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Music must be one of the most spiritual of human expressive forms, an art so mysterious and powerful that it transcends and defies linguistic expression. That is, more than anything else, I think, music is felt so deeply that its experience cannot be expressed in its own linguistic terms, for there aren't any, really. Sure, musicology has its own lingo, vocabulary, and jargon, but notice how often we find ourselves ironically discussing music in terms of art (color, shading, texture, tone) or literature (mood, meter, tone, theme, drama, narrative). Music is so vast and sublime that the best we can do is reference it via analogy. As with poets, writers, and painters, musicians of the late 18th and early 19th centuries were influenced by the historical, social, political, and aesthetic "revolutions" of the era, attempting to capture the essence of the age as well as (re)create that essence through musical expression. They reacted against the formal Classicism of the eighteenth century in which such composers as Mozart and Haydn created absolute music or pure music for music's sake, drama was found mainly in opera, and the personality of the soloist was subsumed by the composition and orchestra as a whole. However, music throughout the 19th century, that known as high Romantic music, was far more dramatic and experimental, often inspired by a place, scene, event, nature, or character. Romantic composers created music for the sake of ideology, feeling, morality, politics, or individuality. Much like early Romantic poetry that is considered by many to be overly self-oriented, even self-indulgent and egotistical, Romantic music replaces the ceremonial with the personal. This was the era of the tone poem, program music, fantastical symphonies, and impromptus. Symphonies were grand, dramatic, and apocalyptic, as if the composer were reaching toward the heavens to proclaim the divinity of the self or the sublimity of the individual genius. Orchestras grew to meet the demands of these composers for more power, sound, and size. Yet, Romanticism in music--and arguably in art and literature as well--is far more than an epoch. Yes, high Romantic music dominated the 19th century; however, Romanticism is also representative of a mood and style that reappears in various forms in the 20th century, a rather difficult century to categorize neatly and conveniently, even for the sake of study. I have decided to categorize Romanticism in music as follows: Transition from Classicism to Romanticism; Early, Middle, and Late Romanticism; Transition from Romanticism to the 20th Century; and 20th-Century Romanticism. I hope this provides an instructive way for you to investigate Romanticism in music and to study the artistic relationships among music, art, and literature created by the Romantic spirit. |
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