Romantic (6/10)

XIV:  Music of the Romantic Era

     Most people love Romantic music.  If Chopin could come back to life and receive a peck on the cheek from adoring fans, the line would range from old cat ladies to spirited artists to brooding teenagers to accomplished professors to thoughtful children and everything in between.
     After the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution, the rising middle class, or bourgeois, gained power over the aristocracy.  As Romantic artists rebelled against their Classic predecessors, emotional expression and individuality became the new ideals.  Those losers from the hit musical "Rent" well represent the Romantic artist.  Writers of the time include Hugo, Byron, Shelley, and Keats.
     As musical education spread and instruments were better designed, written music became more and more virtuosic.  Soloists were celebrities supported by the middle class rather than servants to the rich.  Orchestras grew in size, incorporating new instruments and increasing the range of timbre.  Additionally, an interest in folklore and exotic lands inspired Nationalistic dances and sounds from the East.
     In sum, the music of the Romantic era focuses on expression rather than the symmetry and balance of the Classic era.  The melodies are expansive, rhythms are more flexible, and harmonies are full of rich chromaticism.  Dynamics have a more dramatic range.  Forms were experimented with and expanded.  While symphonies, concertos, sonatas, and string quartets continued to thrive, the symphonic poem, solo piano piece, and song for voice and piano grew in popularity as well.  As our textbook describes, the Romantic era displayed an "interest in the bizarre and macabre."  Welcome to the nineteenth century.

XV:  Nationalism

     The political unrest in nineteenth century Europe inspired many nationalistic composers.  Bedřich Smetana (1824-1884) composed operas for the National Theater and a cycle of six symphonic poems as Bohemia struggled under Austrian rule.  These works reflected the beauty of Bohemia's lands and used rhythms from their folk songs and dances.  The works of Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904) were influenced by the Czech Republic and America.  Edvard Grieg (1843-1907) composed during a time when Norway struggled for independence against Sweden.  Jean Sibelius (1865-1957) wrote the symphonic poem, Finlandia as Finland sought freedom from Russia.  Spanish Nationalists included Isaac Albéniz (1860-1909), Enrique Granados (1867-1916), and Manuel de Falla (1876-1946).  Out of Russia emerged The Mighty Five, or The Mighty Handful.  They were Mily Balakirev (1837-1910), Alexander Borodin (1833-1887), César Cui (1835-1918), Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908), and Modest Musorgsky (1839-1881).  These composers sought to compose in a style that was distinctly Russian, rejecting the influence of the German symphony, Italian opera, and French ballet.
     Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) is a little bit different.  Although Russia claims him as a nationalist composer, textbooks appear dubious.  Tchaikovsky was born in Votinsk and didn't attend the Conservatory of St. Petersburg until age twenty-three, after graduating from the aristocratic School of Jurisprudence.  For a late bloomer, not to mention a depressed and guilt-ridden homosexual, his output was very well received.  He was the only Russian that Westerners adored, and was even invited to participate in the opening of Carnegie Hall in New York.  Although his compositions include eight operas, seven symphonies, four concertos, and the 1812 Overture, he is best remembered today for his ballets Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, and The Nutcracker.

XVI:  Solo Piano Works and the German Lied

     The piano, which continued to develop throughout the century, was the favored instrument for virtuosos on the stage and amateurs at home.  Franz Liszt (1811-1886), Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847), and Clara Schumann (1819-1896) were some of the composers and superstars.  One of the new genres of the Romantic era was the lyric piano piece, which was the instrumental equivalent of song.  These were short works full of character, bearing titles such as Prelude, Intermezzo, Impromptu, Nocturne and Waltz.  Other esteemed composers of the short piano piece are Franz Schubert (1797-1828), Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849), Fanny Mendelssohn (1805-1847), Robert Schumann (1810-1856), and Johannes Brahms (1833-1897).
     The Hungarian-born Liszt was such a heartthrob that adoring fans would steal his handkerchiefs and try to clip locks of his hair.  The phenomenon was known as Lisztomania.  In addition to being a performer and philanderer, he was a successful conductor, teacher, and composer.  Liszt spent his younger years in Paris and toured Europe as a virtuoso before settling into his "threefold existence" in Weimar, Rome, and Budapest.  Shockingly, he became a priest in 1865.  His posterity is preserved through one of his least interesting works, the Hungarian Rhapsody No.2, featured both in Tom & Jerry and the Looney Tunes.
     Chopin, who was half French and half Polish, studied in Warsaw before leaving for Paris at age 21.  As a pianist in the 1830s, Paris was the place to be.  There amongst Romantic writers and musicians, he continued to compose piano works such as the Preludes, Études, Waltzes, Nocturnes, Ballades, and Scherzos.  Chopin also composed Polonaises, Mazurkas, and Waltzes, which were inspired by Polish dances.  His études are the first to be considered musically substantial.  He wrote mostly for solo piano, and his style is distinctly lyrical and poetic.  In Paris, Chopin was romantically involved with writer Aurore Dudevant, known by her pseudonym George Sand.  She wore men's pants, smoked cigars, had an ugly face, and was not very nice.
     Schumann was insane.  He is remembered for his piano music, four symphonies, and Lieder, or German songs.  He was among the first to compose song cycles, which are series of short songs connected by a literary or musical theme.  Aside from composing and inconveniencing his wonderful and loving wife with extreme moodiness, Schumann was a music critic for the New Journal for Music, Die neue Zeitschrift für Musik.  Often in these writings, his imaginary friends Florestan and Eusebius would make appearances.  In 1846, he threw himself in the Rhine River, only to be rescued and kept in an asylum until his death two years later.
    Both Beethoven and Schubert are considered transitional figures from the Classic era into the Romantic.  Schubert's symphonies and chamber music are Classical in form, but his piano works and Lieder are extremely lyrical and Romantic in style.  His melodies are sometimes described as being of "heavenly length."  Schubert wrote more than 600 Lieder and several song cycles.  The accompaniments to these songs often depict images present in the text.  Despite the fact that his music is undoubtably lovable, Schubert was never very well recognized during his 31 years of life.  Here is a recording of a Schubert Lied performed by Ian Bostridge.  If after hearing this you are unmoved, congratulations.  You have no heart.

An die Musik D.547, Franz Schubert

Words by Franz von Schober

Performed by Ian Bostridge and Julius Drake