A thought experiment

[eschiss1]

If we
agree that our notion of what a Romantic composer, and Romantic music, should sound like, should sound like, should be something we recognize by sound alone, without needing to know when a work was composed or when the composer lived or died,
if one imagines finding a quite uncharacteristic (no melodic traits that just "shout" Liszt or Scriabin, no use of the stack-chord, no use of the Crux Fidelis motif, ... but other features that still strongly suggest them- but which don't eliminate the possibility that maybe, still, it was written in 2013 in imitation of one or both of them instead, just maybe... ...) newly discovered work possibly by Liszt or Scriabin, and for that matter unsigned and perhaps of dubious authenticity and definitely from their later periods (if by them), so we can't "grandfather" it in as I think we are perhaps tempted to do if it were provably by one of them... -
is this work "Romantic"? By fairly strict application of our remit, of course

[semloh]

I think you are right, Eric.

Most UC members know what "romantic" music sounds like, and carry around a set of expectations or requirements, some formal and 'cognitive' others more indefinable and subjective, or 'affective'.  Were we to listen to a totally anonymous, undated piece of music, without any knowledge of its musical context, our ability to determine whether it qualified as 'romantic' would depend on how far it strayed from these expectations. I suspect we would judge it in relation to the cognitive requirements by noting the features which can be defined and described - like tonality, key, rhythmic pattern, melody, structure, instrumentation, and so on; and, judge the affective requirements by referring (perhaps often unconsciously) to various pieces which we use as stylistic 'yardsticks' and by considering the music's emotional impact.

Some listeners obviously possess greater expertise than others in relation to each set of requirements, depending on their technical knowledge in the first case and their emotional sensitivity and musical awareness in the second.

I know this is a simplistic account, and that there are alternatives, but is it the sort of thing you had in mind?

[eschiss1]

I think so.

Though the name tends to scare people off, Wittgenstein has a useful notion called "family concepts", where items are defined, accepted as being in the set/concept, not, or not only, by how well they comply with a dictionary definition, but also by whether they are related closely enough to something else already accepted as being in the "family".  I don't know if this is a useful notion here, but it is a useful additional framework to be able to apply, pardon mixed metaphors...

[petershott@btinternet.com]

The Wittgensteinian notion is that of what he called 'family resemblances'. The idea is first announced in the 'Blue and Brown Books' (which were his "preliminary investigations" for the 'Philosophical Investigations') and then made extensive use of in that latter work.

The device functions as an attack on essentialist conceptions going back to Plato, i.e. that there is some essential, defining, property that must be possessed in order for a thing to count as being a member of a certain class. Wittgenstein's example in the 'Investigations' was that of a game. Clearly, he says, there is no single feature (such as being played by a team, being played to win, being played using cards etc etc) that must be possessed by some activity to be counted as a game. Rather there are 'family resemblances' between, e.g. football, baseball, patience, tiddlywinks, ring-a-ring-a-roses, that allow us to refer to them all as games. In the same way that different members of the same family might have resemblances (e.g. a particular shape of nose, or chin etc).

Yes, it is a useful idea here. There aren't any single, defining, essential features that have to be possessed in order to count as 'romantic'. We can always easily agree on what are paradigm cases of 'romantic', and then whether something also counts as romantic depends on whether there are sufficient family resemblances between it and paradigm instances. Thus, for example, one might say there were so few family resemblances between the three piano sonatas of Boulez and sonatas by Brahms that the former couldn't possibly be called 'romantic'. (An easy example!).

All this might seem a little trite. But remember it opposes a traditional and pervasive conception going back to Plato - whether something truly counts as, e.g. courage, or beauty or whatever depends on whether it partakes in the ideal form of courage, beauty, etc.

End of philosophy lesson!