Romanticism : Historical Context and Characteristics

Today, we shall proceed to an introduction to the music of the Romantic period, focusing on considerations about the historical context and the main characteristics of this style.
 
The term Romanticism is used to define the movement in the fine arts, literature and music which started in the second half of the XVIII century and lasted until the late XIX century, largely influencing the aesthetics of  Modernism. Some of the most famous composers of all time lived and worked during the Romantic music era. Schubert, Chopin, Wagner, Brahms, and Mahler are among the most recognizable names.

While the term Romanticism in classical music does not necessarily refer to music revolving around love themes, it focuses mainly on themes such as nationalism  - stregthened by  two great periods of upheaval within the late XVIII century  (the American Revolution, from1775 to 1783,  and the French Revolution, from 1789 to 1799) - , supernatural stories, death and personal feelings, and tales in general.  Music almost always carries with it depths of emotion that are typically more accessible for audiences, embracing the masses more fully.  This is partly  due to an increase in  proletarian influence -  introduced during the Classical period.

Since the artists themselves were creating for a more egalitarian audience, it is only natural that subjects for this music moved to concepts more easily grasped by the emotions. Another aspect that explains the shift towards an emphasis on emotions was the composers’ reaction against the formalism of the Classical Era. Whilst Romantic composers still kept the classical forms of sonata and symphony, they created new and more ‘melodical’ forms, using  richer harmonies and ever more dissonance – such as  short piano pieces,  anthems, preludes, programme music (programme symphonies, symphonic poems, concert overtures), the Modern Concertos, the song cycles, the variations, art songs, etudes and character pieces, and the lied.

Other characteristics that emerged with the new style include the use of a wider range of dynamics; a greater variety of instruments, further  intensifying of the full potential of instruments – including the employment of a wider range of pitch and the exploration of new tone colours and dynamics;  more dramatic melodies;  a  freedom in form and design;  greater sense of ambiguity, especially in tonality; the expansion of the orchestra, sometimes to gigantic proportions – such as seen in the  symphonic works of Mahler;  shape and unity brought to lengthy works by the use of recurring themes (sometimes transformed/developed) - idée fixe (Berlioz), thematic transformations (Liszt), Leitmotif (Wagner) and the motto theme; a keener interest in greater technical virtuosity – especially from pianists and violinists; and finally, the elevation of the performer as genius.
 

Glinka: Trio Pathétique in D minor, mvmt 1

Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka (1804 - 1857) was a Russian Romantic composer. A nationalist, he is considered by many the ‘father of Russian classical music’, and was to greatly influence Russian modernist composers, notably 'The Five'[1].

Glinka was born in the village of Novospasskoye (district of Smolensk) to an aristrocratic family. Living in his father’s estate,  he spent his youth listening to the church bells and the folk music sung by passing peasant choirs. The tolling of church bells – tuned to a dissonant chord – made his ears accustumed to strident harmonies, whilst the podgolosnaya technique used by the peasant choirs  (a technique in which improvised dissonant harmonies were used to accompany the melodic lines) influenced him towards breaking free from the smooth progressions that characterized Western harmonic patterns.

The bulk of the composer’s music comprises operatic works and orchestral pieces – although he has also written many piano pieces, art songs and some chamber music. Glinka’s operatic works are renowned for being a synthesis of Western operatic form (mostly due to the influence of Italian and French opera on him) with the innovations he introduced (for instance the pioneering use of leitmotifs) and Russian melody.His orchestral works are the product of skillful instrumentation, hinting  at both the traditional and the exotic.

The Trio Pathétique in D minor dates from around 1827-8. Originally written for Clarinet, Bassoon and Piano, Glinka also composed a version for a standard piano trio, as required by his publisher.  Here, one clearly notices a Russian folk tune theme – though woven in the  fashion of Viennese Classical tradition. The opening movement – Allegro Moderato – was written in the transitional style of early Romanticism, still bearing a Classical structure.  

A passionate performance by Trio Werfel, Valeria Lambiase on piano. Enjoy! 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1d5CoTTRL0

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[1] ‘The Five’ – also known as 'The Mighty Handful', 'The Mighty Five' or 'The Mighty Coterie' – was a group of Modernist Russian composers who met in Saint Petersbourgh between 1856 and 1870. The musical branch of Russian Nationalist Movement, the circle was comprised by Mily Balakirev (leader), Modest Mussorgsky, César Cui, Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Alexander Borodin.  Aiming at drawing a concept of Russian music as distiguished from Western classical models,  they determined what  Russian music should sound like,  establishing its harmonic grounds and other stylistic features. See also 

Mahler: Piano Quartet in A minor

Mahler is a  rather controversial composer  -  no-one stays indifferent to him. Either one loves him or hates him. Even in our days, love for Mahler's music is considered  ‘an  acquired taste’, due to the sombre atmosphere , soaring melodies, distortion and eventual grotesquerie of his music.

Gustav Mahler  ( 1860 – 1911) was a composer and expressive conductor born in Bohemia, - then within the borders of the old Austrian Empire, and currently located in the Czeck Republic.  A Jewish, his works were banned during the years under the Nazi rule. After 1945, he became one of the most performed and recorded composers, conquering the admiration and being interpreted by great conductors all over the world, such as Leonard Bernstein, Zubin Mehta and Claudio Abbado.

Mahler is deemed a composer of the late-Romantic  Era or a ‘transition composer’,  as much as Richard Strauss and Anton Bruckner.

He drew much on the elements of the tradition of Beethoven and Schubert, as well as on  composers such as Liszt, Berlioz and Wagner. At the same time, being one of the pioneers in the use of ‘progressive tonality’, his work defined  a period of discontinuity and transition from the Romantic tradition to the era of  ‘New Music’ or Atonality  - represented mainly by composers of the Second Viennese School (Arnold Schönberg, Alban Berg and Anton Webern) and others such as Stravinsky and Richard Strauss.

The hallmark of Mahler’s style – apart from his use of the device of ‘progressive tonality’[1],his idea of symphony as an ‘entire world’, the sombre nature of the symphonies (inspired by the author's own life's experience of death in the family and tragedy) and the commitment to new sounds (his very particular fashion of using the sounds of instruments) – was the constant intrusion of banality and absurd in moments of deep seriousness.

The bulk of his music comprise symphonies, symphonic poems and lieder. However,  his early works include pieces of other genres, such as the Piano Quartet in A minor – which we shall contemplate today.

The Piano Quartet in A minor is a piece surrounded by much mystery. It is an unfinished work composed by Mahler in his early years (it is believed to have been written around 1876). Due to the fact that only its first movement survived; it is also known as The Piano Quartet Movement in A minor. It is improbable that Mahler completed any other movements. However, there is a 24-bar sketch of a  scherzo in G minor, which is paired by some with the quartet.

Observe the dramatic tone of the piece, noticeable in its melodies. Also notice the contrast between sombre, serious passages and very trivial ones.

A passionate performance by the Quarto Quartet. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jyf64r4KvaI

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[1] A practice emerging in the late XIX century, ‘progressive tonality’ was a device used as a means of resolving the so-called ‘symphonic conflict’. This was done through the use of a progression of keys within a piece, causing the piece to end in a different key from that in which it began. Mahler’s Second Symphony is a famous example of the use of this technique.

M.P.Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition, Part I (Promenade)

Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky (1839-1881) was a Russian composer of the Romantic Era, considered by many as one of the greatest Russian composers of all time  - along with Piotr Ilyitch Tchaikovsky. His pieces show typical Nationalist features and the influence of Russian folklore.

Together with composers Dargomïzhsky, Cesar Cui, Mily Barakirev, Borodin and Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakoff , he formed a group called ‘The Five’ or ‘Moguchaya Kuchka’ (‘the mighty bunch’). All of them wished to compose though all were, to one degree or another, amateurs. Mussorgsky had no formal training as a composer, and essencially taught himself by making piano arrangements for orchestral scores. 

The Kuchka had very definite ideas of what Russian music should be. This self-conscious Russian styling had two elements:

1)       First, music should express Russian soul. This means the music produced in the country should be based in village songs, the tolling of church bells, church chants and Cossack and Caucasian dances. The distinctive aspects of Russian folk music were: tonal mutability (songs  show shifts from one tonal centre to another, and end in a different key than the one in which they started); heterophony; and parallel fifths, fourths and thirds.

2)       Second, Russian music should be written in a Russian way. The Five had their own conception of what should be the ‘Russian’ style of composing – i.e. ‘exotic’ and different from the Western pattern. For this, they adopeted a series of harmonic devices, in order to create a different ‘colour’: diminished or octatonic scales; pentatonic scales; modular rotations in sequences of thirds; whole tone scales; and the use of the so-called  ‘Russian Sub-Mediant’.

This second element was an opposition to the German classical forms of composing, in favour of an organic form – meaning the musical materials should determine the form, and not the contrary (a bottom-up approach rather than a top-down).  

Given his short life, Mussorgsky musical production progressed at a very fast pace. He went at least through three changes of style. St. John's Night on Bald Mountain (usually called Night on Bald Mountain) for instance, composed in 1867, is an innovative piece for that time, full of radical dissonances. There can also be found amongst his works dramatic monologues and pieces with expressionist tinges and non-Wagnerian chromaticisms. 

His piano early works consist of small pieces, the morceaux. Later, he would compose the cycle Pictures at an Exhibition (1877) . Very unique in its unusual chord progressions, bar-by-bar meter changes and original piano textures, it is also very original in terms of form, featuring character-pieces linked by interludes varying a basic theme.

The  piece we shall listen to – the first part (‘Promenade’) of the Pictures at an Exhibition suite shows clear characteristics of the Romantic style in its theme, whilst its interludes are clearly innovative and exotic – very much after The Five’s concept of Russian styling. The latter feature, for instance, modular rotations in sequences of thirds (which opposes the Western rigid modulation pattern found in the sonata form). Finally, one notices the unusual, sudden closing of the piece.

A classic interpretation by Sviatoslav Richter. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohpVs7eaFB0