Unit XV The Romantic Movement

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Unit XVThe Romantic Movement

• Chapter 41
• Romanticism in Music

2
Improvements in Instruments

• The addition of valves to brass instruments made
  them capable of playing a much more prominent and
  powerful role in the development of melodies and
  themes.

3
Improvements in Instruments

• The new cast iron frame and thicker strings of
  the nineteenth century piano made its tone deeper
  and more brilliant. This allowed and encouraged
  Liszt to write a more powerful sonata than Mozart
  could have imagined.

4
Improvements in Instruments

• Due to the democratization of society, musical
  training was no longer the exclusive realm of the
  privileged. Conservatories trained more skilled
  musicians, relying on the free market to make
  their living. Music making became a vocation
  rather than an avocation. The skill level
  naturally increased to provide performers a
  professional edge.

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Improvements in Instruments

• Music moved from the palace to the church and
  public concert hall.
  
• Orchestras increased in size and expressive
  capabilities.
  
• Dynamic range greatly increased in both
  directions from the eighteenth century. Greater
  contrasts were used.
  
• Orchestration became more of an art as tone
  colors began to be used to greater expressive
  advantage.

6
Improvements in Instruments

• Composers began to use terms which suggested not
  only the character of the music but also the
  frame of mind behind it.
  
• dolce (sweetly), cantabile (songful), dolente
  (weeping), mesto (sad), maestoso (majestic), etc.

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Improvements in Instruments

• Interest in folklore and the rising tide of
  nationalism resulted in the infusion of
  characteristic melodies, harmonies and rhythms of
  the folk songs and dances of composers' native
  countries. This greatly enriched the
  compositional resources of music.

8
Exoticism

• Longing of northern nations for the warmth and
  color of the south (Italy and Spain)
  
• Glinka - Spanish Overtures
• Tchaikovsky - Capriccio italien
• Rimsky-Korsokov - Capriccio on Spanish Themes
• Mendelssohn - Italian Symphony
• Hugo Wolf, Italian Serenade
• Richard Strauss, Aus Italien
• Chabrier, España

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Exoticism

• Longing of the West for the fairy tale splendors
  of the Orient
  
• Really an expression of nationalism in the
  Russian national school.
  
• Rimsky-Korsakov - Scheherazade, Sadko (Opera)
• Alexander Borodin - Prince Igor (Opera), In the
  Steppes of Central Asia (Symphonic poem)
  
• Ippolitov-Ivanov - Caucasian Sketches
• Saint-Saëns - Samson and Delilah

10
Romantic Style Traits

• Romantic melody is easy to sing. Composers
  strived above all to make instruments "sing".
  Therefore, Romantic melody is marked by a
  lyricism that gives it an immediate appeal.

11
Romantic Style Traits

• Harmonies become greatly expanded, more
  expressive, ever more tolerant of emotional
  dissonances (especially clear in the music of
  Wagner).

12
Romantic Style Traits

• Forms take on much larger dimensions than during
  the Classical Era.
  
• This is especially true in the case of the
  symphony. As a result, composers' outputs were
  numerically smaller than in the Classical Era.

13
Program Music

• Music in the nineteenth century drew steadily
  closer to literature and painting--that is, to
  elements that lay outside the realm of sound.

14
Romantic Musical Philosophy

• Romantic music was linked to dreams and passions,
  profound meditations on life and death, man's
  destiny, God and nature, pride in one's country,
  desire for freedom, political struggles of the
  age, and the ultimate triumph of good over evil.

15
The Musician in Nineteenth Century Society

• Partially due to the fact that music became
  available to all classes, the Romantic artist
  came to be considered an equal rather than a
  servant as had been the norm in the past.
• Some soloists even became "stars," such as Liszt
  and Paganini.

16
Public Access to Music in the 19th Century

• Permanent orchestras and singing societies sprang
  up, supported by thriving amateur music-making
  occuring in almost every home.
  
• Music and music journals became readily available
  to the public.

17
Performers and Composers as Educators

• Felix Mendelssohn - founded the Leipzig
  Conservatory (became model for music schools all
  over Europe and America)
  
• Anton Rubinstein - founded St. Petersburg
  Conservatory.
  
• Robert Schumann - became widely read critic
• Franz Lizst - in addition to becoming a great
  concert artist, he taught many budding (and later
  famous) young concert pianists

18
Women in Music

• An increasing number of women became active as
  both amateur and professional musicians.
  
• Became possible because of increased acceptance
  by new conservatories and music schools.
  
• Opera performance was particularly successful as
  a career choice for women in music.

19
Women in Music

• Composition still remained largely the province
  of men. Clara Schumann is a notable exception.
  
• Because of the male domination of creative
  pursuits, many successful women had to resort to
  the use of male pseudonyms in order to be taken
  seriously George Eliot, George Sand, and Daniel
  Stern to name a few.

20
Women in Music

• Many women made their impact on art through their
  patronage of the great artists of the day
  
• Chopin - George Sand
• Liszt - Carolyne Sayn-Wittgenstein
• Tchaikovsky - Nadejda von Meck
• Fanny Mendelssohn was famous for her great
  musical salon which often featured the works of
  her brother, Felix.