Characteristics of the Romantic Music Period

It is debatable that nearly amorous medical specialty made great demands upon its attenders than did medical specialty of front historic outcomes. What were those demands? Why did these lurchs come about? And what strategies apprize you formulate for listening to this medicinal drug today? In consid agetion of the musical changes present in the amatory era, this essay will contend that these changes atomic number 18 very such(prenominal) related to the wider social and expert changes in society around that time. Thus, it is grave to identify the broad time period encompassed by this era.The definition of romanticism in The New Grove Dictionary of medicine and medical specialtyians is A vogue or, to a greater extent than commonly, period of cultural history. When understood as a period, love affair is usually identified with either the foremost half or the al single of the nineteenth ascorbic acid. The term is employ with reference primarily to the arts, but it stub in any pillowcase embrace philosophy, socio-political history and, more widely, the spirit of the era. i Consequently, this essay views that quixotic 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 energize resulted in music which makes greater demands upon its hearers and this essay will highlight these demands and how they were influenced by those social and technological changes of that time, last with strategies for listening to this music today. Some of the music which can be used to illustrate these changes are specific works by wagon train van Beethoven, a composer, who is viewed as a major influence on the music of the nineteenth century. This can be evidenced by the Grove article on amativeism, which deems it to be widely accepted that Beethoven inaugurated a romanticistic eraii.The demands of amorous music are characterised by se veral key changes. These changes can be summarised as follows an developmentd intensity, both good and musical a greater use of extreme contrasts in the music and a significant increase in the aloofness of musical compositions. The increased intensity of amorous music can be demonstrated by an analysis of the Diploma political platform of the ABRSMiii. This syllabus provides an authoritative assessment framework iv for proficient and musical efficacy and one can see that the vast preponderance of its darns fall into the Romantic category. justmore, as one progresses by means of the levels of syllabus, the repertoire becomes more demanding v and the volume of Romantic pieces increases steadily. A major factor in this change is the related technological advancements of that time period which resulted in the upgrading of a number of musical shafts to more advanced forms. This can be illustrated with reference to the specific exemplification of the flabby, an instrument ref ined considerably during the Romantic period.Key changes incorporate the introduction of modern-day style pedals, greater string diameters and tensions, an extended number of octaves, the double escapement carry through and the cast iron framevi vii. Thus, the instrument of the nineteenth century is far sterling(prenominal) to its eighteenth century counterpart. The resultant musical changes include a greater quantity of octaves available and a greater range of power and kinetics made available to the composer. This had the obvious corollary of composers producing pieces with greater use of radical slashing contrasts. According to Winterviii, Romantic composers used their new piano to great belief The single nearly important development in the sound of the Romantic piano was doubt little the new emphasis on the sustaining (or damper) pedal. These key changes of classifiable contrasts and increased intensity were aided by the accompanying social change in music around the Rom antic period, which can be characterised by the rise of the virtuoso. Franz Liszt, the legendary pianist, dazzled audiences across Europe, garnering rave reviews wherever he travelled, considered by The New Grove Dictionary of symphony and Musicians to be the greatest piano virtuoso of his time ix. The improved piano was critical to his displays of good prowess.Without it he would not have been able to play pieces as demanding on the instrument. The hitherto unimagined problem x of his Vingt-quatres grandes etudes pour le pianoxi, was considered too more than by the composer, he revised the Etudes and later produce his Etudes dexecution transcendantexii, the latter unchanging ferociously difficult but surpassed in that respect by the former. condition that a key feature of Liszts playing style and compositions was adept skill, one could argue Liszt could not have been the performer, or composer, he was, in the preceding century.Nicolo Paganini was an early(a)(prenominal) vir tuoso of the highest calibre a violinistxiii. He, too, gave fantastic performances to happy crowds in numerous countries. William Ayrton, editor of The Harmonicon, remarked that His powers of execution are little less than marvelous, and such as we could only have believed on the evidence of our suffer senses they imply a strong natural propensity for music, with an industry, a perseverance, a devotedness and in like manner a skill in inventing means, without any twin 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 pushing the boundaries of the Romantic violin to previously unseen heights. An excellent focusing for a virtuoso to show off their talents is a concerto. The concerto provided a perfective tense vehicle to show part the new technically advanced instruments and the music that could be performed on themxvi. One characteristic of Romantic concertos is th eir length. Indeed, this increased length is another key aspect of Romantic music as a whole.To charter 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 fountain executions 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 nett sectio n of the first movement is but one example of the radical contrasts present in the piece as a wholexx. some other assay-mark 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 opening movement dwarfs any comparable previous movement xxiii. According to Bondsxxiv, Eroica is the start, for Beethoven at least, of music displaying profound Romantic characteristics Particularly from the Eroica onwards, Beethoven was seen to have explored a variety of ways in which instrumental music could rag 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 freedom than ever before. Unlike their counterparts in previous historical periods, they no longer had to be almost entirely dependent on the church or the state or wealthy, upper-class patronsxxv xxvi. As highlighted previously, musicians could alimentation themselves by giving public concerts, Paganini earned so much bullion in one year that he could have bought 300 kilos of gold. xxvii xxviii As we can see in this example from Grove, the orchestra of the Romantic age was understandably different from its predecessors in that it was not for the personal amusement of royalty or a symbol of status During most of the 18th century orchestras had been an escort to and an expression of aristocratic court culture in the 19th 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 strategy would be to bring a piece. As infering music is a necess ary antecedent 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 idol 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 appreciate the technical or musical difficulty involved in a piece without being able to inhibit it.Once able, listening to a piece of music whilst consulting the score is also a useful tool for following a piece and plectrum out specific parts. This is especially true of any orchestral piece. Another related strategy would be to try and put oneself in the billet 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 would be a further way to pursue this strategy.To learn, and appreciate, any other art forms coupled with a piece of music is another strategy for listening to Romantic music for example, Beethovens Symphony number 9. Beethoven base 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 buy up than, perhaps, thirty minutes or an hours worth of music. Exploring spacious compositions or collections at one time is not the correct strategy, the upright volume of notes can be daunting and there is a insecurity that listening to too much music dulls one to the finer points of that music, it exclusively becomes noise.The distinct movements many composers put in their music should be apply when first discovering a work, only once more understanding is well-bred 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 increase duration of musical compositions.These changes came about due to technological advancements of the period, less trustingness on patronage and the musician became a respected and viable barter in the nineteenth century. There are many strategies which can be devised for listening to Romantic music, in the present day. The se are learning how to read and play music to put oneself in the shoes of a listener of the time period to study any art forms which are connect to a piece of Romantic music and dividing a composition into more easily 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 celestial latitude 2009 (1. History of usage) iii ABRSM, Music Performance Diploma Syllabus from 2005, Accessed 2 declination 2009 iv Ibid. v Ibid. vi Philip R. Belt, Maribel Meisel/Gert Hecher, Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online, Accessed 2 celestial latitude 2009 (5. The Viennese piano from 1800. ) vii Michael Cole, Pianoforte, Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online, Accessed 2 celestial latitude 2009 (6.England and France, 180060. ) viii Robert Winter, Pianofor te, 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, poll, 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 dandy Britain, 18314, and last years, 183540. ) xv Ibid. xvi Arnold, Denis and Timothy Rhys Jones, concerto, The Oxford Companion 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 Ashkenazy, 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 Press 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 bars 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 soft touch 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. Oxford 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