Beethoven - Classical or Romantic?

[DavidW]

Nice use of the quote!  Classical era celebrated freedom from baroque style music, Romantic era from classical... it goes on and on composers try new things to find new ways to express themselves.

[Florestan]

And yet he created a very structured and rule-bound system of composition.

A Romantic contradiction, you know... 

[Gurn Blanston]

Yeah, yeah, all well and good. But all I see is copping an attitude, not defining a difference. If you (any-you) were to push your reading back to the first half of the 18th century you would find precisely the same opinions expressed about music as you find 100 and 200 years later. But they are only rhetorical opinions, not music. Everyone has one and many of them smell badly.

[DavidW]

And yet he created a very structured and rule-bound system of composition.

Actually in his later works he was much more free, more so than any Romantic era composer with their rigid, inflexible homophonic consonance/dissonance dialogue that they directly inherited from classicism.

[karlhenning]

Today's revolution is tomorrow's institution; artistic freedom means different things from epoch to epoch.

[Gurn Blanston]

Actually in his later works he was much more free, more so than any Romantic era composer with their rigid, inflexible homophonic consonance/dissonance dialogue that they directly inherited from classicism.

All the decent composers (Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Clementi, Schubert etc) totally blew off any rigidity at all. One need only compare any (for example) Haydn keyboard sonata to "the rules" and see that this is so. The "rules" of classicism weren't formally codified until all the Classicists were dead. It is better that way. The rigidity didn't come along until the real music makers left. And it was in the thought processes of the critics, of course...

[DavidW]

Today's revolution is tomorrow's institution; artistic freedom means different things from epoch to epoch.

Yeah and I think the key as listeners is to mentally switch gears to match with composer, performer and audience expectations of the time, since they change from era to era.

[DavidW]

All the decent composers (Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Clementi, Schubert etc) totally blew off any rigidity at all. One need only compare any (for example) Haydn keyboard sonata to "the rules" and see that this is so. The "rules" of classicism weren't formally codified until all the Classicists were dead. It is better that way. The rigidity didn't come along until the real music makers left. And it was in the thought processes of the critics, of course...

I think you're right, I have to admit I shouldn't label classicism as rigid in form, it was foolish of me.

[Gurn Blanston]

I said nothing about rules or rigidity, but restraint (Classical) and freedom (Romantic). 

These aspects can take many forms, but the Classical period, and not just in music, was a mannered age: social interaction was structured, conversations were structured, and so was the musical expression.  It was a period that paid more allegiance to an idea of and obligations to community  The Romantic era celebrated the individual and by and large rebelled against the kind of restraint that typified the Classical period.   And this is much more specific than some general idea that later generations free themselves of the practices of previous generations.

I completely agree with you.

I was looking for a definition that would enable us to determine if a piece of music was Classical or Romantic, so we could thus fill our inferential box with composers of each sort. Why stop with Beethoven, after all?  Because he is on some implied cusp?

Homophonic music constructed around a tonal center and with a structure based on "sonata" form and tonality.

Sounds like Emanuel Bach. Sounds like Antonin Dvorak.

Sounds like Beethoven....

[DavidW]

Homophonic music constructed around a tonal center and with a structure based on "sonata" form and tonality.

If you lift sonata form, you would have a definition that included baroque, classical and romantic eras!   It almost seems as if while they sound obviously different on the surface, the real differences (style aside) between the different eras are complex and subtle.

[Gurn Blanston]

If you lift sonata form, you would have a definition that included baroque, classical and romantic eras!   It almost seems as if while they sound obviously different on the surface, the real differences (style aside) between the different eras are complex and subtle.

Some differences are plain enough even for me to understand. Most differences are complex and subtle.

Maybe, but if you look at how a composer expresses his music in that kind of reductive definition, if it is more restrained than free, then I think you begin to find distinctions.  Beethoven is a Classical composer who began to speak more like a Romantic - his lifespan centers around the French Revolution and the Age of Enlightenment which typifies much of the zeitgeist I am referring to in my description of what was the conceptual basis of Romanticism.

So, Beethoven is truly a transitional figure, but still too much of a classicist for me to call him a full blown Romantic, imo.

As a man of his times, he has absolutely no choice but to be transitional. Haydn was as transitional a composer as there was. But his life wasn't transitional, and his environment wasn't either. When it comes to being a revolutionary, Haydn takes a back seat to no one, Beethoven included. That said, I believe that the impact of Beethoven on his contemporaries and especially on subsequent composers was even greater than Haydn's was, not musically but artistically and on how to handle the suddenly important task of being 'an artist'.

To me where this essentially falls down is that we each have a different idea of what exactly we are talking about. But my aim is strictly music. I don't care about personalities and art in general (at this pint in time. Of course I DO care, but not in this context). Of course Beethoven was easy to co-opt and adopt for the Romantics. His music had a big influence on them. But it wasn't 'Romantic' music. 

[DavidW]

I said nothing about rules or rigidity, but restraint (Classical) and freedom (Romantic). 

These aspects can take many forms, but the Classical period, and not just in music, was a mannered age: social interaction was structured, conversations were structured, and so was the musical expression.  It was a period that paid more allegiance to an idea of and obligations to community  The Romantic era celebrated the individual and by and large rebelled against the kind of restraint that typified the Classical period.   And this is much more specific than some general idea that later generations free themselves of the practices of previous generations.

While I agree that Romanticism celebrated the individual artist, I have no idea why you equate that with freedom.  How much freedom could there possibly be in upholding an egocentric model of the composition being the utterance of a personal artistic statement?  After awhile it's restricting.

[(poco) Sforzando]

[I know someone will say Beethoven's 6th symphony has five movements.]

Yes, and the Op. 132 quartet also has 5, 131 has 7, 130 has 6; many of the sonatas have 3 movements (being less ambitious-seeming works than the symphonies, perhaps); the sonatas opp. 49 1 and 2 (minor cases admittedly), 54, 78, 90, and 111 have only 2 movements; 53 lacks a true slow movement and is closer to a 2-movement form, etc. The classical period and especially Beethoven were far less rigid about these things than your statement implies. Within certain guiding conventions, one finds an amazing amount of variation and freedom in how these sonata-form works were constructed; indeed, there was no such term as "sonata form" in B's time and nothing codified as such.

[Dancing Divertimentian]

String quartets were not as important to the romantics as to the classicists, I find that interesting and not a red herring.  And someone who is influenced by a string quartet is likely to use that influence within a similar form.  Indeed for many years alot of people seemed to think his last quartets were incomprehensible.  George Bernard Shaw felt it necessary to talk about them as " these beautiful, simple, straightforward, unpretentious, perfectly intelligible posthumous quartets".

That the romantics weren't as infatuated with the string quartet is irrelevant. It's Beethoven's late language all around that I'm referring to.

His words and influences show that Beethoven considered himself a classicist.  Beethoven was able to build on the classicists who went before so of course he can be 'advanced' in that sense, that doesn't  mean he saw and agreed to what would happen in music in the future.  Debussy isn't really relevant to this argument unless you see him as a romanticist, and I don't think Beethoven would find much in common with him.  Modernism is a whole different subject (red herring) and took different forms in its development, some taking a more 'classical' and sparer approach than others.

The point is NOT what Beethoven thought of himself but what future generations thought of him. Debussy is relevant in the context I chose for him but I see it's best not to engage you.

[DavidW]

does not obliterate the fact that an idea existed of how a symphony or sonata movement would work and what expectations existed both in the composer's and audience's minds.

Except that neither the symphony nor the string quartet existed before Haydn.  And if you listen to either cycle of his you will hear it evolve over time.  The divertimento that is symphony #1 is very different from say the Oxford symphony.  Mozart practically redefined the opera... just the characteristic homophonic sound evolved over the few decades that was the classical era.  And you think that this was a period of stasis in form? Ha!

[Dancing Divertimentian]

But it wasn't 'Romantic' music. 

But it was. (Uh, oh, again...)

Which is why the label "transitional" applies so well to him. Not that Beethoven thought of himself in such terms of course but as I stated earlier there would've been no problems for future generations to cherry-pick through his late language and build on it. And that's really all I'm saying. What Beethoven thought of HIMSELF or his own music doesn't matter.

(And this has zero to do with "personality". To be honest that hadn't even occurred to me.)

All throughout this debate it's become clear we all agree B pushed the boundaries of classical form. To me that's at least one MUSICAL example of his forward-thinking tendencies. That it has to be labeled "romantic" in this context is just a matter of semantics.

Then there's the zinger in the form of the op.131 quartet. Overt, heart on sleeve, thrustful, obtuse...a MESSAGE work if there ever was one. Perhaps not a "romantic" message in the sense we seem to be debating here but there's something of the "take a gander at this pretty lil' ditty", without question.

Then...there's that absolute bullhorn of a piece the Grosse Fuge. Honestly, who HASEN'T though of that piece in futuristic terms? Musically speaking, that is... 

That plenty in B's late style still clings to classical forms isn't necessarily a statement to the fact he was married to those forms. Indeed, "experimentation" seems to be B's middle name by this point in his career! Heck, give him another ten years of composing and I have no doubts that we'd be celebrating Beethoven the MODERNIST instead of romanticist.    

   

[Gurn Blanston]

More form Grove and Liszt:

Again, there was clearly an idea of what constituted Classical practice and Liszt, as an exponent of Romantism, was compelled to chart a new course.  This is not to say that Brahms did not handle the same forms of Beethoven in a more romantic manner - but he did not abandon them entirely as did Liszt and others.

Very true. If we had been talking about Liszt (or Berlioz for that matter) to start with instead of Beethoven, there would have been more points of agreement right from the start. There most certainly was a branch, so to speak, of the Classico-Romantic music spectrum that I would term German Romanticism, and Liszt (and Wagner and many others) are on that road.

And even Schumann, who said of his keyboard sonatas that he had wasted his time because the 'sonata is dead' had a foot on that road.

I am struck at how some in this thread to wish to blur all distinctions between the Classical period and the Romantic, for reasons unknown to me.  How is one to ever come to understand the history of music if one is unable to accept that there were conventions during the period of the Classical age that developed and then broke down which then became a new era which historicans have called the Romantic period.

Why don't we cut through this Gordian Knot then?  Let's say instead 'Late 18th through 19th century' music. Let me ask you an easy question. Would you say that Brahms' music (or Mendelssohn's, Dvorak's, even Tchaikovsky's) is more like Haydn's than it is like Liszt's?   I think if you are being true to your previous statements that you will say yes. How could that be then? Chronologically those guys all are Romantics. And probably in their thought processes, beliefs and many other ways they are. However, in their music, they are Classicists.

Their is no break in music to delineate a style change. I am talking here about the mainstream of music as it existed at the time. The fact that the German Romantics eventually prevailed has way more to do with Classico-Romanticism being perceived to have shot its bolt, so to say, than with some mass conversion. The differences between Mozart and Brahms are strictly evolutionary. Music is like any other system in nature; it gains in complexity as it evolves. Eventually it explodes and something else takes over.

Classification systems are created by historians in order to make it easier to grasp large-scale concepts. The breaking up of the Classico-Romantic into 2 separate, chronologically delineated systems is totally false. Do the math. The Baroque lasted from <>1600 to 1750. It's successor, the Classico-Romantic lasted from <>1750 to <>1900. People didn't stop writing polyphonically in 1750, neither did they stop writing tonally in 1900. They were simply not the mainstream of music any longer. Tonality finally changed enough that it gave way to something else, just like polyphony did before it.

[Gurn Blanston]

Yes, Brahms is a classicist in temperament.  I never argued of a chronological distinction, but of a stylistic and philosophical distinction.

I agree and never said otherwise.

Again, agreed, but again, you are arguing with a strawman, not moi. 

You are the one arguing with a strawman. I never said that Liszt and that group were anything resembling the group of Classico-Romantic composers that Beethoven was part of. You were the one that brought Liszt into it, not I.   But they were a splinter group back then and continued to be until Wagner finally achieved an influential position.

This started out as a discussion of Beethoven. Liszt's musical ideas did not arise from Beethoven's, except peripherally. The artistic temperament and all that associated baggage those fellows were so proud of can be said to stem in some small way from Beethoven's own attitudes, but not the music.

You further asked why people were trying to obscure a boundary between classical and romantic. This cannot be anything but chronological unless you specify otherwise. I would be the last person to obscure any boundary at all between the Lisztians and the Classico-Romantics. One of them consists in music I love and the other is... the other. The more boundaries the better.

from: Leon on Today at 12:30:22 PM
    I am struck at how some in this thread to wish to blur all distinctions between the Classical period and the Romantic, for reasons unknown to me.  How is one to ever come to understand the history of music if one is unable to accept that there were conventions during the period of the Classical age that developed and then broke down which then became a new era which historians have called the Romantic period.

You can forgive me for being confused. Historians interpret facts just like you or I do. They are fallible. Or they can be misinterpreted too. Without specificity on our parts, how can I know that you aren't arguing for chronology here as the defining feature? Especially since we seem to both agree that stylistic differences actually only seem to have infected a small percent of the population while the mainstream was simply evolving more complexity.

At least you are never in doubt about what I am trying to say, amigo.

[jochanaan]

...Why don't we cut through this Gordian Knot then?  Let's say instead 'Late 18th through 19th century' music...

Now you're beginning to convince me.   I myself have posited that the very phrase "Classical Music" as many use it is both inaccurate and insufficient.  And of course you're very right that there is no obvious break between the "Classic" and "Romantic" eras as most scholars delineate them.  But in that case, what's so "wrong" (as you said in a previous post) about my seeing LvB as more "Romantic" than "Classic," since they're the same thing anyway?

[Gurn Blanston]

Now you're beginning to convince me.   I myself have posited that the very phrase "Classical Music" as many use it is both inaccurate and insufficient.  And of course you're very right that there is no obvious break between the "Classic" and "Romantic" eras as most scholars delineate them.  But in that case, what's so "wrong" (as you said in a previous post) about my seeing LvB as more "Romantic" than "Classic," since they're the same thing anyway?

Nothing wrong at all. Every composer within that time period was both Classical AND Romantic! The only thing that makes any of them more or less of either one is the the balance, like this (which I was using to show trends with);



Anyone can take issue with this, of course, but it is a mental picture that works for me.