How do we distinguish between Classical and Romantic?

[John H White]

I tend to take the "Classical Period" in western music as stretching from around 1770 to 1820, this being followed for the rest of the 19th Century by the "Romantic Period". However, I realise that there cannot be any exact cut off dates for either style of music and there must have been quite a considerable overlap between them.
  It might be argued that, say in the case of the symphony. classical composers were more concerned with conforming to a fixed set of compositional rules and producing beauty of form, whereas the Romantics were more into expressing emotions. How then does one classify Haydn's "Sturm und Drang" symphonies or the Andante cantabile of Mozart's last great symphony, nicknamed "Jupiter"? It might be argued that Schubert's B minor unfinished symphony was in the romantic mode whilst the "Great C Major Symphony" that followed it was back in the Classical tradition.
  It might be said that composers whose style was "Classical" tended to be conservative or reactionary whereas those who embraced the Romantic mode were avant garde or revolutionary. Personally, I would class Spohr as a Conservative romantic, whilst Beethoven was an avant garde classicist! I should imagine the musical upheavals of the 1st 30 years of the 19th Century must have left many lesser known composers not knowing which way to turn.
    I hope this post will now stir up a healthy debate amongst us!

[Alan Howe]

The 'fuzzy edges' of UC's remit are tricky areas, but fascinating nevertheless. Let's see what people think...

[semloh]

OK - for what it's worth - I see romanticism as largely an early 19thC reaction against a number of prevailing ways of seeing the world. Firstly, as a reaction against the Aristotelian worldview that saw morality and 'the good life' as based on the Golden Mean (moderation in all things). Romantics rejected the resulting 'lukewarm' approach to life (and the stuffiness and hypocrisy of the age), and instead openly embraced passion and excess, challenging cultural norms and pushing out the boundaries. Secondly, as a reaction against the prevailing philosophy of mechanism and rationalism: romantics sought to elevate human emotions above reason, believing that they were natural, pure and good rather than dangerous and subversive (an idea promoted by Rousseau among others). Poetry and painting were the obvious trailblazers.

In musical terms, I think that all translates into a style in which structure and form are subservient to emotional expression, so that the familiar patterns of classical form no longer dictate the structure of a composition. It obviously didn't happen overnight and romanticism was more an influence than a distinct style. This is clear in comparing – say – a Mozart symphony with a symphony by Brahms: Brahms doesn't completely sacrifice traditional form or structure, but uses it creatively and 'transformatively' in order to achieve emotional expression. Since some composers were more overtly romantics than others, and the influence of the romantic sensibility spread unevenly across nations, there is no clear and necessary boundary between classical and romantic styles, even though they proceed from distinct and differentiable attitudes and impulses (a similar claim can be made for the relationship between ragtime and jazz). Distinguishing musical styles and associating them with specific periods of time is a convenient way of organizing a catalogue, CD/LP shop, concert programme or web page, but in my view should not be treated as a way of establishing the actual nature of any specific piece of music.

I am sure that's a very conventional viewpoint and probably offers nothing new to UC members, but that's my personal take on it. 

[Mark Thomas]

Not only could I not put it better myself, I'm not even going to try...

[John H White]

Semloh, you seem to have hit the nail on the head with regard to romanticism, but I'd like to point out that most of the "Romantic" symphonists and chamber music writers still found it convenient to stick to the sonata form first developed by the Bach family as a framework on which to hang their more dramatic compositions. You are certainly right in indicating that any line drawn between the Classical and Romantic period has inevitable to be a very fuzzy one indeed. Many composers must have changed their styles gradually over the years in order to conform with or even to set the latest fashion. I would say it is equally difficult t draw a hard and fast line between the "Romantic" and "Modern" periods in music. I would certainly cass Sibelius and Mahler as of the Romantic tradition, in spite of being contemporanious with Arnold Shoenberg and his early followers.

[eschiss1]

"in spite of being contemporaneous with..." the early anti-Romantic futurists might be more accurate/better, I think (as in the futurist manifesto, etc., etc. ...- almost forgotten today, but a presence at the time). Schoenberg -was- a Romantic.

Essential to Romanticism, and what all of this misses, is:
*the connection (starting even before Schumann, but fundamental to his thought and definitely after him) between music, literature, poetry, in a much more -integral- way than before;
*the growth of a separate stream of Romanticism - different from the "characteristic symphony" trend one finds in the late 18th century - that partially rejected the older models and sought newer forms, new bottles to go with the new wine; Liszt and his school. An attempt to speak of Romanticism while thinking only of the -well, more "conservative"(?)... half of the story doesn't, well, even tell the half of it.

John White:
the Bach family had, far as I know, fairly little to do with sonata form exactly. Defining sonata form as open ternary form (qv Thorpe Davie), used for the dramatic tension created by the opposition of two large tonal sections in the exposition- one sees, to my knowledge, transitional works on the way to such pieces, but nothing taking advantage of the potential of the form, the way JS Bach knew how to take advantage of the potential of his forms, until around Haydn's time. (And I say this as someone who quite likes the music of several of Bach's sons and their contemporaries and despite what I wrote there, think they created remarkable, well-done music much more of which is worth hearing much more often...)

[thalbergmad]

I am only a 3rd rate amateur hack musician, but I have always thought (probably wrongly), that romanticism escapes the chains of form and throws the rule book out of the window.

A bit like the difference between Queensbury Rules Boxing and unlicensed bouts.

Thal

[rosflute]

Classical 'forms' are sometimes thought of as structures with the notes being subservient to the form - but for Classical composers the structure of sonata form was entirely essential harmony. This is where we find the real difference between the mindsets of a Classical and a Romantic composer. Beethoven may have encompassed a more illustrative use of of music but, like Haydn and Mozart, his main concern was to create a secure tonal base and then to go on a magical mystery tour via modulation through various keys. He created themes specifically to embody the tonal centre and to aid our sense of the Home Key.  Romantic composers employed the same formal structures but their interest in harmony as a primary source of the music is less. They were more interested in colour and the shape of the melody, so their choice of thematic material is less linked to the needs of tonality and more concerned with an emotional response.

[thalbergmad]

I wish I could write posts like that.

Thal

[John H White]

The renowned music theorist, Ebenezer Prout in his book "Applied Forms" (1895), distinguishes between the older sonata form, with 2 contrasting subjects in different keys joined by a bridge passage which are then repeated with with reversed keys, as used extensively by such composers as Domenico Scarlatti and the modern sonata form as developed by C P E Bach and Haydn. However he goes on to mention that 2 of J S Bach's preludes are in this new form, giving him prior claim to its invention. Professor Prout also informs us that the older form was still occasionally employed by composers right up to Schubert's time, after which it appears to have died out.

[JimL]

In sonata form the reprise is not in 'reversed' keys.  Both themes are repeated in the "home" key.  Also, sonata form is a direct descendent of the binary form, which was used in scherzos and trios throughout the Romantic period.  This consisted of a theme that moved towards the dominant, which usually had a secondary, cadential theme.  There then was a 'working out' section which would eventually return to the cadential theme, now in the tonic.  Every one of Domenico Scarlatti's piano sonatas uses this scheme.

[chill319]

Why didn't something like Mahler Symphony 3 appear in 1796? Let me count the ways... or at least consider four questions (some with ancillary questions) that might help shed light:

1. Technology: Some key tone colors definitely could not be produced.
   A. what is the aesthetic role of tone colors that call attention to themselves?
   B: how many of Mahler's characteristic tone colors are a byproduct of large ensembles -- 8 horns, for example?

2. Habit: Were large or 'noisy' ensembles considered unattractive in 1796?

3. Microeconomics: Did princes, Herzogen, and their ilk keep background-music and after-dinner music ensembles small for purely aesthetic reasons?

4. Subscription to an aesthetic regime of objectivity and moderation.
   A: Were there any aesthetic forms that flaunted subjectivity?
   B: Did narrative concerns have an outlet in the late 18th century?
   C: Did the levels of abstraction available in the syntax of late 18th-century music define expressive limits?
   D. Did the levels of organizational abstraction available in the syntax of late 18th-century music define shorter optimal lengths for musical compositions?

[John H White]

Sorry Jim, I reckon it was past my bedtime when I made my last contribution, but what I meant to say was the key of the 2nd subject was reversed to the home key.
    Cheers,
          John.

[eschiss1]

There were works in which, in the recapitulation, this was done somewhat differently for one reason or another- either beginning the recapitulation in the subdominant (e.g.) and then continuing in the tonic sometimes by the same devices as had brought us from tonic to dominant in the first place, sometimes not (Mozart's best-known piano sonata has something like this in its first movement. Thorpe-Davie believes that this- yes, even when Mozart or Schubert does it- suggests too much of an architectural, in space symmetry, and not an in-_time_ view of just what's going on. For myself I think he may have a point, there...
there's a question closely related to the question of this thread which has to do with sonata form in Reger/Wagnerian music and afterwards, in my opinion, where tonal tension is lost because tonal clarity is lost- since it's a lot harder to have two or three or four tonal "groups" when there are so many keys marked out _within_ each (as in mature chamber and orchestral "sonata-ish" (but sonata? that's the question, or ... a question...) movements by Reger). (I very poorly and with no clarity* tried to explain this idea- inspired, if I recall, by reading some Schoenberg essays (one on clarity, specifically), Griffiths, Thorpe-Davie and a few others** (and a lot of Reger listening...) - in my Preface to Reger's Symphonic Prolog for Musikproduktion Höflich, but I'm not sure I'd do much better now.)

*A college English major friend (with similar music and math interests), who I was back in touch with, tried his best to help me with the readability of that thing, but... only so much he could do, especially given that our communication was online...
**Or possibly found in its entirety somewhere; couldn't recall then or now, though...

[eschiss1]

Chill319 asks why Mahler 3 didn't appear in 1796 but forgets, I think, to mention two of the most important reasons of all- putting aside that its text had not been written yet (let's just substitute some earlier text, say by Goethe instead of Nietzsche, or something...)
(a) it would have been considered an oratorio or similar, not a symphony.  The IMPORTANCE (capitals, for once, deserved) that the classical music listener ascribes to symphonies relative to, say, opera, concerto, string quartet... is arguably something that was only slowly beginning to grow just in the 1790s itself; the idea of a choral symphony that shouldn't actually just be called an oratorio with a really, really, really unwieldily long orchestra-only introduction, is, I gather, something that Beethoven achieved - not only by having a chorus in the finale of his 9th, but because there was nothing at all "introductory" about the other three movements (the first movement in my opinion is one of the best "sonata movements" in all his work, and has been as much an inspiration to later composers as has the finale - think of the openings of all but one of Bruckner's symphonies, for instance- even that one, if you omit the slow introduction...)

But then again, it's not a new idea to say that Mahler's 3rd and much else in Mahler wouldn't exist without Beethoven in some very specific ways.

(To note that an artist is not wholly and entirely independent of what has come before- besides being usually obvious and a neutral statement, not an insult or a compliment - is less important than -how- they use the ideas and tools they have "borrowed or stolen" (in the latter case, made their own, serving their own ends.) Anyhow. We now return you to the land of less boring and less obvious statements...)- ES