The Romantics

The word "romantic" actually comes from the French word "roman", meaning a novel. This was an era in which literature was a dominating influence in music, from the inspiration that poetry provided as the foundation of lieder (song cycles) to the influence of narrative in even purely instrumental music ( such as in Berlioz's revolutionary Symphonie Fantastique). While the musical hero of this epoch was undoubtedly Beethoven (witness his plaster bust on top of the piano Fran Liszt is playing in the painting of salon life, at left, the great philosopher-poet-playwright-scientist and statesman Wolfgang von Goethe was no less a pivotal influence. For the Romantics, Beethoven embodied the image of  the individual as hero, pouring out personal angst in the midst of titanic struggles, shattering the bonds of convention to pursue his own unique and authentic vision while Goethe  best articulated the themes of love and yearning. In his epic play Faust,  Goethe ultimately asserted the primacy of mystery beyond reason. The story of a man who sells his soul to the devil but  is redeemed through love had the two themes that were deeply imbedded in the Romantic psyche: passion and a fascination with the supernatural.

 Goethe's poem "Holy Longing"  captures the spirit of this age perhaps better than any other.  The language of this poem (death, strange, silent, obsession with darkness, desire, magic, insane, troubled guess, dark earth) places us in a very different universe than the Apollo's pretty kingdom in the Age of Enlightenment. This is Dionysus's  realm: intense, raw, visceral  emotional depth.

Holy Longing
Tell a wise person, or else keep silent,
because the mass man will mock it right away.
I praise what is truly alive,
what longs to be burned to death.

In the calm water of the love-nights,
where you were begotten, where you have begotten,
a strange feeling comes over you,
when you see the silent candle burning.

Now you are no longer caught in the obsession with darkness,
and a desire for higher love-making sweeps you upward.

Distance does not make you falter.
Now, arriving in magic, flying,
and finally, insane for the light,
you are the butterfly and you are gone.
And so long as you haven't experienced this: to die and so to grow,
you are only a troubled guest on the dark earth.

(Translated from the German by Robert Bly)



There were enormous cultural shifts in how musicians were perceived. In Bach and Mozart's time, composers were seen as servants to Popes and Kings, and would eat in the servants quarters with  maids and butlers and the rest of the household staff.  With Beethoven,  the first successful free lance instrumental  composer, this all  changed: it is estimated that one fourth of all Vienna turned out for the maestro's funeral in the rain.  In the Romantic era, with the rise of the concert hall, following Beethoven's legacy, composers became viewed as the prophet of the people. Franz Liszt could be viewed as the first rock star: women fainted at his concerts which  grossed the equivalent of millions of dollars.

Musical shifts were similarly dramatic. Minor keys take over, steady beats becomes fragmented, rhythm becomes more complex, disjointed and unpredictable- all hallmarks of the Dionysian aesthetic. Even the very names of pieces (“Fantasy”, “Impromptu”, “Nocturne”, "Elegy", "Humoresque", and a bevy of character sketches conjure up the theatrical, nighttime world of the dark, mysterious and paradoxical god. Musical instructions include terms like "rubato" (robbing time) and "morendo" (dying away).

This is an age of extremes. Dynamics range extremes (pppp to ffff) and sudden or dramatic changes ("sfz", "attaca", abrupt endings or sudden silences) appear in scores.  Both intimacy and grandiosity are present.  It is reported that Chopin never played above a mezzoforte because he was so weak from tuberculosis, and one of his Preludes is only 3 lines long. Meanwhile, Mahler's Symphony No. 8 lasts  an hour and a half and is nicknamed the Symphony of a Thousand because of its monumental forces.

 Cast of Composers We Will Encounter:

Franz Schubert- In his all too brief life, Schubert showed evidence of becoming Beethoven's musical heir. Alas, his idol killed him. Schubert was a pall bearer in Beethoven's cold and rainy funeral and died of pneumonia soon afterwards. While his symphonies, chamber music and piano sonatas are all sublime, the song "Die Erlkonig" might be considered most representative of the spirit of Romanticism. Vividly recounting Goethe's creepy poem of a young boy whose life is snatched away by  the spectre of an Elf King as he rides through a forest with his father, it is a miniature masterwork of storytelling. Personally, I suspect J.R.R. Tolkein had this lied in mind when he wrote the scene in The Lord of the Rings of the Nazgul chasing the Hobbits. Schubert's dying wish was to be buried at his hero's feet in Vienna.

Felix Mendelssohn- t Felix  was a passionate champion of the symphonies and concertos, and was the first to perform many of these works in   his concert tours in  Great Britain and Scotland . Heartbroken at his hero's death, he penned one of the most moving tributes ever as a cry of his grief: the String Quartet No. 2 in A minor, his homage to Beethoven's String Quartet Op. 132.

Robert Schumann- literary and musical genius who succumbed to madness. Both the Davidsbundertanze Op.6, and Carnival  feature two sides of his musical personality: "Florestan", the dynamic, dramatic hero and "Eusebius", the introspective, dreamy and melancholy poet. We will explore the importance of Beethoven's song cycle An Die Ferne Geliebt (T o the Distant Beloved)  in rousing Schumann from depression and discover the way  its melodies make their way into the triumphant conclusion of Schumann's SYmphony No. 

Franz Liszt- Hungarian virtuoso whose keyboard technique is still considered unsurpassed by many music historians. His famboyant piano concerto Totentanz (Dance of Death) is a shameless over- the -top exploitation of the technical marvels of the piano based on the Dies Irae. This piece celebrates the demonic, the macabre, the outrageous and the lewd: it is the equivalent (I  only imagine!) of binge drinking in Las Vegas on Halloween during a convention of Satanists. No wonder at the end of his life,  Liszt felt the need to become a Franciscan tertiary and exorcist.

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Hector Berlioz- Besotted stalker and musical revolutionary. His Symphonie Fantastique is one of the world's greatest examples of what to do with unrequited love: go to Italy and create a masterpiece.

Richard Wagner is the most divisive figure of music history: love him or hate him, you cannot ignore him. His gesamtkunstwerke music dramas ( he hated the word opera) brought a whole new array of psychological understanding, mythological grandeur and music expression to the stage.  Though he was one of the most egotistical, amoral and thoroughly repugnant human beings who has ever lived, he exudes a fascination and obsession amongst his fans that is unequaled. Tristan und Isolde is the ultimate expression of the interweaving of myth, love, obsession and death that defined the Romantic Era, and paved a whole new direction for the fragmentation of traditional harmony which was to follow.

This clip below  from the film Impromptu captures the wild excesses of emotion that the Romantic era was prone to. Here, poor Hugh Grant struggles with a Polish accent in his portrayal of Chopin while Judy Davis as writer George Sand passionately pursues him.