Characteristics of the Romantic Music Period

It is argucapable that some romanticist euphony made greater demands upon its listers than did practice of medicine of previous(pre nary(prenominal)inal) historical periods. What were those demands? Why did these changes come about? And what strategies rear end you educate for sense of hearing to this medicine today? In checkation of the symphonyal theater changes present in the romantic era, this strive bequeath contend that these changes atomic number 18 very much related to the wider social and technological changes in hostelry roughly that while. Thus, it is important to identify the broad time period encompassed by this era.The definition of quixoticism in The New woodlet Dictionary of medication and medicationians is A thrust or, more than commonly, period of cultural muniment. When dumb as a period, Romanticism is usually identified with either the first half or the unit of measurement of the nineteenth speed of light. The term is used with reference primarily to the machinations, but it wad also embrace philosophy, socio-political history and, more widely, the spirit of the era. i Consequently, this essay views that Romantic music encompasses the whole of the nineteenth century and will consider some of the key changes which occurred around that time period.It has been argued that these changes have resulted in music which makes greater demands upon its listeners and this essay will highlight these demands and how they were influenced by those social and technological changes of that time, concluding with strategies for listening to this music today. Some of the music which can be used to illustrate these changes are specific works by Beethoven, a composer, who is viewed as a major influence on the music of the nineteenth century. This can be evidenced by the woodlet article on Romanticism, which deems it to be widely accepted that Beethoven inaugurated a Romantic eraii.The demands of Romantic music are characterised by sev eral key changes. These changes can be summarised as follows an increased intensity, both(prenominal) good and musical a greater use of radical contrasts in the music and a solid increase in the length of musical compositions. The increased intensity of Romantic music can be demonstrated by an analysis of the Diploma syllabus of the ABRSMiii. This syllabus provides an authoritative assessment framework iv for good and musical ability and one(a) can see that the vast preponderance of its tours fall into the Romantic category.Furthermore, as one progresses through the levels of syllabus, the repertoire becomes more demanding v and the volume of Romantic component parts increases steadily. A major factor in this change is the related technological ad wagon traincements of that time period which resulted in the upgrading of a crook of musical instruments to more advanced forms. This can be illustrated with reference to the specific cause of the piano, an instrument refined cons iderably during the Romantic period.Key changes incorporate the introduction of modern style pedals, greater string diameters and tensions, an extended number of octaves, the treble escapement action and the cast iron framevi vii. Thus, the instrument of the nineteenth century is far superior to its eighteenth century counterpart. The resultant musical changes include a greater quantity of octaves available and a greater roll of power and dynamics made available to the composer. This had the obvious corollary of composers producing pieces with greater use of radical dynamic contrasts. concord to Winterviii, Romantic composers used their new piano to great effect The ripplele just about important growth in the sound of the Romantic piano was doubtless the new emphasis on the sustaining (or damper) pedal. These key changes of characteristic contrasts and increased intensity were aided by the accomp alling social change in music around the Romantic period, which can be characte rised by the rise of the masterly. Franz Liszt, the legendary pianist, dazzled audiences across Europe, garnering rave reviews wherever he travelled, considered by The New orchard Dictionary of Music and Musicians to be the greatest piano thaumaturgist of his time ix. The improved piano was critical to his dis campaigns of technical prowess.Without it he would not have been able to play pieces as demanding on the instrument. The hitherto unimagined difficulty x of his Vingt-quatres grandes etudes pour le pianoxi, was considered as well much by the composer, he revised the Etudes and later published his Etudes dexecution transcendantexii, the latter still ferociously difficult but surpassed in that respect by the former. Given that a key feature of Liszts playing style and compositions was technical skill, one could argue Liszt could not have been the performer, or composer, he was, in the preceding century.Nicolo Paganini was another virtuoso of the highest calibre a violinist xiii. He, too, gave fantastic performances to rapturous crowds in numerous countries. William Ayrton, editor of The Harmonicon, remarked that His powers of execution are miniscule less than marvelous, and such as we could only have believed on the evidence of our own senses they imply a strong natural propensity for music, with an industry, a perseverance, a devotedness and also a skill in inventing means, without any parallel in the history of his instrument. xivPaganini, similar to Liszt, composed works for his instrument, which were considered some of the hardest in its repertoirexv get-up-and-go the boundaries of the Romantic violin to previously unseen heights. An excellent way for a virtuoso to show rack up their talents is a concerto. The concerto provided a perfect vehicle to showcase the new technically advanced instruments and the music that could be performed on themxvi. One characteristic of Romantic concertos is their length. Indeed, this increased length is anothe r key aspect of Romantic music as a whole.To take one concrete example of this, Vladimir Askenazys interpretations of Beethovens piano concertosxvii are significantly greater in length than his interpretations of Mozarts concertosxviii. Further illustration of this is the hypothesis movements of Beethovens piano concertos numbers 4 and 5, which both last longer than a number of Mozarts concertos in their entirety and are longer, by far, than any of Mozarts first movements. Similarly, other forms of musical composition demonstrated increasing length during the Romantic era.Beethovens Piano Sonata number 29 ,Hammerklavier, being a case in point, according to Marstonxix, the extremely long solo piece was most likely the longest ever written at that time. The Hammerklavier sonata is also a perfect example of the other previously stated Romantic characteristics. The use of pianississimo and fortissimo a bar apart in the final section of the first movement is but one example of the radic al contrasts present in the piece as a wholexx. Another hallmark of Romantic music is present in this piece extreme technical difficulty Andras Schiff declared Hammerklavier virtually unplayable xxi.This increase in length was also evident in the Romantic symphony. One striking example being Beethovens symphony number three, Eroica, first published in 1804 xxii, at the very dawn of musical Romanticism its spring movement dwarfs any comparable previous movement xxiii. According to Bondsxxiv, Eroica is the start, for Beethoven at least, of music displaying key Romantic characteristics Particularly from the Eroica onwards, Beethoven was seen to have explored a variety of ways in which instrumental music could evoke images and ideas transcending the world of sound. Overall, these properties of Romanticism were influenced by the social changes of the nineteenth century. These changes meant that composers of the Romantic era had greater independence than ever before. Unlike their co unterparts in previous historical periods, they no longer had to be almost unaccompanied dependent on the church or the state or wealthy, upper-class patronsxxv xxvi. As highlighted previously, thespians could support themselves by giving public concerts, Paganini earned so much money in one year that he could have bought 300 kilos of gold. xxvii xxviii As we can see in this example from woodlet, the orchestra of the Romantic age was distinctly different from its predecessors in that it was not for the personal amusement of royalty or a symbol of circumstance During most of the 18th century orchestras had been an accompaniment to and an expression of aristocratic court culture in the nineteenth century the orchestra became a central institution of public musical life. xxix Given the demands illustrated through these changes, several strategies are suggested.One possible outline would be to learn a piece. As reading music is a necessary precursor to this, it would be a required and fruitful use of ones time to learn to do so if the skill has not already been learnt. Learning to play a piece of music would be the ideal realisation of this strategy. However, this is not always possible and would be impractical for a piece with a large number of parts a symphony, for example. Nevertheless, one can study and apprise the technical or musical difficulty involved in a piece without being able to master it.Once able, listening to a piece of music whilst consulting the score is also a reusable tool for following a piece and picking out specific parts. This is especially true of any orchestral piece. Another related strategy would be to try and put oneself in the shoes of a listener of the Romantic era. Listening to recordings performed on period instruments would be an ideal method of doing this. Also, learning more about the people of the period and what it would have been like for a nineteenth century person to listen to a certain work for the first time woul d be a further way to surveil this strategy.To learn, and lever, any other art forms linked with a piece of music is another strategy for listening to Romantic music for example, Beethovens Symphony number 9. Beethoven based the final movement on the poem Ode to Joy by Friedrich Schillerxxx the movement is scored for orchestra, four vocal soloists and a choir who sing the words of the poem. The case can be made that, to fully appreciate this work, one must appreciate the poem on which it is based. Additionally, understanding of the language the words are in German would take this strategy even urther. Separating a piece of music into parts is another strategy for listening to Romantic music. For example, a symphony or sonata can be listened to as individual movements, easier to absorb than, perhaps, thirty minutes or an hours worth of music. Exploring huge compositions or collections at one time is not the rig strategy, the sheer volume of notes can be daunting and there is a danger that listening to too much music dulls one to the finer points of that music, it simply becomes noise.The distinct movements many composers put in their music should be utilised when first discovering a work, only once more understanding is cultivated should one attempt to listen to an entire concerto, sonata or symphony. Conclusively, it has been shown that Romantic music made greater demands upon its listeners than did music of previous historical periods. These demands were increased technical and musical intensity the use of bold, vivid contrasts and a considerably augment duration of musical compositions.These changes came about due to technological advancements of the period, less reliance on patronage and the musician became a respected and viable profession in the nineteenth century. There are many strategies which can be devised for listening to Romantic music, in the present day. These are learning how to read and play music to put oneself in the shoes of a listen er of the time period to study any art forms which are linked to a piece of Romantic music and dividing a composition into more comfortably manageable sections. These strategies will further aid the listener in appreciating and understanding Romantic music. - i Jim Samson, Romanticism, Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online, Accessed 2 celestial latitude 2009 ii Jim Samson, Romanticism, Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online, Accessed 2 declination 2009 (1. History of usage) iii ABRSM, Music Performance Diploma Syllabus from 2005, Accessed 2 declination 2009 iv ibidem v Ibid. vi Philip R. Belt, Maribel Meisel/Gert Hecher, Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online, Accessed 2 declination 2009 (5. The Viennese piano from 1800. ) vii Michael Cole, Pianoforte, Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online, Accessed 2 December 2009 (6.England and France, 180060. ) viii Robert Winter, Pianoforte, Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online, Accessed 2 December 2009 (2. Romantic period) ix Alan Walker, et al. , Liszt, Franz, Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online, , Accessed 2 December 2009 x Howard Ferguson and Kenneth L. Hamilton, Study, Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online, Accessed 2 December 2009 xi Franz Liszt, Vingt-quatres grandes etudes pour le piano, 1839, Vienna Haslinger xii Franz Liszt, Etudes dexecution transcendante, 1852, Leipzig Breitkopf & Hartel xiii Edward Neill, Paganini, Nicolo, Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online, Accessed 2 December 2009 xiv Edward Neill, Paganini, Nicolo, Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online, Accessed 2 December 2009 (7. France and Great Britain, 18314, and last years, 183540. ) xv Ibid. xvi Arnold, Denis and Timothy Rhys Jones, concerto, The Oxford feller to Music Oxford Music Online, Accessed 2 December 2009 xvii Ludwig van Beethoven, Beethoven The Piano Concertos, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, cond. by Georg Solti, (Decca, 1995) xviii Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Mozart The Piano Concertos, Vladimir As hkenazy, Philharmonia Orchestra, cond. by Vladimir Ashkenazy, (Decca, 1995) xix Nicholas Marston, Approaching the Sketches for Beethovens Hammerklavier Sonata, Journal of the American Musicological Society, Vol. 44, No. 3 (Autumn, 1991), p. 404-450, University of California straighten out on behalf of the American Musicological Society, p. 404 xx Ludwig van Beethoven, Piano Sonata no. 29 Hammerklavier, 1891, Stuttgart J. G. Cotta Final three interdict of first movement Allegro pic xxi Andras Schiff, Lecture on Piano Sonata no. 9 Hammerklavier by Ludwig van Beethoven, Wigmore Hall, May 2006, Published by The Guardian, Accessed 2 December 2009 xxii Eroica Symphony, The Oxford Dictionary of Music, 2nd ed. rev. Ed. Michael Kennedy. Oxford Music Online, Accessed 2 December 2009 xxiii Mark Evan Bonds, Symphony, Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online, Accessed 2 December 2009 (II. 19th century, 2. Beethoven) xxiv Ibid. xxv Joseph Dyer, Roman Catholic church music, Grove Music Online. O xford Music Online, Accessed 2 December 2009 (V. The 19th century, 1. Catholic church music and the Romantic aesthetic. xxvi Joseph Dyer, Roman Catholic church music, Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online, Accessed 2 December 2009 (IV. The 18th century) xxvii John Spitzer and Neal Zaslaw, Orchestra, Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online, Accessed 2 December 2009 (7. The Romantic orchestra (18151900). ) xxviii Edward Neill, Paganini, Nicolo,Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online, Accessed 2 December 2009 (8. Playing style. ) xxix John Spitzer and Neal Zaslaw, loc. cit. xxx Ludwig van Beethoven, Symphony no. 9, ca. 1925, Leipzig Ernst Eulenburg