Favourite period in music history?

[Jackman]

I like music from all periods, which the exception of "antiquity". Is this music recorded or just written in unknown languages? 

[Mahlerian]

My point is composers like Barber and Hanson, just to cite two examples, continued writing music in a Romantic vein during the Modern period. So the ideal of Romanticism hasn't been completely tossed to the side or forgotten about. This is why talking about music post-1900 becomes a tricky thing to discuss since there's really no clear-cut answer given the myriad of styles that came about during this period.

They wrote music in a way that they couldn't have without the influence of modern styles.  Their music does not use the harmonic or melodic style of the 19th century, so to say they continued writing in a Romantic vein is like saying that Haydn continued to write in a Baroque vein because he wrote fugues in his music.

You're correct that the 20th century was a time of artistic pluralism (and the present is as well), but that only means that it can easily encompass such apparently disparate figures as Barber and Stravinsky.

[ComposerOfAvantGarde]

Strange, I always associated Barber more with neo-classicism than romanticism. Strauss, Elgar, Puccini, Rachmaninov, Schreker seem more like the late romantics of the early 20th century to me.

Capricorn concerto is my favourite work by Barber

https://www.youtube.com/v/u_yHhkM_I8E

[Crudblud]

Yeah, I'd say Barber is closer to Stravinsky. Closer, mind. While the bulk of his output is ignored in most cases, he has quite a characterful body of work. To my ear the various concerti, the short opera A Hand of Bridge, and the piano sonata contain his best moments.

[Mahlerian]

Strange, I always associated Barber more with neo-classicism than romanticism. Strauss, Elgar, Puccini, Rachmaninov, Schreker seem more like the late romantics of the early 20th century to me.

Yeah, I'd say Barber is closer to Stravinsky. Closer, mind. While the bulk of his output is ignored in most cases, he has quite a characterful body of work. To my ear the various concerti, the short opera A Hand of Bridge, and the piano sonata contain his best moments.

I agree that he's not Romantic in the sense of "Romantic era style," unlike the other composers Jessop named, but the piece mentioned above, the Capricorn Concerto, is a bit of an outlier in Barber's output, and much closer to Stravinskian Neoclassicism than the vast majority of what he wrote.

The pieces he's best known for are often thought of as being "Neoromantic," although again not in the style developed in the 1970s/1980s that goes by that name.

[Florestan]

I've said it many times before: "romanticism" is first and foremost a psychological predisposition, a particular state of mind and soul --- and so is "classicism" for that matter. They are encountered in all periods of history; what we call the Classical or the Romantic eras are only the eras when such predispositions and states were prevalent among thinkers, artists and scientists (yes, that's right, there is a Classic and a Romantic science as well). Moreover, one and the same person can harbor within oneself both Romantic and Classic tendencies; the most illustrious example is probably Goethe.