Beethoven: Last great classicist ... or first great romantic?

[DavidW]

Alright let me just say this--

If you divide classical from romantic based on "emotional content" then you have just been kicked in the head a few times too many.  Classical composers write emotionally expressive music.  If you do not find resonance with classical era music, that's your own problem.  Defining romanticism as the music that turns you on is personal and subjective.  For me classical and romantic music are passionate.  For others classical turns them on, but romanticism doesn't.  This is simply not good enough to discuss music simply by describing their emotional impact on YOU.

Look, you have to look at more discernable, objective features of the music.  The basics-- harmony, rhythm, and melody.  Start with those.  I think that you could make a case for Beethoven being a classicist.  I think that you could also make the case that he's a transitional figure.  But I don't think a case can be made for him being purely romantic.

[Scriptavolant]

Take form for instance. For Beethoven, form was one of his principal tools for creative expression. All the twisting and expanding of form was NOT an attempt to 'brake free' and thus paving the way to the Romantics. Development was everything to him, how could anybody possibly believe he would have simply discarded a lifetime of structural progress and invention and simply give himself up 'to the muses' like the Romantics did? It's ridicolous. Brahms fully understood this and that his why he never abandoned form, as well.

This point I agree with, but I don't think it solves the problem. Romanticism - in its various forms - doesn't imply an obligatory rejection of the form. I would add that there is practically no musical period which is completely detached from form. Schonberg himself composed String Quartets, or Piano Suites which recalled baroque forms. But you can look at Bruckner and Mahler as well. So it is not a problem of labelling as a Romantic he who escapes the form, and non-romantic he who is devoted to it.
Furthermore, you can count very different nuances in Romanticism. As Alfred Einstein points out it would be quite impossible to gather such different personalities as Bruckner, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Wagner et al. under a monolithic aesthetical brand. Each one was Romantic in his particular way (that's a reason why scholars tend to divide the Romantic Period in first and second Romanticism).

When we come to Beethoven is rather obvious he had a completely different approach to music and creation with regard to his predecessors, the true Classicists. He doesn't "break free" from form, but still his approach tends toward freedom. He takes codified forms, and begin to push against the boundaries from within, to expand far beyond codified styles. A logically ordered and weighed freedom, but still freedom. A great bearing of poetical, ideological, political issues which - for the first time - break directly in musical creation.

Said that, as I've stated before, I don't consider him to be a Romantic tout court, I would be much more inclined toward considering him a meta-historical composer, at least for what concerns his late period.
That's it. To consider him a Romantic composer is nevertheless less bizarre than to consider him a classicist. I've never heard of that, in any Music History book I've glanced through. Maybe in the US they have a different Music History.

[Lethevich]

Likewise for harmony, which is something Beethoven never fully approved. There's more chromaticism in Mozart or even Hummel (his sonata for instance) than there is in Beethoven. He simply didn't care for it.

Interesting point Berlioz, one of the 3 primary "radicals" of Romanticism, also wasn't interested in writing particularly chromatic music, unlike Liszt and Wagner.

[longears]

Likewise for harmony, which is something Beethoven never fully approved.

Regardless of how influential he was to those who came after him, i have an hard time believing that, had he lived longer, he would have become another Wagner.

Of course not.  That would be like suggesting Shakespeare would become another Norman Mailer.

[mahlertitan]

Or Bruckner.

Edit: at least in the mature versions of his symphonies. Compare also the finale of the 1878/80 version of the Fourth Symphony with the one of the 1874 version, which is a wild-running, rather unorganized fantasy (and I suspect it is this movement that the symphony got the name "Romantic" from, music which has been abolished in the later, generally known version).

perhaps, perhaps, but I also believe that the 1874 Scherzo is a masterpiece, unfortunately it has been forgotten over the years, and most people nowadays only know of the "hunt" scherzo.

[Mozart]

Ok so some of you will say he transitioned to a romantic composer, but exactly what? Where did he break away from classical tradition, and if not why did he earn the disgrace of being called a romantic?

[Florestan]

Ok so some of you will say he transitioned to a romantic composer, but exactly what? Where did he break away from classical tradition, and if not why did he earn the disgrace of being called a romantic?

Why disgrace? What's wrong about being a Romantic?

[Herman]

The problem, i think, is that most individuals simply do not understand Romanticism. The general assumption is that it's purpose was the expression of emotion, which was paramount to Beethoven, but not necessarely to the Romantics, who's chief aim was literary expression, conveying the power of words (and poetry) through music, both in the sense of clear narratives (Wagner, Liszt) or brief glimpses of poetic beauty (Schumann).

Where did you get this idea if I may ask?

[Josquin des Prez]

Where did you get this idea if I may ask?

Well, isn't that the whole idea behind program music, which was the basic tenet of the Romantic movement?

[Herman]

Well, isn't that the whole idea behind program music, which was the basic tenet of the Romantic movement?

I was more like asking is there a book you read  -  possibly about Schumann  -  that gave you this idea.

However, even though it's true there is a lot of program music in the Romantic era, I don't think program music = Romanticism in music.

1. There is program music before Romanticism. Beethoven, anyone?

2. Some of the most notable Romantic era composers didn't write program music. Ex A Chopin

3. I'm also thinking when was the last time "program music" was rigorously defined? In other words, do we really know what we're talkign about when we're talking about "program music", "classicism" and "romanticism"?

[Que]

1. There is program music before Romanticism. Beethoven, anyone?

And Baroque.

Q

[Brian]

No: the last great classicist was Schubert. He beats Beethoven by a year. 
As far as "first romantic" goes, I don't really know. Here's a question - which of these titles would you grant to Chopin?
Was the first great romanticist Berlioz?

[Que]

As far as "first romantic" goes, I don't really know. Here's a question - which of these titles would you grant to Chopin?

The "first" Romantic was .... Schubert! 

Of course both are transitional - but Beethoven was an older composer who developed a Romantic style at the end of his career. Schubert was still a young man when he was a full swing Romantic composer. Although his symphonies are still rather Classical, his vocal and chamber music is thoroughly Romantic IMO.

Q

[Gurn Blanston]

No: the last great classicist was Schubert. He beats Beethoven by a year. 
As far as "first romantic" goes, I don't really know. Here's a question - which of these titles would you grant to Chopin?
Was the first great romanticist Berlioz?

No, Carl Maria von Weber.

[Ten thumbs]

Well, isn't that the whole idea behind program music, which was the basic tenet of the Romantic movement?

I presume by this that you mean that the basic tenet of the romantic movement was structure. The program is structure just as any good poetry or novel is highly structured. Although this structure is not as simply defined as classical forms it is present nevertheless. Form becomes all the more important when recapitulated themes are mutated or placed in different contexts of rhythm or harmony.
One of the most important aspects of Romanticism has not been mentioned, that being the blurring or absence of a distinction between 'theme' and 'accompaniment'. Both become of equal importance. Both Beethoven and Schubert developed accompaniment figuration but generally maintained the distinction. It begins to disappear with the Mendelssohns and with Schumann.

[The Six]

The title of this topic assumes that Beethoven was great. A little biased?

[Brian]

The title of this topic assumes that Beethoven was great. A little biased?

There are still mediocre classicists running around though 

[mn dave]

I don't think we need to assume Beethoven was great. 

[karlhenning]

There are still mediocre classicists running around though 

In fact, some have them have been dredged back up from their well-earned Sleep in Obscurity  0:)

[Ten thumbs]

In fact, some have them have been dredged back up from their well-earned Sleep in Obscurity  0:)

Good idea. Without the lesser lights how can we appreciate Beethoven's greatness?