Neoromanticism

[Kullervo]

What about reviewing orchestral concerts, opera performances, and classical CDs for a college student newspaper? That might make me a "music critic," if amateur.

[not edward]

What about reviewing orchestral concerts, opera performances, and classical CDs for a college student newspaper? That might make me a "music critic," if amateur.

No, sorry. You need to have a website where you castigate the Wiener Philharmoniker for being unable to play Mahler. Then you're a critic!

[jochanaan]

As far as I can determine with my extant knowledge and no further research, the Neoromantic "movement" can be traced back to a single work: Howard Hanson's Symphony #2, called "Romantic," written in 1930.  Hanson wrote about it:

Concerning my Second Symphony, as the subtitle implies, it represents for me a definite and acknowledged embracing of the Romantic phase.  I recognize, of course, that Romanticism is, at the present time, the poor stepchild, without the social standing of her elder sister, Neoclassicism.  Nevertheless, I embrace her all the more fervently, believing, as I do, that Romanticism will find in this country rich soil for a new, young, and vigorous growth..."

It should also be said that, as a conductor and teacher, Hanson was a thorough modernist, unafraid to tackle the most complex modernist works--unlike, for example, Elgar and Rachmaninoff who simply could not accept modernist music at all.

The difference between Elgar and Rachmaninoff and others like them on one hand, and Hanson and the later Neoromantics on the other, is that Hanson and the others do what they do by conscious choice, while Elgar and Rachmaninoff simply wrote according to their nature.  (And please: I love Rachmaninoff and respect Elgar, just as much as I love and respect Hanson and other composers named on this thread.)

[Brian]

No, sorry. You need to have a website where you castigate the Wiener Philharmoniker for being unable to play Mahler. Then you're a critic!

"They don't like Mahler." - Lorin Maazel

By the way, the recent film "Ratatouille" had a few interesting things to say about critics...

Thanks for an enlightening post, jochanaan. Hanson's music has escaped my attention for far too long...

[jochanaan]

...Hanson's music has escaped my attention for far too long...

...a deficiency that I suggest you remedy ASAP!

[Ten thumbs]

Is Neoromanticism yet another reinvention thrown at us to confuse and sound new? I see that Postromanticism, formerly applied to composers such as Debussy is also being recycled.

[greg]

Is Neoromanticism yet another reinvention thrown at us to confuse and sound new? I see that Postromanticism, formerly applied to composers such as Debussy is also being recycled.

and what about the tradition of Schoenberg to Boulez? It's not really modern anymore..... if i wrote in a style imitating Schoenberg, would it be Neomodernist?

[Kullervo]

and what about the tradition of Schoenberg to Boulez? It's not really modern anymore..... if i wrote in a style imitating Schoenberg, would it be Neomodernist?

If you wrote in a style imitating Schoenberg it would just be ignored.

[drogulus]

First, I think it is helpful to consider the musical movement which they seek to invoke by the term neoromanticism:  viz., Neoclassicism.  It seems a ready parallel, right?  In the 20s and 30s many composers who were reacting against what were at the time considered the stifling excesses of Late Romanticism (or, Post-Romanticism) sought inspiration from the clarity and energy of the classics.

     The reactions are different, just as you point out, but they are also reacting against different stages in musical culture. The neoclassicist could reach back a hundred years or more to find a balance of form and expression without extremes. There was no danger of Prokofiev sounding like Mozart. But to my ears it does suggest Mozart.

     The new neos are reacting against innovation itself (the hyperinflated version that lurched out of Vienna circa 1910, not the usual kind), and in the process they didn't have to go anywhere, since tonal music never went away.

     The short version is: Neoromanticism is just a continuation of what music has been doing all along, and the Great Detour of the Ultra period (1910-1960??) will be seen as the anomaly that stands in need of explanation. When that happens, I'll be ready.

As far as I can determine with my extant knowledge and no further research, the Neoromantic "movement" can be traced back to a single work: Howard Hanson's Symphony #2, called "Romantic," written in 1930.  Hanson wrote about it:It should also be said that, as a conductor and teacher, Hanson was a thorough modernist, unafraid to tackle the most complex modernist works--unlike, for example, Elgar and Rachmaninoff who simply could not accept modernist music at all.

     I was thinking of just that piece! What are you, a wise guy?

     So, like I said, it never went away. Hanson, Diamond, Schuman and a bunch of others come to mind. And some of the music they produced is pretty tough. These aren't a bunch of softies, just out to please the easiest and largest audience they can get.

[Greta]

I'm not really sure what so-called "Neoromanticism" is either. I have definitely seen Hanson described as such - but I have seen Sibelius (and Mahler!)described as Post-Romantic though, what are the differences between these denotations?

Any more I often see new music with any of these labels (and maybe all at once) commonly affixed: "Neoromantic", "Postmodernist", " Postminimalist". It has gotten to where I ignore any such descriptions, and just listen to it and decide for myself.

Why do those terms have to be "bad" things anyway? If there are romantic, or modernist, or minimalist leanings in a work, yet it is its own thing too, well, that is fine by me - do we have to go making up a new "movement" to describe it? I think it gets a bit out of hand.

I do think John Adams has romantic leanings (for example, in Harmonielehre, or say, The Wound-Dresser), but to be labeled Neoromantic - that to me has a derogatory whiff which bothers me very much. Am I wrong to sense that?

[longears]

Not in my book, Greta!  I've sure seen the term used dismissively, but not always.  Naming is an interesting subject.  When you name something, you gain power over it.  The thing itself can even disappear, replaced by a concept that henceforth conditions perception and reduces the thing to a mere instance of a class. 

Gosh, but the tale of the Garden of Eden is replete with compressed wisdom!

 

[Symphonien]

By the way I didn't like the "Angel of light" symphony of Rautavaara, it may be neoromantic but in my ears it appears to be a kind of Kitch.

How is Rautavaara's 7th kitsch? What specific composer's style does it explicitly copy? I know it's tonal and I can see its Romantic elements, but I do believe that Rautavaara has developed a unique recognisable voice, and I hold this work in very high regard in his output.

[jochanaan]

     I was thinking of just that piece! What are you, a wise guy?

Not at all.  I just got there first.

     ...These aren't a bunch of softies, just out to please the easiest and largest audience they can get.

Seems to me there are easier ways to go about that, like writing rhythm tracks for P. Diddy.

[Scriptavolant]

I'm not really sure what so-called "Neoromanticism" is either. I have definitely seen Hanson described as such - but I have seen Sibelius (and Mahler!)described as Post-Romantic though, what are the differences between these denotations?

Intuitively, post-romantic could be considered those formal and aesthetic solutions which tried to move away from Romantic compositional principles, on the assumption that those principles were historically exhausted (Debussy, Stravinsky etc.)
Neo-Romantic, always intuitively, implies the deliberate will to retrieve those compositional and aesthetical principles, usually in overt opposition to modernism (e.g.: "we've had enough of the noise, let's go back to tuneful material and poetical insipiration, the Winter Wood and the merry paesant").
Of course these labels are vague, but can be of some help sometime. Both artistical choice can lead to good music, I think.
In my experience, I tend to ascribe - very arbitrarly, I know - the term "neoromanticism" to those total simpletons who usually need excuses to promote their lack of originality and competence.
And I'm not talking about composers who choose not to follow modern principles (Bax, Alwyn, Rachmaninov).

[gomro]

Hanson's music has escaped my attention for far too long...

For my money, he's indispensible. Try the 3rd Symphony. I know the 2nd is much more well-known, and it's very fine, but the 3rd remains my choice for Intro to Hanson 101. 

[karlhenning]

Maybe I should give the Third a go;  I think it may be the Second which is so far the only Hanson I've heard, and it left me firmly tepid.

[Ten thumbs]

The future is not yet with us, except that 2008 is upon us, so a happy new year to you all.
However, are we to expect neopostromanticism next? 

[greg]

However, are we to expect neopostromanticism next? 

yes, that would be my style of composing.

[Sydney Grew]

We are in two minds about the music of Valentyne Sylvestreff, a native of Kyïff.

PRO
1) - he has written six symphonies, sonatas, and two string quartets;
2) - he writes a lot of pleasant-sounding chords for brass instruments.

CONTRA
1) - his music is always too slow;
2) - it is almost always too monotonous too;
3) - he is the author of "Postludium DSCH";
4) - he is said to have a love of percussion (but perhaps that was only in his early years).

We know only a few works of his. The Fifth Symphony sounds like a pastiche or after-glow of the famous slow movement in Mahler's Fifth.

The Sixth Symphony is much the same! except that for Mahler is substituted Wagner.

His Meta-music is in yet again very much the same style, but here the piano takes mainly the place of the strings.

Meta-waltz as well sounds very similar to our ears! It is so . . . slow . . . all the way through.

In general Sylvestreff's style consists of a slow succession (and sometimes progression) of traditional harmonies on the brass and strings, and each of these slow steps is followed or decorated by either a flourish upon the wood-wind, or an arpeggio (usually rising) on the harp. The aforesaid flourish sounds at first hearing quite random, but in fact we believe he is just filling in the dots of some serial series! And that is just about it over the course of the entire work. His music is much more self-similar than that of the Frenchman Messiaen, even!

What do the other Members think?

[greg]

Valentyne Sylvestreff, eh?

i would say that i'd check him out, except he's not even in the Naxos catalog