follow in Music and Art, where the same kind of imagination and expression began to appear. In this essay I shall be discussing the effect that this movement had on music, the way it developed, and the impact that it had on the future development of western music.
The characteristics of romantic music are influenced by the Romantic Movement, where the arts of literature and painting play a great role in influencing romantic music. Other evidence of non-musical influences in romantic music is the popularity of romantic poetry during that era. Poems, opera arias and works form great romantic poets are transformed into instrumental works and composers like Schubert uses musical elements such as melodies inspired by poetry in his works (http://absoluteastronomy.com). The musical language itself has shown that romantic music is different from the rest of the music before its time. Extended tonal and harmonic elements are noticed in romantic music compared to those in the classical era, where chromaticism, the usage of dissonance, and modulations are used extensively.
In life as well as literature, some sought to display their sensibility by weeping and fainting and blushing and reacting extravagantly to scenes of poverty or illness. Sensibility was understood as a capacity intimately connected with the physical nature of nerves. Essential to its existence was its operation on the body as well as the mind. Thus a propensity to blush and weep might be taken as evidence that the weepers, full of sensibility, loved their neighbours as themselves. (Spacks 141)
Romanticism spawned in the late 18th century and flourished in the early and mid-19th century. Romanticism emphasized the irrational, the imaginative, the personal, the spontaneous, the emotional, the visionary, the transcendental, and the individual. Romanticism is often viewed as a rejection of the ideologies of Classicism and Neoclassicisms, namely calm, order, harmony, idealization, rationality and balance. Some characteristics of Romanticism include: emotion over reason, senses over intellect, love for nature, use of the hero and the exceptional figure in general, emphasis of imagination being the gateway to spiritual truth, and an interest in folk culture. Romanticism was preceded by related developments in the med-18th century referred to as “Pre-Romanticism”. One Pre-Romantic style was medieval romance, which is where Romanticism gets its name from. The medieval romance was a tale that emphasized the exotic, the mysterious, and individual heroism. This style contrasted the then prevalent classical forms of literature such as the French Neoclassical Tragedy. But this new emotional literary expression would be a key part of literature during the Romantic Era (Britannica). Literature during the Romantic Era was influenced by politics and major historical events and social reforms, religion, science, economics, and art and music.
The Romantic Period was from 1784 until 1832, it brought a more brave, individual, and imaginative approach to both literature and life. During this time the individual became more important than society. Individualism became the center of the Romantic vision (Pfordresher, 423). The Romantic Age in England was a movement that affected all the countries of Western Europe. Romanticism represents an attempt to rediscover the mystery and wonder of the world (Pfordresher, 424). The French Revolution, 1793-1815, gave life and breath to the dreams of many Romantic writers; they wanted liberty and equality for all individuals (Pfordresher, 423).
Music Appreciation has broadened my view to listen to different eras of music that I was not accustomed to. It was pleasant listening, reading, and learning about different periods of music. This course has given me an exceptional amount of knowledge on different styles of music, identifying different elements in music as well as learning about legendary composers who have influenced music throughout history. Not only has music been around for decades, it has developed a history of great composers who have left an imprint in history by their extraordinary compositions of music they developed during their times of glory, like Ludwig van Beethoven. In this essay I will discuss how Beethoven is known as one of the greatest, ingenuity composers of his time and how the classical period is so fascinating to listen to and learn about. In addition, I will also discuss how Music Appreciation has reshaped the way I perceive and listen to different styles of music that have been created throughout history.