late romantic, 20th century music

[DavidRoss]

I already am familiar with Sibelius and Vaughan Williams.  Which composers do you recommend besides these two? Which are essential?

The question is going to raise some difficult issues about just what constitutes romanticism in music, and at what point the term no longer applies. It could be said that the Sibelius 4th-7th symphonies have moved past romanticism into a different territory, one that may not align itself with any "modernist" movement, but which shows a clear break away from conventional forms to structures dictated by the nature of the thematic material, framed in a leaner, meaner instrumental texture.

Modernism, if defined totally in terms of dissonance and atonality, didn't come to English music until after WWII, but you can hear a definite break between the generation of Elgar and that of Vaughan Williams. British romanticism took its inspiration from the example of Mendelssohn, and later of Brahms. The new generation took its inspiration from folklore and Elizabethan music. And RVW showed in the 4th symphony that he himself could come up with good, pounding modern dissonances.

I would not let one faction of 20th century music define the whole century. Music which maintains tonality and symphonic form is not necessarily romantic.

I was puzzled by the original post which classified Sibelius and RVW as "Romantic."  Mark's response presented my view more cogently than I would have, though I would add that by the time of Sibelius's neoclassical 3rd Symphony he had already pushed well into post-Romantic territory.

An analogy that might be helpful to those with a curiously Balkanized sense of the term Modern:  Equating Modernism in music with Schoenbergian tonality is like equating Modernism in painting with Cubism.

I used to regard Mahler's music as the apotheosis of late-Romanticism, but then someone (Mark again, I think!) pointed out to me how very post-Modern Mahler is in some respects and I have accordingly revised my opinion on the matter.

[sul G]

There's a danger that when we think late Romantic we think orchestral/symphonic. But for my money among the most quintessentially late Romantic of composers - late in every sense, and stalked by an unbearable nostalgia - is Othmar Schoeck, the Swiss Lieder specialist. He's a composer with a very distinctive, haunting style, and something very definite to say (unlike some superficially comparable composers, mentioning no names...)

[schweitzeralan]

How about Scriabin?? 

Bax and Scriabin, two of my very favorites, along with Sibelius, Debussy, Joseph Marx (Automn Symphony).

[DavidRoss]

But Sibelius and Debussy are not Romantics.  Heck, they practically define modernism, except among those whose limited understanding of the term confines its meaning to one little thread of modernism in music. 

[schweitzeralan]

But Sibelius and Debussy are not Romantics.  Heck, they practically define modernism, except among those whose limited understanding of the term confines its meaning to one little thread of modernism in music. 

Perhaps in the case of Debussy. I was just mentioning him as a favorite and should not have considered his inclusion within the discussion dealing with the late romantics.  For years I thought that modernism began with Stravinsky (Le Sacre), Prokofiev (Sythisn Suite), or the later neo-classical composers whose works dominat3ed the first half of the last century, alng with the avant-garde and a host of other "isms." I believed that Debussy, Ravel, Schmitt, Marx, and the impressionists were actually pre-modernist.  I may well be mistaken. I've always thought Sibelius' works were generally of the late romantic aesthetic. It's quite interesting to me that modernism and serialism have declined.  I know very little of works composed during the  late decades of the 20th century and the first decade of the current century. I tend to favor the late romantcs, the impressionists and works I thought were pre-modernist (Scriabin, Jongen, Brian, Lyatoshinsky's 1st Symphony, early Szymanovski, Alexandrov,etc.).  It is indeed a vast subject, and I'm no expert. Many contribtors are quite well infrmed in tis classical music forum, and I enjoy reading the many comments and perspectives.     

[DavidRoss]

I've always thought Sibelius' works were generally of the late romantic aesthetic.     

A mistaken belief commonly shared among those having only a cursory familiarity with his music or with the compass of the terms "Romantic" and "Modern."

First, let us recognize that classification itself is rather arbitrary, a convenience aiding understanding and discussion, not a straitjacket determining the means, methods, and aims of artistic creation.  Beethoven did not set out to write a Romantic symphony.  Rather, he wrote a symphony that critics later agreed (or not) possesses sufficient characteristics of works generally regarded as Romantic to justify inclusion in this category. 

Second, before classifying anything, we must first understand not only its characteristics, but also the distinguishing characteristics of the various classes into which we might place, squeeze, shoehorn, or hammer it.  One of the simplest to determine characteristic is date of origin.  If there is general consensus, for instance, that Modernism in music covered exclusively the period from, say, 1880 to 1960, then it may be unlikely that a work written in 1680 would generally be regarded as Modernist.

Third, meaningful discussion of appropriate classification can only proceed after establishing agreement on the characteristics alluded to above.  In the case of Modernism such agreement is complicated by confusion of the term "Modern"--referring to a distinctive period in the arts when creative developments were informed by a select set of social, economic, and intellectual circumstances--and the common adjective, "modern," referring to things vaguely contemporary or at least from the very recent past.

If I were teaching a course on the subject, therefore, the first assignment I might give would be to investigate usage of the more narrow term, "Modern," so as to discover a set of shared characteristics distinguishing things deemed "Modern" from those more appropriately classified as "Baroque," "Classical," "Romantic," or even "Post-Modern," and also distinguishing "Modernism" as a movement in the fine arts from that which is merely modern.  As this ground has been thoroughly plowed, I expect that substantial informed agreement should not be too difficult to arrive at.

[schweitzeralan]

A mistaken belief commonly shared among those having only a cursory familiarity with his music or with the compass of the terms "Romantic" and "Modern."

First, let us recognize that classification itself is rather arbitrary, a convenience aiding understanding and discussion, not a straitjacket determining the means, methods, and aims of artistic creation.  Beethoven did not set out to write a Romantic symphony.  Rather, he wrote a symphony that critics later agreed (or not) possesses sufficient characteristics of works generally regarded as Romantic to justify inclusion in this category. 

Second, before classifying anything, we must first understand not only its characteristics, but also the distinguishing characteristics of the various classes into which we might place, squeeze, shoehorn, or hammer it.  One of the simplest to determine characteristic is date of origin.  If there is general consensus, for instance, that Modernism in music covered exclusively the period from, say, 1880 to 1960, then it may be unlikely that a work written in 1680 would generally be regarded as Modernist.

Third, meaningful discussion of appropriate classification can only proceed after establishing agreement on the characteristics alluded to above.  In the case of Modernism such agreement is complicated by confusion of the term "Modern"--referring to a distinctive period in the arts when creative developments were informed by a select set of social, economic, and intellectual circumstances--and the common adjective, "modern," referring to things vaguely contemporary or at least from the very recent past.

If I were teaching a course on the subject, therefore, the first assignment I might give would be to investigate usage of the more narrow term, "Modern," so as to discover a set of shared characteristics distinguishing things deemed "Modern" from those more appropriately classified as "Baroque," "Classical," "Romantic," or even "Post-Modern," and also distinguishing "Modernism" as a movement in the fine arts from that which is merely modern.  As this ground has been thoroughly plowed, I expect that substantial informed agreement should not be too difficult to arrive at.

Interestng.  Labels and classifications on artists, artists, composers do perhaps tend to be  arbitrary.  I wonder what classical music will be like in the decades to come.  I would suppose that contemporary and/or future composers will no longer write or conceive musical styles, harmonies, scales  similar to those conceived by  past composers. I assume we're still in the post-modernst era. Then again, perhaps not. Music of the future may be consideraby different from the works conceived, yes, in the Baroque period, the Classical,the Romantic, the Modernist, the serialists and the avant-garde period  For me, personall, I believe I'll limit my interests and passions to the late romantics, the impressionists, and my neo-classical favorites, at least for now.  Thanks for the reply. Much appreciated.

[eyeresist]

If I were teaching a course on the subject, therefore, the first assignment I might give would be to investigate usage of the more narrow term, "Modern," so as to discover a set of shared characteristics distinguishing things deemed "Modern" from those more appropriately classified as "Baroque," "Classical," "Romantic," or even "Post-Modern," and also distinguishing "Modernism" as a movement in the fine arts from that which is merely modern.  As this ground has been thoroughly plowed, I expect that substantial informed agreement should not be too difficult to arrive at.

Very eloquent, but you haven't actually explained why Sibelius should be considered as Modern.

[zamyrabyrd]

Yes-it was all downhill after the Gurreleider What a shame!-Schoenberg did show such early promise

"Verklärte Nacht" Op. 4, was written in 1899, ("Transfigured Night"--string sextet) late, late Romantic, just before the clock struck 20th century. Weird to note that in 1902, this expressionist work, for the most part tonal, (compared to the harmonic debacle to follow) was rejected by the Vienna Musical Society because it had an inverted 9th chord, not recognized by the academics.

ZB

[DavidRoss]

Very eloquent, but you haven't actually explained why Sibelius should be considered as Modern.

No, nor did I set out to do so.  A thorough exploration of the subject is more fit for an essay or even a book than for an internet forum post.   If you're really interested in examining the matter with an open mind, you might return to the post at the top of this page and begin by considering the comments by diegobueno quoted within.  To help you on that path I offer the following considerations:

In the interests of brevity (a Modernist virtue!), let's agree that the salient characteristics of Modernism are:

• A return to ancient standards of craftsmanship in reaction to industrial mass production,
• An insistence that form be dictated by function and by the artist's materials,
• An emphasis on process and the artist's subjective response to his subject rather than on an objective result,
• Experimentation with new forms, structures, and materials,
• A blurring of distinctions between genres,
• Inclusion of materials from other cultures, including domestic folk culture,
• Rejection of ornament and development of a new, lean, stripped down aesthetic characterized by Mies's dictum that "Less is more,"
• And, finally, the Modernist period spanned the timeframe roughly from 1860 to 1960.

Now we may choose to argue about these characteristics--whether all should be included, whether all are strictly Modernist, whether other salient characteristics should be included--but I think you will find that there is substantial agreement among respected critics who've considered the matter. I encourage you to investigate for yourself and not just to take my word for it.  The Web offers vast resources readily available to those with basic knowledge of research methods and sufficient education to distinguish the wheat from the chaff.  You might begin with the noted critic Clement Greenberg's famed essay on Modernism and Postmodernism.

With the foregoing as your guide, I suggest that you exercise your own imagination and intellect to consider Sibelius's music.  I think you will find that even in his early, most apparently Romantic works--the first and second symphonies and early tone poems--elements of Modernism are present, and that by the time of his neoclassical Third Symphony he had already embarked on a distinctively Modernist path that left his Romantic origins far behind--especially in the Symphonies which he regarded as "absolute" music (a Modernist idea itself, distinct from the representational agenda of Romanticism), but even in tone poems like Oceanides and Tapiola and in the later theatrical music as well.

That is not to say that one could not claim that "There are Romantic elements in his work, therefore he's a Romantic!"  Of course there are Romantic elements in his work.  Romanticism preceded and informed Modernism.  Schoenberg himself--the very embodiment of musical Modernism to those who think superficially about such things--began as more of a Romantic than not, and the very method of composition by tone rows--seen by some as the ne plus ultra of Modernism--could well be viewed as essentially Romantic and anti-Modernist due to its rigid imposition of an industrial-like method to determine a given result, rather than following the Modernist approach of letting the materials--the musical motifs--determine their own structure and form.

Finally, for those with enough interest in the subject to read this post but no more, I offer a few passages from the Greenberg essay linked above that merit consideration:

Innovation, newness have gotten themselves taken as the hallmark of Modernism, newness as something desired and pursued. And yet all the great and lasting Modernist creators were reluctant innovators at bottom, innovators only because they had to be -- for the sake of quality, and for the sake of self-expression if you will.

Modernism has to be understood as a holding operation, a continuing endeavor to maintain aesthetic standards in the face of threats -- not just as a reaction against romanticism...threats from the social and material ambience, from the temper of the times, all conveyed through the demands of a new and open cultural market, middlebrow demands. Modernism dates from the time, in the mid-nineteenth century, when that market became not only established -- it had been there long before -- but entrenched and dominant, without significant competition.

So I come at last to what I offer as an embracing and perdurable definition of Modernism: that it consists in the continuing endeavor to stem the decline of aesthetic standards threatened by the relative democratization of culture under industrialism; that the overriding and innermost logic of Modernism is to maintain the levels of the past in the face of an opposition that hadn't been present in the past. Thus the whole enterprise of Modernism, for all its outward aspects, can be seen as backward-looking. That seems paradoxical, but reality is shot through with paradox, is practically constituted by it.

One last passage form the close of that essay is of special note to the Philistines here who decry Modernism in both music and the plastic arts:

The making of superior art is arduous, usually. But under Modernism the appreciation, even more than the making, of it has become more taxing, the satisfaction and exhilaration to be gotten from the best new art more hard-won.

For those unwilling or unable to make the required effort to dare to presume that their deficiency establishes the standard of taste...may be unfathomably arrogant, but needn't prove irremediably stupid. 

[Kuhlau]

Thanks for the Greenberg essay, David. I've saved it as a PDF to read later.

FK

[eyeresist]

Thanks for your detailed reply, even though I strongly disagree.
Greenberg's essay really is piffle - his argument is really metaphysical rather than concrete. He asserts but does not demonstrate. He pretends to discuss Modernism in general, but is really only talking about the plastic arts, painting in particular. His argument is finally based on a Bohemian pose.
From the top: Greenberg says Modernism rose in response to the crisis of Romanticism, in particular to the degenerations of revivalism and academicism (he mentions this didn't apply to music or literature, but doesn't think this exception to his thesis needs explanation).
What actually made this new movement different from previous new movements is rather vague. Greenberg says:

Modernist innovation has been compelled to be, or look, more radical and abrupt than innovation used to be or look: compelled by an ongoing crisis in standards.

Over the past hundred and thirty years and more the best new painting and sculpture (and the best new poetry) have in their time proven a challenge and a trial to the art lover -- a challenge and a trial as they hadn't used to be. Yet the urge to relax is there, as it's always been. It threatens and keeps on threatening standards of quality. (It was different, apparently, before the mid-nineteenth century.)

So Modernism may be defined as being especially radical and challenging, in response to a threat to "standards of quality". (The phrase in brackets is particularly interesting - the word "apparently" suggests he doesn't understand why things use to be different.) Is "the urge to relax" really the great threat to standards of quality?
No, the threat is not the urge to relax, but the cause at the root of this urge, which is:

the demands of a new and open cultural market, middlebrow demands.

the relative democratization of culture under industrialism

an opposition that hadn't been present in the past.

these threats, which came mostly from a new middle-class public

So that's the problem, you see. The common people became more affluent, and more interested in art. Their "middlebrow demands" precipitated the crisis, which could only be resisted by art becoming "a challenge and a trial". What were these "middlebrow demands"? How were these demands made? How did they differ from demands of previous times? ("It was different, apparently, before the mid-nineteenth century.")
In fact the basic problem was that the new public existed at all. After all, the elite do not want to be associated with the pastimes of the plebians. Imagine an aesthete in a concert hall listening to Beethoven's 9th symphony - and surrounded by suburbanites having a jolly good time. Intolerable! How could they possibly appreciate such a masterwork? It is in answer to this crisis that art must become "a challenge and a trial", in order to weed out those who desire to "relax" (this desire not being a problem before Modernism pronounced it so, "apparently"). This is in fact the archetypal Bohemian gesture, a ego-defensive attempt to shock the bourgeoisie (épater les bourgeoisie), and drive the impure ones from "our" temple.

What does this have to do with Sibelius? Not much. He began composing in the style of his time, and developed his individual voice, modifying his methods to facilitate expression. Nothing especially Modern about that. He wasn't endeavouring "to stem the decline of aesthetic standards threatened by the relative democratization of culture under industrialism", although he was resisting the pressure of Modernism to atonalism and a general pose of radicalism.

[DavidRoss]

I made a good faith effort to provide what you seemed to request.  You did not respond in kind.  Rather than trying to see how Sibelius's work fits the Modernist criteria described, you went off on an irrelevant tangent to offer an incoherent and rather juvenile critique of one aspect of Greenberg's analysis of the roots of Modernism.  I seem to have misread your invitation to an adolescent pissing contest as an expression of sincere interest in a different point of view--a mistake I do not intend to repeat.

The music, of course, is what it is, irrespective of labels and how you or I choose to think about it, or whether we choose to think about it at all.

Have a lovely day and keep your powder dry.

[Mark G. Simon]

Actually I think eyeresist makes some very valid points about the essay. If modernism is what Greenberg makes it out to be, I want no part of it.

[Mark G. Simon]

The problem is, Greenberg can't define just what the standards of quality are that modernists are trying to defend, nor how the middle class is eroding them. All one can say about standards of quality is that they are whatever it is the middle class doesn't want. This turns modernism into a battle of class struggle, a kind of aesthetic Marxism.

[eyeresist]

I made a good faith effort to provide what you seemed to request.  You did not respond in kind.  Rather than trying to see how Sibelius's work fits the Modernist criteria described, you went off on an irrelevant tangent to offer an incoherent and rather juvenile critique of one aspect of Greenberg's analysis of the roots of Modernism.  I seem to have misread your invitation to an adolescent pissing contest as an expression of sincere interest in a different point of view--a mistake I do not intend to repeat.

The music, of course, is what it is, irrespective of labels and how you or I choose to think about it, or whether we choose to think about it at all.

Have a lovely day and keep your powder dry.

I see that you have added a few paragraphs to your previous post rather than responding directly to my criticism. One thing I did not say in my last post, which I probably should say just to get it said, is that this notion of Modernism as "A return to ancient standards of craftsmanship in reaction to industrial mass production" stikes me as bizarre. According to this, William Morris is much more Modern than the Bauhaus! It also connotes that standards of craftmanship were lax before the advent of Modernism, which I don't think is true, and implies that pre-Modern art was produced by some sort of mechanical apparatus.

Actually I think eyeresist makes some very valid points about the essay.

My friend! (To quote Kenneth Williams )

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

My friend! (To quote Kenneth Williams )

(But I wonder whether Mark will instantly hear Kenneth Williams's distinctive voice inside his head. Your reference is very British...)

[Mark G. Simon]

That's what Google is for

http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=kenneth+williams&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=0V6ZSfXTF9W5tweYosWzCw&sa=X&oi=video_result_group&resnum=4&ct=title#

[DavidRoss]

Actually I think eyeresist makes some very valid points about the essay.

That may be, but I could not discern what those points were, nor how they relate to the question regarding Sibelius.

If modernism is what Greenberg makes it out to be, I want no part of it.

Greenberg describes Modernism as a reaction against stale academism and bourgeois tastes, a reassertion of traditional standards of quality and the new aesthetic of art for art's sake.  If you really "want no part of it" and did not just make that statement as a rhetorical device, then I suspect that you did not read his lecture very carefully.  I suggested it to eyeresist (what an apt user name, as he seems to read with an eye to resisting rather than to understanding; understand first--then you may resist if you choose--but resisting first usually prevents understanding) as but a beginning in expanding his thinking about Modernism beyond the boundaries of the conceptual box in which he's confined it.  The link to that essay was just an accessory to my thoughtful response to him that he did not address at all.

I see that you have added a few paragraphs to your previous post rather than responding directly to my criticism.

Then you see wrongly.  I added nothing.  I did correct some faulty diction in the earlier post, editing it seven hours and 52 minutes before you responded, as you can see simply by checking the time stamps of the edit and the posts.  And I did respond directly to your criticism, stating that it was incoherent and addressed an irrelevant tangent and not the substance of my entry.

One thing I did not say in my last post, which I probably should say just to get it said, is that this notion of Modernism as "A return to ancient standards of craftsmanship in reaction to industrial mass production" stikes me as bizarre. According to this, William Morris is much more Modern than the Bauhaus! It also connotes that standards of craftmanship were lax before the advent of Modernism, which I don't think is true, and implies that pre-Modern art was produced by some sort of mechanical apparatus.

Not at all.  It suggests that Morris and Mies are both Modern.  In the plastic arts and I think in music as well, Romanticism was descending into kitsch, the artistic equivalent of shoddy industrial mass production.  The Modernist movement reasserted traditional standards and established the artist himself as the arbiter of aesthetic quality and not the mass consumer public.  Indeed, one of the unfortunate hallmarks of Modern art, including music, is that even today it's despised by a general public who think Thomas Kinkaid is a great artist and that Picasso couldn't draw, and who welcome John Williams's movie music in the concert hall while still turning their noses up at Stravinsky.

[Mark G. Simon]

In the plastic arts and I think in music as well, Romanticism was descending into kitsch, the artistic equivalent of shoddy industrial mass production.

Some examples, please? You'll need to be really, really convincing, because there's a lot of really great romantic music out there of the highest artistic standard.

Brahms, kitsch?
Wagner, kitsch?
Tchaikovsky, kitsch?
Schumann, kitsch?
Fauré, kitsch?

And what is this about industrial mass production? Heck, the early musical modernists glorified industrial mass production. Look at the titles: Iron Foundry, Pas d'acier, Pacific 231, Ballet Mechanique.