MUSIC OF THE LATE AND ROMANCE ROMANCE
(heroic Beethoven, Berlioz, Mahler)
After the maximum brightness of classicism reached with Haydn and Mozart in Salzburg, even if there are already pre-Romantic surge as the last symphonies, composers trying to overcome exist in musical notation. The musicians of the Romantic period sought by enabling a more direct forms of classicism: their line well reflected the period of political turmoil in Europe of the time, which were felt in other artistic fields.
Age called "revolutions" between 1789 and 1848 (which for Italy, culminating in the Third War of Independence in 1866), was associated with the active participation of artists and intellectuals who would be hard to list them all. Revolutionary ideals, however, failed their purpose, not only egalitarian transformation of society, but also the dissemination of liberal freedoms. Illustrated by the episode that when Napoleon Bonaparte had himself crowned emperor, Beethoven dedicated the Eroica destroyed, then replacing the words "In general Bonaparte" with "To the memory of a great man.".
was this "failure", especially during the Restoration, (if we want to simplify the way historians), to develop in the minds and hearts, the other component of Romanticism, namely the escape from reality once again, in all fields (music and composers such as Berlioz and Mendelssohn) and therefore there is nelel symphonies of these musicians in search of the picturesque and some exotic cases. In particular, in certain cultural circles spread a great interest in the Middle Ages, especially towards the Middle Ages, as well as toward the macabre el'orrido according to anti-bourgeois, in particular in the works of novelists and poets such as Poe and Baudelaire.
ongoing transformation
With Beethoven, and even more after him, it was necessary to expand the orchestra in order to adapt to more intense forms of expression: it was increased the number of winds, was completed the construction of wood to improve intonation, for the first time they made their appearance keys, to facilitate the technique. Even the brass instruments were changed: he entered the trombone, and with Wagner tubas, trumpets and horns in pistoin, these modified to improve the intonation. Even the drums became more numerous.
The middle class became interested in classical music to more and more, so the concert halls were enriched by a new audience: the length of the concert was great, including at least two symphonies, movements of various compositions, suites and overtures. He was born the figure of the conductor, because of the complexity of managing increasingly large orchestras, and Spohr, Weber and Mendelssohn began the tradition of tests with great discipline, so adapting to the new and impressive orchestra repertoire.
MUSICIANS AND COMPOSERS: Beethoven to Schumann
No doubt the man who most embodies the Romantic movement is Ludwig Van Beethoven. In the Romantic period, the authors began to move away from the court, precisely because of that desire for freedom of expression that they led to ill bear the impositions of the powerful and therefore away from their protection, and Beethoven fully embodies this spirit. Beethoven never had that relationship of dependency that instead finds himself Haydn and, in part, in Mozart: During a concert, the audience insisted on chattering shouted: "I do not play for the pigs!", While the prince Lichnowsky wrote: "(...) you are who you are by accident of birth, while I am what I am to my work. there are many principles, but there is only one Beethoven. "
Musically, Beethoven was also romantic classic set, belonging to both the centuries, its greatness lies also in having accepted and not rejected items of classicism, making a new synthesis in light of the ideal romantic. The melody becomes more vague, harmony, less defined, but everything is still dropped in the form to be controlled: the notebooks kept by Beethoven himself witness to the desire to formalize and codify the material produced, typical of classicism.
Other key authors of Romanticism, however, are more openly romantic, among them one of the earliest, if not the first, it was Carl Maria von Weber, who expressed the national spirit in music then renewed German: it was the first to use the term "romantic opera", applying it to his Silvana, accepted as a patriotic event along with Der Freischutz (The ex-hunter). A contemporary of Beethoven, Schubert was instead, which was based on the classic shape in a different way from the first: in the Schubert melody is more important than in Beethoven, what made him excel in chamber music and lieder in piano, but also wrote works (now forgotten).
not to be forgotten the contribution of the Italian composers, including Giuseppe Verdi, with its various works occupied the world stage in the field along with Wagner, by adopting a different style from that. Other greats of the period were instead Pietro Mascagni, who remade the realist school (which would Verga in one of its greatest exponents in the literature), Ruggero Leoncavallo (of which the only work, clowns, is still carried out successfully) and Gioacchino Rossini, the first half of the century he was the greatest Italian opera composer of this period, although it discontinued its production only in 1829 (with William Tell). His genius led the opera buffa masterpiece that is The Barber of Seville, which put n the composition of the shadow of the same name Neapolitan Paisiello.
After Beethoven the classical forms were made more and more into the background, perhaps in the first place in music for piano that Beethoven suffered from the time of consistent technical improvements (including the construction of the frame in one piece, which made it possible to add many other keys and strings). This led to a gradual abandonment the piano sonata in favor of the piece: it must be remembered among the great Fryderyk Chopin, unsurpassed performer and composer of innovative music for piano, whose melodic lines, the use of rubato and legato, deeply influenced the authors of the subsequent periods until the twentieth century.
The cultural transformation is also seen in the establishment of journals devoted to various topics in Robert Schumann's Neue Zeitschrift owes pubblicaziopne für Musik, which pages were disclosed on the fundamentals of Romanticism in music, and in which Schumann poured his hostility to the conservative middle class, railing against those who reject new ideas simply because such. Schumann also like Chopin, poured his genius in the piano compositions.
THE MUSIC PROGRAM
This was a phenomenon at all romantic, started by Hector Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique in his note he prepared a program that would allow listeners to follow what the 'author intended to express. In addition to this, Berlioz introduced the use of a recurring theme in the symphony (idee fixe), often using it to describe ideas constantly in mind, the point of obsession (as is the Symphonie Fantastique, in which among other things symbolized the passion of the obsessive beloved).
LATE ROMANTICISM
The romance developed, with time and different ways across Europe, influencing even the greatest composers of opera, as Verdi and Wagner. Meanwhile, the first born nationalist unrest, particularly in Russia, which were expressed in the music with the intent to develop and disseminate the traditional music of his country: Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, after an initial preference for classical forms and Western music , showed an approach towards the culture of his country, composing symphonies on six popular material: as Berlioz and Liszt used the theme introduced by Berlioz, albeit in a less detailed.
Remember then, among the great German music, Johannes Bramhs, Hamburg. His natural talent was revealed during the performance of the Kreutzer Sonata of Beethoven, in Göttingen, in the presence of the violinist Joachim: having realized that the piano was tuned a semitone below the song carried on the fly, so perfect, so that arouse the admiration of the violinist who wanted to meet him.
The two became friends, but also excellent Bramhs maintained contact with Schumann, despite having different attitudes towards the musical composition. A conservative nature, he adopted in his symphonies, orchestras, smaller than those used by his contemporaries, preferring organic near one chosen by Beethoven.
Bramhs In the intensity of issues is still mediated by a form strictly framed: his first piano compositions reveal an orchestral writing, refusing any kind of ornamentation and virtuosity for its own sake: Bramhs always tries often syncopated rhythms and incisive, with write a lot of scope to the agreement. After the compositions youth turned to lesser forms (except for six sets of variations): his works, although not typically romantic, they are still often meditative, sometimes melancholic, like the clarinet quintet and the Sonata for cello and piano (or Songs such as the Lied Geistliches for organ and choir).
Bramhs went to the symphony after 40, composing his four symphonies second traditional lines but with a very personal, and with such inventive to merit the label of best symphonies after Beethoven.
Beautiful, finally, the production of Bramhs voice, with its two rounds of Romanzen aus MAGELONE and Ernste Vier Gesänge, or Ein Deutsches Requiem focused on texts of the Lutheran Bible: the music here is dominated by the chorus, while the parties solo take on less importance. In Germany, the symphonic tradition was continued by Anton Bruckner and Gustav Mahler. The first, a typical late-Romantic, he was strongly influenced by his training as a church organist, often using the sections of the orchestra as if it was going to be a register organ to another, do not have a great influence on later writers, was a successor to Mahler, Bruckner and as preferred forms of orchestration and impressive breadth.
Mahler wrote only symphonies and Lieder, arriving at the production of the Lied symphonic cycle Das Lied von der Erde (The Song of the Earth). Mahler also expands the symphonic form, increasing the size of the orchestra than he did Beethoven, and over everything was oriented towards works of great length, such as his eighth symphony, which was developed for soloists, double chorus, boys choir and orchestra.
Ultimately, the later romance coexist two trends: one, present in Bruckner and Mahler, is the expansion of the form, the other is the attempt to arrive at concise, as happens in the last piano compositions and works by Brahms. Similarly, the lyrical melodies rendered obsolete the old structures of the sonata, leading to greater interest in the color and sound of the orchestra, this interest that will be used extensively by the French Impressionist composers: Impressionism begins in song, through for symphonic poems and get to the full development of the late Romantic period.
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