“To say the word romanticism is to say modern art - that is, intimacy, spirituality, color, aspiration towards the infinite, expressed by every means available to the arts.” Charles Baudelaire. The Romantic era in classical music symbolized an epochal time that circumnavigated the whole of Western culture. Feelings of deep emotion were beginning to be expressed in ways that would have seemed once inappropriate. Individualism began to grip you people by its reins and celebrate their unique personalities and minds. Some youth began to wear their hair long, their beards scraggly and unkept, and their clothing was inspired by the outlandish and the flamboyant. Music morphed from a once tangible aural stimulant into music marked by its decent into the depths of human emotions most of which were not rational. Classical music became a stream of consciousness, a vehicle to convey their countless emotions. In the Romantic Period, music now voiced what, for centuries, people had been too afraid to express. The culture, the composers, and the music of the Romantic era changed classical music profoundly. The Romantic era classical music manifested itself as a time of the irrational and peculiar, a time that allowed many people the opportunity to express their inmost convictions through the music.
The culture of the Romantic Period marks an era shrouded in astonishing and rapid change, socially and economically. In Europe, between the years 1825 and 1900, enormous technological developments occurred. With the Industrial Revolution full force, the inventions of railroads and steamboats satisfied an insatiable desire for speedy travel and transportation of goods. Photography was changing the way in which history was...
... middle of paper ...
...als.
The Romantic Period existed as a testament to the epochal changes that occurred between the years of 1825 and 1900. Culture was colored by the changing of ideals and moral principles, music was composed to capture the frailty and fallibility of human emotion, and composers of this age allowed themselves to be guided by their emotions and injected these powerful feelings into their works. Music was no longer a means to convey class and refinement; music had become a vehicle by which composers could rid themselves of sophistication and instead express their deepest feelings and thoughts often cloaked by the twelve, humble semi-tones that make up all Western music ever written. The Romantic culture, the Romantic music, and the Romantic composer could be considered subversive as they served to reinvent classical music for the rest of time.
Tolmachev, I. (2010, March 15). A history of Photography Part 1: The Beginning. Retrieved Febraury 2014, from tuts+ Photography: http://photography.tutsplus.com/articles/a-history-of-photography-part-1-the-beginning--photo-1908
Before the turn of the 20th century, art and music have gone through radical evolutions to express the environment, politics, and beliefs of both the artist and the composer. After the rediscovering of creating art and music in the Renaissance Period, each individual tries to reinterpret and recreate works of art from their perspective. In the Impressionist era, art and music once again made a radical evolution for others to view and listen to. Among these individuals, Russian composer Igor Stravinsky and Spanish artist Pablo Picasso would make such changes that even longtime fans of their works would find them both shocking and offensive during their time. In this paper, we will view specifically Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring” and Picasso’s “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon”.
The Romantic era is where we start to see a shift in classical music. Composers started to express more of their own emotions into their pieces. Beethoven was one of the first composers to transition. This lecture is interesting that we delve deeper into the life and mind of Beethoven. Not only did he advance the Classical Style, but he also paved the way into Romanticism. He was viewed as a transitional figure as well as a “creative genius.” Beethoven was a true master of music. His ability to swiftly establish solidarity in pairing different keys with unexpected notes was incredible. This innovation expanded the harmonic realm and created a sense of a vast musical and experimental space through which music moved in a piece. Along with his development of themes and motifs, which were usually by means of modulation, he was truly able to distinguish himself and his works from those of any prior composer.
These factors influenced the type of music which this period was noticed for. The people of the romantic period had an obsession with nature which, they viewed as art and supernatural. The idea of supernatural played a huge part in the creation of music and art pieces. The Romantics used mythological themes to depict creativity which evoked different emotions upon individuals. Although, the Romantics were fascinated with nature they also feared it because they viewed it as unpredictable.
Baroque music is characterized by its development of tonality, elaborate use of ornamentation, application of figured bass, and the expression of single affections. A considerable philosophical current that shaped baroque music is the interest in Renaissance ideas that spawn from ancient Greece and Rome. Ancient Greeks and Romans considered music to be an instrument of communication that could easily stimulate any emotion in its listeners. Therefore, musicians became progressively knowledgeable of the power one’s composition could have on its audiences’ emotions. Because of this, one of the primary goals of baroque art and music was to provoke emotion in the listener, which is closely connected to the “doctrine of affections”. This doctrine, derived from ancient theories of rhetoric and oratory, was the theory that a single piece of art or a single movement of music should express one single emotion. Intrinsically, instead of music reflecting the emotions, composers aspired to cause emotions in the listener. Ma...
The industrial revolution in 19th century England saw one of the biggest changes in terms of social, cultural and philosophical values and in turn saw big reaction in the arts. The period brought with it advancements in materials, progression in scientific theory and change in social structure. Art and Architecture broke away from political and religious powers whom previously dictated the artistic genre, allowing artists greater freedom to express themselves. Along with this prosperity and excitement of the new industrial world came an uncertainty about changing times. Reaction to the rationalism of the Neo-classicism and the idealisation of the industrial age artists sought to place emphasis on drama over harmony and emotions over rational reason. Artists in this time where less worried about the traditional canons of how to paint and placed a focus on using painting techniques to heighten the feelings or points they were expressing. These circumstances of the period ultimately resulted in the artistic movement we now know as the romantic period. The romantics were seeking express human emotion and promote artistic individuality to save social values from the clutches of the rational machine age.
In the 19th century the world experienced many dramatic changes related to politics, economics and culture. Music would never be the same after this period. During these years musicians, influenced by the Romantic movement in literature, neglected the formalism and aims of Classicism (Bohle p1861), and developed Musical Romanticism as a way to express their feelings free of traditional musical structures.
Romanticism was a reaction to the Enlightenment as a cultural movement, an aesthetic style, and an attitude of mind (210). Culturally, Romanticism freed people from the limitations and rules of the Enlightenment. The music of the Enlightenment was orderly and restrained, while the music of the Romantic period was emotional. As an aesthetic style, Romanticism was very imaginative while the art of the Enlightenment was realistic and ornate. The Romanticism as an attitude of mind was characterized by transcendental idealism, where experience was obtained through the gathering and processing of information. The idealism of the Enlightenment defined experience as something that was just gathered.
"Photography in the Victorian Era." . N.p., 16 Feb 2013. Web. 17 Mar 2014. .
Ludwig van Beethoven, the famous German born composer and pianist, composed the Romance in F major in 1798. It was likely first performed in that year, but was not published until 1805 in Vienna. It was originally written for violin and orchestra but the edition being performed today was transcribed and edited for saxophone and piano by Peter Saiano. During this period of his life, Beethoven was still known as perhaps the greatest pianist in existence and he was busy touring Europe as a performer. He had not yet achieved the status he now holds as a composer, and during this period he was also working on his first set of string quartets.
As the many socio-political rebellions of the late eighteenth-century accepted new social orders and new ways of life and notion, so composers of the period broke new musical ground by attaching a new emotional depth to the preponderating classical forms. Throughout the remainder of the nineteenth-century, artists of all kinds became intent in declaring their subjective, personal emotions. "Romanticism" gained its name from the romances of medieval times, long poems describing stories of heroes and chivalry, of distant lands and far away places, and often of unattainable love. The romantic artists are the first in history to provide
Romanticism can be seen as a dismissal of the statutes of the request, quiet, amicability, equalization, romanticizing, and objectivity that encapsulated Classicism by and vast and late eighteenth-century Neoclassicism individually. It was likewise to some degree a response against the Enlightenment and against eighteenth-century realism and physical realism when all is said in done. Romanticism underscored the individual, the subjective, the silly, the innovative, the person, the unconstrained, the enthusiastic, the visionary, and the
The Romantics era lasted from the year 1798 to the year 1834 and is an era full of changes. In this era the artists had freedom to express what they felt through their arts of work. Therefore, the works of art and the music during this period are truly expressive. Nationalism is also widely expressed by many artists during this era. This era is mostly shaped by many talented artists that became recognized nationally and worldwide. The classical rules were broken in this era and no more political oppression subsided in the streets of England. The air smells like freedom to the people living there, and new boundaries were open to those who decided to pursue their dreams. The artists give life to their imagination in their published works of art. “In various forms, Romances shared a feature that Victorians would take as exemplary of the literary (if not the polemical) imagination of the age: a turn even an escape form the tumultuous and confusing here-and-now” (The Romantics and Their Contemporaries 11). The Romantic era gave the world the supernatural and the mysterious side of art. Creativity also is a word that defines the Romantic era because it gave life to its lit...
n : traditional genre of music conforming to an established form and appealing to critical interest and developed musical taste [syn: serious music]
Beginning with Beethoven, the Romantic period of classical music blossomed out of a time of strict patterns and structures. Romantic, in musical terminology, is defined as “a period of music, art, and literature (mostly the 1800s and beginning of the 1900s) that’s often characterized by the unabashed expression of emotion.” Musicians of this period fully expressed emotions and poured their heart and soul into the pieces they played. Moreover, composers created masterpieces full of life and luster that entranced the people of the 19th century.