GMG Classical Music Forum

Suggested by the Sturm und Drang thread. Charles Rosen's book The Classical Period: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven makes perhaps the clearest case for Beethoven as a Classical composer. But that seems to me more formal and technical than essential, whatever it is I might in totality mean by essential. One thing I mean is that Beethoven's spirit and stance as a heroic individual against the system and the cosmos are quite in line with the Romantic imagination. Yet his forms are Classical and he disliked much of the early Romantic music he heard, though he did sort of seem to think Schubert was good. What are your views?

Neither.

Although I voted for "Romantic", Beethoven essentially bridged the two periods.

Though he still used the Classic forms, I feel he was the first of the great Romantics.  His forms are less "formal" and more organic; his dynamic intensity and emotional content is higher even than that of late Haydn or Mozart; and his constant stance against meaningless authority and for artistic freedom is entirely Romantic.

He sounds much closer to Haydn than Berlioz or Wagner, so I voted for classical.  However, I'm a fan of there is a smooth transition between the classical and romantic eras and thus the question is meaningless theory. ;D

Like Schubert, most of his works seem to fit within the Classical style, regardless of his unusual personality. Compare the late quartets of Beethoven with, say, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Brahms, Dvořák, etc, and you will find composers deeply indebted to his harmonic soundworld, but the compositions themselves are more alike to each other than Beethoven. It is as if Beethoven, far from creating a template to the style of Romanticism, actually found himself in far more abstract territory while later composers were busy just continuing down the Haydn-Spohr line, inspired by Beethoven but really producing nothing all that relatable to his music.

Quote from: jochanaan on May 06, 2011, 03:50:49 PM
Though he still used the Classic forms, I feel he was the first of the great Romantics.  His forms are less "formal" and more organic; his dynamic intensity and emotional content is higher even than that of late Haydn or Mozart; and his constant stance against meaningless authority and for artistic freedom is entirely Romantic.

Romantic Classicist?

Classical Romantic?

What did Beethoven's contemporaries say?

Contemporary critics of the early 19th century wrote some fascinating reviews about Beethoven's works.  Augustus Wendt complained that the sonatas and symphonies were formless, "marred" by use of the fantasia style.  In contrast, Haydn's works subordinated Fantasy to Reason, and they were intertwined in Mozart's works.  Reason, in Beethoven's works, was replaced with the willful personality of the composer, whose works therefore lacked unity.

Wendt, rooted much more in the previous century, was therefore rather ambivalent toward Beethoven, whom he considered without a doubt a great composer, who was unfortunately leading music astray.

E.T.A. Hoffmann saw Romanticism as sprouting in Haydn, growing larger in Mozart, and reaching fruition in Beethoven.

See:  Beethoven's Critics - Aesthetic Dilemmas and Resolutions During the Composer's Lifetime by Robin Wallace.

Quote from: Lethe Dmitriyevich Shostakovich on May 06, 2011, 04:37:52 PM
Like Schubert, most of his works seem to fit within the Classical style, regardless of his unusual personality. Compare the late quartets of Beethoven with, say, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Brahms, Dvořák, etc, and you will find composers deeply indebted to his harmonic soundworld, but the compositions themselves are more alike to each other than Beethoven. It is as if Beethoven, far from creating a template to the style of Romanticism, actually found himself in far more abstract territory while later composers were busy just continuing down the Haydn-Spohr line, inspired by Beethoven but really producing nothing all that relatable to his music.

I think both Beethoven and Schubert were born into the classical period and so had some of that mindset.  Schubert still wanted to do grand classical symphonies and Beethoven to push classical forms to their limit.  Ries is a composer who in his 5th symphony seems influenced by Beethoven a bit.

Questions of form and tradition temporarily put aside, what strikes me subjectively about much of LvB's work is a sense of inner turmoil or struggle brewing uneasily just beneath the surface--or erupting into the open. That to me seems Romantic compared to the fundamental poise or tranquility found in so many of the "Classical" composers--as well as more than a few of Beethoven's later proto-Romantic contemporaries. It's as if the Sturm and Drang of the Classical composers is theater, but it's real in Beethoven.

But a new style of music surely has to be more than just about someone who happens to have a more emotional temperament than some of his contemporaries.  And the classical style wasn't all about refinement anyway, Haydn injected some rustic earthiness in some of his compositions.

To get a bit technical, Charles Rosen talks about all earlier composers, from Bach through Beethoven, going into the sharp keys for their development sections. Thus if an exposition was in C, the composer would modulate to G or F, for example, for development. But the Romantics, he says, started to go into the flat keys instead. This led to a partial breakdown of traditional harmony in favor of more nearly chromatic effects and new combinations. The tonic-dominant relation was no longer so powerfully controlling.* The Romantics actually could not express themselves in the old simpler harmonic structure. Beethoven disliked this tendency intensely and thought that music was declining.

Rosen also thinks that although the Romantics retained sonata form out of devoted respect for the Classicists, it was spent and outworn by that time, and they hung their melodic inspiration on it as on a dead skeleton rather than a living form. In this sense Liszt and Wagner were the truest Romantics because their forms dissolved and their melodies wandered at will (or rather, perhaps more accurately, the melodies determined new arbitrary forms for themselves alone - I think Siegfried's Funeral Music is anything but formless, but it creates its own unique form on the spot ).

These points anyway a major part of Rosen's argument for Beethoven as Classical. Just as background here. 

*It's interesting that popular music is often called simple-minded when it relies merely on the the three chords tonic, subdominant, dominant. Yet many long, great passages of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven rely only on these three chords also. Or even sometimes only on the tonic and dominant. In this sense the Romantics were in a way harking back to Bach who loved harmonic complexity and chromaticism albeit his development sections were in the sharp keys. It is probably no accident of history that the Bach revival came in 1830 rather than 1770.

We're pretending as if there's a debate about this. Beethoven has been considered a classical composer for ages. Brahms is another story. He was a bridge between classical and romantic.

Rosen says much of what I myself had contemplated, though I hadn't thought about harmonic differences, in relation to the baroque anyway.  Also to say the classical structure / style was just a dead skeleton later is perhaps unfair.  But with the harmony topic...if the classical style was so much simpler than the periods before and after what would you say they concentrated on instead?  Was it more about inventiveness with themes and their interaction and relation within the structure of the style?  Is that therefore more prominent overall would you say than within the baroque or romantic styles?

Quote from: Sandra on May 07, 2011, 05:31:31 PM
We're pretending as if there's a debate about this. Beethoven has been considered a classical composer for ages. Brahms is another story. He was a bridge between classical and romantic.

How can he be a bridge when he was born in 1833, at the height of the early Romantic period and well after Beethoven's death?  No, Brahms was a Classicist in a Romantic age; though he used Romantic styles and devices, his sense of form and his devotion to musical perfection was entirely Classic.

Quote from: starrynight on May 08, 2011, 12:44:01 AM
Rosen says much of what I myself had contemplated, though I hadn't thought about harmonic differences, in relation to the baroque anyway.  Also to say the classical structure / style was just a dead skeleton later is perhaps unfair.  But with the harmony topic...if the classical style was so much simpler than the periods before and after what would you say they concentrated on instead?  Was it more about inventiveness with themes and their interaction and relation within the structure of the style?  Is that therefore more prominent overall would you say than within the baroque or romantic styles?

No, the Classicists concentrated on two things: perfection and simplicity in their melodies and underlying harmonies, and ever-increasing drama in musical structures.  That's where Beethoven might well be considered to have extended the Classical style rather than beginning a new one; his structures are of course weightier and more dramatic than any before his, at least in instrumental music, and his melodies do embody Classic simplicity and perfection beyond even Mozart's.  But of course, there's the distinct possibility that LvB both extended Classicism and catalyzed the growth of Romanticism.  His music is strong enough to have done both. :)

Quote from: jochanaan on May 08, 2011, 09:33:39 AM
No, the Classicists concentrated on two things: perfection and simplicity in their melodies and underlying harmonies, and ever-increasing drama in musical structures.  That's where Beethoven might well be considered to have extended the Classical style rather than beginning a new one; his structures are of course weightier and more dramatic than any before his, at least in instrumental music, and his melodies do embody Classic simplicity and perfection beyond even Mozart's.  But of course, there's the distinct possibility that LvB both extended Classicism and catalyzed the growth of Romanticism.  His music is strong enough to have done both. :)

Yes, and all told he was a Classicist. You can say it, Jo... :D   

Composers here have to be judged on their music, not their biography/personality. His music is classicizing way more than romanticizing. In addition, though he can be said to have been a heavy influence on Romantic composers, that doesn't make him a Romantic himself.

We have been down this road a dozen times or so (and I first went down it 9 years ago when Chaszz started this same thread at a Beethoven web site), and my opinion then has only been strongly reinforced by the reading and listening I have done in the last 9 years.

The guy I'm listening to right now was at the beginning of Romanticism. :)

8)

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Now playing:
Colin Lawson (Clarinet / Neal da Costa (Pianoforte) - Weber Op 48 Grand Duo Concertante in Eb for Clarinet & Pianoforte 1st mvmt - Allegro con fuoco

Quote from: jochanaan on May 08, 2011, 09:33:39 AM
No, the Classicists concentrated on two things: perfection and simplicity in their melodies and underlying harmonies, and ever-increasing drama in musical structures.  That's where Beethoven might well be considered to have extended the Classical style rather than beginning a new one; his structures are of course weightier and more dramatic than any before his, at least in instrumental music, and his melodies do embody Classic simplicity and perfection beyond even Mozart's.  But of course, there's the distinct possibility that LvB both extended Classicism and catalyzed the growth of Romanticism.  His music is strong enough to have done both. :)

Classical simplicity and perfection beyond Mozart?  Not sure I can agree on that.  :D  Is there almost a contradiction though between that perfection / simplicity and the drama?  The drama itself will create complexity and complications.  The structure itself I suppose is meant to resolve all the drama, and Beethoven certainly enjoyed that part of the puzzle as much as any of the classical style composers.  The drama element was what I was really referring to concerning the interaction of themes and the playfulness with them.

Quote from: Chaszz on May 07, 2011, 07:02:19 AM
In this sense Liszt and Wagner were the truest Romantics because their forms dissolved and their melodies wandered at will (or rather, perhaps more accurately, the melodies determined new arbitrary forms for themselves alone

Berlioz too.

Quote from: jochanaan on May 08, 2011, 09:26:20 AM
Brahms was a Classicist in a Romantic age; though he used Romantic styles and devices, his sense of form and his devotion to musical perfection was entirely Classic.

Yes, and this raises an interesting question: is it possible that "Classical" and "Romantic" be psychological, rather than historical, categories?

Quote from: Gurnatron5500 on May 08, 2011, 09:56:07 AM
Composers here have to be judged on their music, not their biography/personality.

That's a very "Classical" idea, completely irrelevant when it comes to the full blooded Romantics, for whom their biography/personality and their music are inseparable. Can one imagine, or even understand, Berlioz, Liszt or Mahler without any reference to the biographical events that shaped their life, or their extra-musical personality and pursuits?

Quote from: Il Conte Rodolfo on May 08, 2011, 10:20:16 AM
That's a very "Classical" idea, completely irrelevant when it comes to the full blooded Romantics, for whom their biography/personality and their music are inseparable. Can one imagine, or even understand, Berlioz, Liszt or Mahler without any reference to the biographical events that shaped their life, or their extra-musical personality and pursuits?

That's exactly what I was thinking when I read Gurn's post. It's one thing to classify music purely on its "structure", but can one truly divorce the music from the (influence of the) zeitgeist?

Quote from: Cato on May 06, 2011, 05:58:09 PM
E.T.A. Hoffmann[/b] saw Romanticism as sprouting in Haydn, growing larger in Mozart, and reaching fruition in Beethoven.

Yes, but I'm not sure that by "Romantic' he meant what we mean.

Quote from: E.T.A. Hoffmann, "Beethoven's Instrumental Music"
Should, whenever music is discussed as an independent art, not always be referred to instrumental music which, refusing the help of any other art (of poetry), expresses the unique essence of art that can only be recognized in it?--It is the most romantic of all arts, one would almost want to say, the only truly romantic one, for only the infinite is its source.-- Orpheus' lyre opened the gates of the underworld.  Music opens to man an unknown realm, a world that has nothing in common with the outer sensual world that surrounds him, a realm in which he leaves behind all of his feelings of certainty, in order to abandon himself to an unspeakable longing.

Did you poor composers of instrumental music who have labored to express certain feelings, nay, even occurrences, have even the faintest idea of its peculiar nature?--How could you even think of trying to treat this art that is the very opposite of plastic depiction, in a plastic manner? Your sunrises, your thunderstorms, your battles of three emperors and so on were certainly ridiculous errors and are deservedly punished by being entirely forgotten.

In song--in which poetry hints at certain emotions with words, the magical force of music works like the wonderful elixir of the wise, of which a few drops make every drink taste more delicious and wonderful.  Every passion--love--hatred--anger--despair, etc., as opera presents it to us, cloaks music into the purple light of romanticism, and even that which we feel in real life leads us from life into the realm of the infinite.

The magic of music is so strong, and, growing ever more powerful, it had to break all constraints put on it by other forms of art.

It was certainly not only the improvement of the means of expression (perfection of the instruments, greater virtuosity of the players), but also the deeper, more profound realization of the essence of music that causes great composers to elevate it to its present height.   

Mozart und Haydn, the creators of contemporary instrumental music, showed this art in its full glory, for the first time; who looked at it with all of his love and penetrated to its innermost essence, is--Beethoven!--The instrumental compositions of all of these three masters breathe the same romantic spirit, which lies in the same inner grasp of the peculiar essence of this art; however, the character of their compositions differs noticeably.--The expression of a child-like, serene mind, governs Haydn's compositions.  His symphonies lead us  to endlessly green pastures, to a merry, colorful throng of happy people.  Dancing youths and maidens are floating by; laughing children, hiding behind trees and rose bushes, throw flowers at each other.  A life full of love, of bliss, like before original sin, in eternal youth; no suffering, no pain, only a sweet, melancholy longing for a figure that floats by in the distance, at dusk, and does not come nearer, does not vanish, and, as long as it is present, it does not turn into night, since it is the evening glow, itself, in which mountains and fields are steeped. --Mozart leads us into the realm of spirits, but, without pain, it is more of an anticipation of the infinite.

Love and melancholy sound in lovely spirit voices; night arrives in a purple glow, and with unspeakable longing,  we move towards them who wave at us to join their ranks and to fly with them through the clouds in their eternal  dance of the spheres.  (Mozart's Symphony in E-flat Major which is known by the name of swan song.)

Beethoven's instrumental music, too, opens to us the realm of the gigantic and unfathomable.  Glowing rays of light shoot through the dark night of this realm, and we see gigantic shadows swaying back and forth, encircling us closer and closer, destroying us, but not the pain of infinite longing in which every delight, rising up in joyful voices, sinks and drowns, and only in this pain, consuming love, hope, joy, but not destroying it and aiming at bursting our chests with its unison of all passions, do we live on and are we rapturous seers of the realm of spirits!

Romantic taste is rare, and even more rare is the romantic talent; this is probably why there are so few who can play the lyre whose sound opens up the wonderful realm of romanticism. 

Haydn sees the human in human life in a romantic fashion; his music is more commensurable, more comprehensible to the majority.   

Mozart evokes the super-human, the wonderful that dwells in the innermost of spirit.  Beethoven's music moves the levers of fear, of shudder, of horror, of pain and thus awakens that infinite longing that is the essence of romanticism.  Therefore, he is a purely romantic composer, and may it not be because of it, that to him, vocal music that does not allow for the character of infinite longing,--but, through words, achieves certain affects, as they are not present in the realm of the infinite--, is harder?

Beethoven's mighty genius crushes the musical riff-raff; in turn, it wants to revolt against it, but in vain.--However, the wise judges, looking around in a dignified manner, reassure us that we can believe them, as men of great intellect, that the good B. is, not in the least, lacking a rich, lively fantasy, but that he is not able to constrain it!  To him, there would not even arise the concept of selection and formation of musical thought,  but rather, following the so-called genius method, he would write everything down as it would occur to his fiery fantasy.  What if your limited grasp would not recognize the deeper connection in every composition of Beethoven?  What if it is only you who can not understand the master's language that only the initiated can understand, that the door to the innermost sanctum remains closed to you? --In truth, the master, to be put right next to Haydn and Mozart in his musical thoughtfulness, separates his ego from the inner realm of sound and reigns over it as absolute ruler.  Aesthetic measurement artists have often complained about the lack of inner unity and connectedness in Shakespeare, since only he who looks deeper will see a seed growing into a beautiful tree, leaves, blossoms and fruits; in the same manner, only  deep immersion into  instrumental music, such as  Beethoven's, will result in a high degree of insight that is inseparable from true genius and that is nourished by the study of art.  What instrumental work of Beethoven confirms this to a higher degree than his magnificent and profound Symphony in c-Minor.   Irresistibly, this wonderful composition leads its listeners in an increasing climax towards the realm of the spirits and the infinite.     Nothing could be simpler than the first principal idea of the Allegro, consisting of only two bars that, to begin with as Unisono, does not even indicate the key to the listener.  The character of the fearful, restless longing that is contained in this movement, all the more clarifies the secondary theme!--The human heart, frightened and driven back into itself by premonitions of the unspeakable, threatening destruction, appears to be convulsing and expanding in its search for relief; soon, however, a friendly spirit appears to be emerging and brightening the dark, terrible night.  (The lovely  G-Major theme that has been touched by the horn in E-flat-Major, first).--How simple--let this be said, once more--is the theme that the master invented as the basis of the whole, but how wonderful are all secondary and side phrases arranged in their rhythmic relationship so that they only serve to gradually unfold the the character of the Allegro--which the main theme was only hinting at.   All phrases are short, almost all consisting of only two, three bars, and, at that, even distributed in a constant interchange between wind instruments and strings; one should think that, out of such elements, only something fragmented, unintelligible could emerge, but instead, it is this very arrangement of the whole as well as the constant repetition of the phrases and of single chords that intensifies the feeling of unspeakable longing to the highest degree. Irrespective of the fact that the contrapuntal treatment bears witness to a profound study of this art, these secondary or side phrases, these constant allusions to the main theme, demonstrate how our sublime master conceived and thought the whole through in his mind, with all those passionate traits.--Does not the lovely theme of the Andante con moto in A-flat Major sound like the wondrous voice of a spirit that fills our heart with hope and comfort?--However, even here, the terrible spirit that frightened our hearts in the Allegro, steps threateningly out of the storm cloud in which it had vanished, and the friendly spirits that surrounded us, flee from his bolts of lightning.--What shall I say of the Minuet?--Listen to the unique modulations, to the endings in the dominant Major chord--which the bass takes up as tonic of the following theme in minor--the ever-widening self, by a few bars!  Are you not, again, filled with that restless, unspeakable longing, that foreboding of the miraculous realm of spirits in which the master rules?   But what bright sunlight does the wonderful theme of the final movement spread in the jubilant rejoicing of the entire orchestra.--What wonderful contrapuntal weavings are streaming back into the whole.  The entire work may well pass by some like a genial rhapsody, but the mind and heart of every careful listener will certainly be deeply filled with a feeling that is this very unspeakable yearning and longing,  and until the final chord, nay even in the moments following these, he will not be able to emerge from this wonderful realm of spirits, where pain and delight surrounded him, cloaked in sound. --By their inner design, the movements, their execution, instrumentation, the manner in which everything is sequentially arranged, everything is aimed at one goal; however, it is predominantly the close relationship of the themes to each other that create that unity that alone is able to hold the listener under its spell.  Often, this relationship will become clear to the listener when he can recognize it by listening to the various movements or when he discovers the through-bass that is common to two different movements, often, however, a more profound relationship that does not reveal itself in this manner, only speaks to kindred spirits, and it is this very relationship between the two Allegro movements and the Minuet  that pronounces the master's thoughtful geniality in this wonderful manner.

Sublime master, what profound effect have not your wonderful piano compositions had on me; how shallow and unimportant now everything appears to me that does not come from you, from the inventive Mozart and the towering genius of Sebastian Bach.--With what delight did I receive his [Beethoven's] seventieth work, the two wonderful trios, since I knew very well that, after some practice, I would hear them beautifully.  And this is how wonderful I felt tonight, so that I can still not escape from the windings and turns of your trios, like someone who is walking in the mazes of a fantastic park that is adorned with many rare trees, plants and wonderful flowers.    The magic voices of your brilliantly colorful phrases draw me deeper and deeper towards them.--The intelligent lady who was playing the Trio No. 1 so wonderfully to me, Kapellmeister Kreisler, in my honor, and before whose piano I am still sitting and writing,   has really made me realize that only that which the mind brings forth is worthy of being cherished and that everything else is evil. Just now, I have repeated a few surprising turns in both trios at the piano.--It is true, the piano (piano-forte) remains an instrument that is better suited to harmony than to melody.  The finest expression that the instrument is capable of does not give life to melody in its thousands and thousands of nuances that the violinist's bow, the wind instrument, can produce.  In vain, the pianist  wrestles with the resistance created by the mechanism that makes the strings reverberate.  However, there is hardly an instrument (except, perhaps, the more limited harp) that is able to span the realm of harmony like the piano with its full chords and to unfold its treasures to the connoisseur in the most wonderful forms and shapes.  The master's fantasy having been fired up by an entire tone-painting with richly adorned groups, bright lights and deep shadows, he was able to bring it to life at the piano, so that it emerged colorfully and brilliantly from the inner world.   The complete score with all parts, this veritable musical book of magic, that contains in its notes all miracles of the art of music, the mysterious chorus of manifold instruments, comes to life under the hands of the master at the piano, and, if well-performed, can be compared with an excellent etching prepared from a great painting.   Thus, for improvisation, for rendition of music from a score, for sonatas, chords, etc., the piano is extremely well suited,  as much as also trios, quartets, quintets, and so forth, where the usual string instruments provide the accompaniment, belong into the realm of piano compositions already for the reason that, if they truly consist of four or five parts, the harmonic execution is most important, which excludes the emerging of solo instruments, as a matter of course.

I really do not like all actual piano concertos.  (Mozart's and Beethoven's concertos are rather symphonies with obligatory piano than concertos.) Here, the virtuosity of the pianist is supposed to be showcased in particular passages; however, even the best pianist who is playing on the most beautiful instrument will fail to bring forth what the violinist can easily do.

After the tutti of the strings and wind instruments, every solo sounds stiff and dull, and one admires the pianist's manual dexterity without seeing one's emotions addressed.

How well has not the master understood the peculiar nature of this instrument and taken care of it in the most suitable manner!

A simple, yet fertile and cantabile theme, suitable for various contrapuntal turns, abbreviations, etc., is the basis of each movement, all other side themes and figures are closely related to the main thought, so that everything is arranged to the highest unity of all instruments.  Thus presents itself the structure of the whole; however, in the artistic construction, the most wonderful images pass by in restless flight, in which joy and pain, melancholy and bliss emerge next to each other and intertwined. Wondrous creatures begin an airy dance while flowing towards the light, moving away from each other, glowing here and glittering thee and chasing each other in manifold groups; and in the midst of this unlocked realm of the spirits,  the delighted soul is listening to the unknown language and understaning the most secret longings which have taken hold of it.

Only that composer truly penetrates into the secrets of harmony who is able to have an effect on human emotions through them; to him, relationships of numbers, which, to the Grammarian, must remain dead and stiff mathematical examples without genius, are magic potions from which he lets a miraculous world emerge.

Regardless of the cozy feeling that is prevalent in the first trio, even the plaintive largo not excepted, Beethoven's genius remains serious and solemn.  It is as if the master meant that, in mysterious matters, even if the mind is very familiar with them and feels joyfully elevated by them, one can not speak in a common, but only in a serious, solemn manner; the dance of the priests of Isis can only be a hymn of praise.

Instrumental music, wherever it wants to only work through itself and not perhaps for a certain dramatic purpose, has to avoid all unimportant punning, all dallying.    It seeks out the deep mind for premonitions of joy that, more beautiful and wonderful than those of this limited world, have come to us from an unknown country, and spark an inner, wonderful flame in our chests, a higher expression than mere words--that are only of this earth--can spark.  This seriousness of Beethoven's instrumental and piano music alone already forbids the break-neck-jumps, the dainty Cappricios, those fancy five-and six-level virtuoso structures which fill newer piano compositions. - When it comes to mere dexterity, the piano compositions of the master do not offer any special difficulties, since the few virtuosic figures can be handled by any skilled pianist; and yet, their performance is justifiably difficult.  Many a so-called piano virtuoso discards the master's piano composition while calling it 'very difficult!' and 'very unrewarding!'--As far as the difficulty is concerned,  a good and relaxed performance of Beethoven's piano works  consists of no less than understanding him, penetrating his nature deeply, so that one can boldly dare, relying on one's own preparedness, to enter the realm of his magical creations that his works conjure up.  Who does not feel this calling in himself, who considers this sacred music only as a game, as a means of whiling away idle hours, as a momentary stimulation of dull ears or as a means of one's own proliferation, should stay away from it.   Only he can rightfully exclaim, "and extremely unrewarding!"  The real artist lives only in that work that he has understood in the manner in which the composer has composed it and that he now performs. He foregoes any reference to himself and all of his striving aims at brilliantly bringing to life with a thousand colors all those wonderful, sublime images and appearances that the master locked up in his work with magical force,  so that they can surround man with their light, sparkling circles and ignite his fantasy, his innermost and carry him in hasty flight into the realm of sound.

(Source: Musikalische Novellen und Aufsätze von E.T.A. Hoffmann
[Insel-Bücherei, Leipzig])
(Translation copyright: Ingrid Schwaegermann, 2001)

Quote from: Gurnatron5500 on May 08, 2011, 09:56:07 AM
Yes, and all told he was a Classicist. You can say it, Jo... :D   

Composers here have to be judged on their music, not their biography/personality. His music is classicizing way more than romanticizing. In addition, though he can be said to have been a heavy influence on Romantic composers, that doesn't make him a Romantic himself.

We have been down this road a dozen times or so (and I first went down it 9 years ago when Chaszz started this same thread at a Beethoven web site), and my opinion then has only been strongly reinforced by the reading and listening I have done in the last 9 years.

The guy I'm listening to right now was at the beginning of Romanticism. :)

8)

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Now playing:
Colin Lawson (Clarinet / Neal da Costa (Pianoforte) - Weber Op 48 Grand Duo Concertante in Eb for Clarinet & Pianoforte 1st mvmt - Allegro con fuoco

What a memory this Gurn has. You cannot put anything over on him.

I would say that Beethoven was expressing the feelings and attitudes of the Romantic age in the vocabulary and technique of the classical style. His ethos would certainly be judged closer to the full-fledged Romanticism of Shelley, Byron and Coleridge than to the 18th C. poets who they overthrew, led by the classicist Pope. So he was stretching the Classical style in music but to express that ethos, and probably expressed it as powerfully as Wagner, Berlioz, and Lizst. If the Romantic movement in music had not come along (so that we can see the purely musical differences), Beethoven would be it.

Quote from: Chaszz on May 08, 2011, 10:56:25 AM
I would say that Beethoven was expressing the feelings and attitudes of the Romantic age in the vocabulary and technique of the classical style.

Well said, my sentiments exactly.

Quote from: Gurnatron5500 on May 08, 2011, 09:56:07 AM
Yes, and all told he was a Classicist. You can say it, Jo... :D

No I can't!  ;D And I wasn't satisfied nine years ago either. :)

Quote from: starrynight on May 08, 2011, 10:09:56 AM
Classical simplicity and perfection beyond Mozart?  Not sure I can agree on that.  :D...

I said "...in his melodies." That is, in only one aspect of his music. :)

Quote from: Il Conte Rodolfo on May 08, 2011, 10:30:12 AM
Yes, but I'm not sure that by "Romantic' he meant what we mean...

That quote sure sounds Romantic to me. :)

But that may be a valid point, Conte.  We may all mean different things by "Romantic." :-\

Quote from: Il Conte Rodolfo on May 08, 2011, 10:30:12 AM
Yes, but I'm not sure that by "Romantic' he meant what we mean.

There is no doubt that ETA Hoffmann did not mean what we mean by 'Romantic'. In the context that we use these two words, 'Classical' and 'Romantic' hadn't been invented yet when Hoffmann wrote that (1812? A bit earlier? Somewhere around there anyway). As with all labels, they don't exist except ex post facto. :)

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Now playing:
Rundfunkorkester Kaiserlautern des SWR \ Moesus  Kronenberg (Piano) - Wölfl Op 49 Concerto #6 in D for Piano 1st mvmt - Allegro

Quote from: jochanaan on May 08, 2011, 03:35:24 PM
That quote sure sounds Romantic to me. :)

The quote itself, yes. But the "romanticism" that he writes about is not "our" Romanticism.

Actually, do you know a harsher and more definitive indictment of the "Romantic music" as we know it than this paragraph?

Quote from: E.T.A. Hoffmann
Did you poor composers of instrumental music who have labored to express certain feelings, nay, even occurrences, have even the faintest idea of its peculiar nature?--How could you even think of trying to treat this art that is the very opposite of plastic depiction, in a plastic manner? Your sunrises, your thunderstorms, your battles of three emperors and so on were certainly ridiculous errors and are deservedly punished by being entirely forgotten.

(all underlines are mine)

In four lines he dismisses avant la lettre all the symphonic output of Berlioz and Liszt who for we are the arch-Romantic composers.  ;D

Quote from: Florestan on May 08, 2011, 10:30:12 AM
Yes, but I'm not sure that by "Romantic' he meant what we mean.

Many thanks to Florestan for the excerpt from Hoffmann!

Yes, Hoffmann's definition is different, but yet still connects to what many people would consider "Romantic" notions: the artist as hero, for example:

Quote from E.T. A. Hoffmann (above):

"Romantic taste is rare, and even more rare is the romantic talent; this is probably why there are so few who can play the lyre whose sound opens up the wonderful realm of romanticism. ...
 
Mozart evokes the super-human, the wonderful that dwells in the innermost of spirit. Beethoven's music moves the levers of fear, of shudder, of horror, of pain and thus awakens that infinite longing that is the essence of romanticism. Therefore, he is a purely romantic composer, and may it not be because of it, that to him, vocal music that does not allow for the character of infinite longing,--but, through words, achieves certain affects, as they are not present in the realm of the infinite--, is harder?

Beethoven's mighty genius crushes the musical riff-raff; in turn, it wants to revolt against it, but in vain.--However, the wise judges, looking around in a dignified manner, reassure us that we can believe them, as men of great intellect, that the good B. is, not in the least, lacking a rich, lively fantasy, but that he is not able to constrain it!  To him, there would not even arise the concept of selection and formation of musical thought,  but rather, following the so-called genius method, he would write everything down as it would occur to his fiery fantasy.  What if your limited grasp would not recognize the deeper connection in every composition of Beethoven?  What if it is only you who can not understand the master's language that only the initiated can understand, that the door to the innermost sanctum remains closed to you? "

Wow!  Where are critics like Hoffmann today?!   0:)

Hoffmann's "infinite longing" which he finds in Beethoven trumps any tone-poem, apparently because the tone-poem, the programmatic symphony, is too rooted in the finite.  Here we have the Heroic Artist, opening doors to an Infinity of Longing (and what is that precisely?) for us uninitiated, as opposed to the "Aesthetic Measurement Artists."

What a great insult! "You sir, are a mere artist of aesthetic measurement!"  8)

Hah!

Quote from: Chaszz on May 08, 2011, 10:56:25 AM
What a memory this Gurn has. You cannot put anything over on him.

I would say that Beethoven was expressing the feelings and attitudes of the Romantic age in the vocabulary and technique of the classical style. His ethos would certainly be judged closer to the full-fledged Romanticism of Shelley, Byron and Coleridge than to the 18th C. poets who they overthrew, led by the classicist Pope. So he was stretching the Classical style in music but to express that ethos, and probably expressed it as powerfully as Wagner, Berlioz, and Lizst. If the Romantic movement in music had not come along (so that we can see the purely musical differences), Beethoven would be it.

HIP, goes in my archive: http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,18240.msg501131.html#msg501131

Henk

Has the fun ended, then? ; )

I voted for classical because his music is quite restrained.

Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on May 09, 2011, 07:12:12 AM
Has the fun ended, then? ; )

Hi Karl,

I feel sorry for having made the impression I want to force things, I mentioned you as a magnanimous man (you are!) who should provide more. I regret that, I didn't mean it in a bad way, I found it rather funny to express.

People can continue having fun, I just try to contribute in a way I think is fruitful and focus a little bit more on the educational potential of these boards.

Henk

   I had a musicology professor in grad  school who dogmatically insisted that Beethoven was
   strictly classical.  Maybe.  Yes, Beethoven does use classical forms, but so did composers of the Romantic period.
    But his use of these forms is often radically innovative,such as the string quartet no 14 in C# minor and other works.
   Let's say that Beethoven is definitely a transitional composer who anticipated many later 19th century  ones,and certain had a profound influence on them..

Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on May 09, 2011, 07:12:12 AM
Has the fun ended, then? ; )

I hope not!   ;D

Let's pose a question based on Hoffmann's excerpt provided by Florestan: e.g.

"The master's fantasy having been fired up by an entire tone-painting with richly adorned groups, bright lights and deep shadows, he was able to bring it to life at the piano, so that it emerged colorfully and brilliantly from the inner world.   The complete score with all parts, this veritable musical book of magic, that contains in its notes all miracles of the art of music, the mysterious chorus of manifold instruments, comes to life under the hands of the master at the piano, and, if well-performed, can be compared with an excellent etching prepared from a great painting."

(My emphasis)

Should Beethoven be considered (more) Romantic rather than (instead of) Classical, not because of any consideration of musical form, but because of the idea of the Artist as Demiurge, the Artist as Hero, the Artist as Prometheus, which role he fits quite nicely?

Further: Could Beethoven still have sounded like Beethoven if he avoided his "fantasia" style, and adhered much more closely to standard 18th century practice?

Or, even worse: Does Beethoven create his sound by not breaking completely with the previous tradition?   :o

Quote from: Cato on May 09, 2011, 06:51:50 AM
Many thanks to Florestan for the excerpt from Hoffmann!

You're welcome. It's taken from this excellent site: http://www.raptusassociation.org/ (http://www.raptusassociation.org/).

Quote from: Cato on May 09, 2011, 09:15:36 AMShould Beethoven be considered (more) Romantic rather than (instead of) Classical, not because of any consideration of musical form, but because of the idea of the Artist as Demiurge, the Artist as Hero, the Artist as Prometheus, which role he fits quite nicely?

Yes. No music as self-absorbed as Beethoven's deserves to be called Classical. Three cheers for equanimity!

Quote from: chasmaniac on May 09, 2011, 09:38:30 AM
Yes. No music as self-absorbed as Beethoven's deserves to be called Classical. Three cheers for equanimity!

See, in all the music I've heard of his. I've never felt that he was self-absorbed or indulgent. I always sort of assumed that his talk and his walk were different.

Quote from: Philoctetes on May 09, 2011, 09:51:00 AM
See, in all the music I've heard of his. I've never felt that he was self-absorbed or indulgent. I always sort of assumed that his talk and his walk were different.

Fair point. We might be approaching Ludie's music with quite different expectations, preoccupations. I don't dislike everything I hear that gets called Romantic (that would be silly), but the idea of the Artist as the tragically self aware yet misunderstood trailblazing hero of his own biography is detestable to me. And aside from his earliest Haydnesque pieces, I hear this narrative playing out all over Beethoven's work. IMO, the creation is more important than the creator.

Quote from: Cato on May 09, 2011, 09:15:36 AM

Further: Could Beethoven still have sounded like Beethoven if he avoided his "fantasia" style, and adhered much more closely to standard 18th century practice?

C.P.E. Bach wrote orders of magnitude more 'fantasias' than Beethoven did (called so or otherwise) and yet he is considered an archetypal 'Classical' composer. FWIW.

For all:
It is now, was and always will be my opinion that there is no division between 'classical' and 'romantic', and there fore any attempt to categorize Beethoven (or any other composer) into one side or the other is doomed to failure. The best you can say is that a composer tends more towards the attributes in his music that we now call classical, or he tends more towards what we call romantic. And that's it.

We are talking about essentially tonal, homophonic music. Usually with what we call retrospectively "sonata-allegro" form in the first movement. Not always though, and maybe in all or none. And maybe with a little polyphony thrown in to sound cool. Any definition that attempts to separate these 2 stylistic extremes into 2 discrete groups instead of a 'more or less' blend of the two extremes is inherently wrong and doomed to fail. And until you come up with definitions that withstand this test any placing of Beethoven in a box like a museum piece is merely a laughable joke and self-indulgent mental masturbation.

8)

Quote from: chasmaniac on May 09, 2011, 10:00:24 AM
Fair point. We might be approaching Ludie's music with quite different expectations, preoccupations. I don't dislike everything I hear that gets called Romantic (that would be silly), but the idea of the Artist as the tragically self aware yet misunderstood trailblazing hero of his own biography is detestable to me. And aside from his earliest Haydnesque pieces, I hear this narrative playing out all over Beethoven's work. IMO, the creation is more important than the creator.

I support your sentiment. I'm not a huge fan of Romanticism's idea of genius, or the artist. I just don't see any of that in Beethoven, but as you said, we're probably listening with different ears. Even in his late works, I still hear the form over the content.

Or is the question: Beethoven — Mendelssohnian or Lisztian? ; )

Quote from: Cato on May 09, 2011, 09:15:36 AM
Should Beethoven be considered (more) Romantic rather than (instead of) Classical, not because of any consideration of musical form, but because of the idea of the Artist as Demiurge, the Artist as Hero, the Artist as Prometheus, which role he fits quite nicely?

Further: Could Beethoven still have sounded like Beethoven if he avoided his "fantasia" style, and adhered much more closely to standard 18th century practice?

Or, even worse: Does Beethoven create his sound by not breaking completely with the previous tradition?   :o

The Romantics wanted to make Beethoven their own.  But Beethoven himself studied all through his life the works of previous composers like Mozart and JS Bach and always spoke warmly of them and indicated he was happy to be talked about being in their company.

As the imposing of his personality on music that some have talked about.....Beethoven was probably trying to move away from that, certainly by the end of his life.  And his outlook on music was often similar to earlier baroque or classical style composers in that he saw his music as representing not simply himself but some eternal values (for example religious ones or the representation of humanity itself as in the 9th symphony).

Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on May 09, 2011, 10:13:39 AM
Or is the question: Beethoven — Mendelssohnian or Lisztian? ; )

Wheels within wheels! Do you mean Songs-Without-Words-Mendessohnian or String-Quartet-#6-in-Fm-Mendelssohnian?

I think of Mendelssohn as more like Mozart, maybe Schumann is more like Beethoven.

Quote from: Gurnatron5500 on May 09, 2011, 10:02:20 AM
C.P.E. Bach wrote orders of magnitude more 'fantasias' than Beethoven did (called so or otherwise) and yet he is considered an archetypal 'Classical' composer. FWIW.

For all:
It is now, was and always will be my opinion that there is no division between 'classical' and 'romantic', and there fore any attempt to categorize Beethoven (or any other composer) into one side or the other is doomed to failure. The best you can say is that a composer tends more towards the attributes in his music that we now call classical, or he tends more towards what we call romantic. And that's it.

We are talking about essentially tonal, homophonic music. Usually with what we call retrospectively "sonata-allegro" form in the first movement. Not always though, and maybe in all or none. And maybe with a little polyphony thrown in to sound cool. Any definition that attempts to separate these 2 stylistic extremes into 2 discrete groups instead of a 'more or less' blend of the two extremes is inherently wrong and doomed to fail. And until you come up with definitions that withstand this test any placing of Beethoven in a box like a museum piece is merely a laughable joke and self-indulgent mental masturbation.

8)

And yet a contemporary critic, whom I mentioned earlier, Augustus Wendt found fault with that: would he also have considered C.P.E. Bach a deleterious influence because of the "fantasia" style?

Quote from earlier:

"Contemporary critics of the early 19th century wrote some fascinating reviews about Beethoven's works.  Augustus Wendt complained that the sonatas and symphonies were formless, "marred" by use of the fantasia style.  In contrast, Haydn's works subordinated Fantasy to Reason, and they were intertwined in Mozart's works.  Reason, in Beethoven's works, was replaced with the willful personality of the composer, whose works therefore lacked unity."

Certainly the invention of the Artist as Hero, rather than an employee of the Church or of an aristocrat, is more of a rediscovery and reification of tendencies present in artists and manifested even in ancient myths like Orpheus and Prometheus.  In some cases it is still alive: one thinks of Chinese artists sitting in prison right now, or earlier of Solzhenitsyn in Siberia.

The Middle Ages stand in stark contrast: the artist was a tool of the Divine, and subordinated his ego to his God-given talent.  The result is that a good number of medieval artworks were created by the ubiquitous Anonymous.   0:)

Quote from: Cato on May 09, 2011, 10:53:40 AM
And yet a contemporary critic, whom I mentioned earlier, Augustus Wendt found fault with that: would he also have considered C.P.E. Bach a deleterious influence because of the "fantasia" style?

Rhetorical question, no doubt. :)

QuoteQuote from earlier:

"Contemporary critics of the early 19th century wrote some fascinating reviews about Beethoven's works.  Augustus Wendt complained that the sonatas and symphonies were formless, "marred" by use of the fantasia style.  In contrast, Haydn's works subordinated Fantasy to Reason, and they were intertwined in Mozart's works.  Reason, in Beethoven's works, was replaced with the willful personality of the composer, whose works therefore lacked unity."

This is in large part due to a certain (willful?) ignorance on the part of the reviewer. Modern analysts find it elementary to parse the form of Beethoven's works. Even a fantasia has a form, after all, it isn't just aimless doodling on the keyboard, so to speak. Since we don't have any idea what personal baggage Wendt carried around with him (if any), we can't necessarily take his opinion as gospel, especially when his results are refuted by even the rankest novitiate musicologist of today. :)

QuoteCertainly the invention of the Artist as Hero, rather than an employee of the Church or of an aristocrat, is more of a rediscovery and reification of tendencies present in artists and manifested even in ancient myths like Orpheus and Prometheus.  In some cases it is still alive: one thinks of Chinese artists sitting in prison right now, or earlier of Solzhenitsyn in Siberia.

The Middle Ages stand in stark contrast: the artist was a tool of the Divine, and subordinated his ego to his God-given talent.  The result is that a good number of medieval artworks were created by the ubiquitous Anonymous.   0:)

Yes. I think it would merit some reflection on all of our parts that Romanticism was a literary movement, not a musical one. At a strictly personal level, Beethoven (by all appearances) was a Romantic in many ways (although conservative in many others).

To all again;
Those of you who have said (and presumably will keep saying?) that Beethoven was a Romantic (arguable) and therefore his music was Romantic despite its Classical structure are simply wrong. Plus you aren't entitled to declare for one or the other without definitions. Gut feelings are worth a bucket of warm spit.    0:)

8)

The Bridgemeister. We have everything up till his late period that spells classicist but with that op.131 thing a new epoch has dawned.   

Quote from: Dancing Divertimentian on May 09, 2011, 04:14:37 PM
The Bridgemeister. We have everything up till his late period that spells classicist but with that op.131 thing a new epoch has dawned.

While I agree with you that Op 131 marks a turning point in Beethoven's oeuvre, I am justifiably curious in what way that this and future works are thus "Romantic". And what is "Romantic"? And what about Op 135 then?  :)

8)

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Now playing:
The Hanover Band / Goodman - Hob 01 077 Symphony in Bb 4th mvmt - Finale: Allegro spiritoso

Quote from: starrynight on May 09, 2011, 10:36:28 AM
The Romantics wanted to make Beethoven their own.  But Beethoven himself studied all through his life the works of previous composers like Mozart and JS Bach

Well, he was not really in a position to study the composers who came after him, was he?

Beethoven started Classical but ended Romantic. Unlike his predecessors, he would not submit his music to elegant order, but instead desired to stir or even shock the listener, and to express his passions without restraint, and was not afraid to do things considered chaotic or ugly to achieve this. The character of Classical music is submission; the character of Beethoven is individualistic rebellion.

The matter of his continued reference to Classical forms is meaningless, unless you also want to argue that we are still in the Classical era, two centuries after his death.

I am BEETHOVEN!

Quote from: Gurnatron5500 on May 09, 2011, 04:29:29 PM
While I agree with you that Op 131 marks a turning point in Beethoven's oeuvre, I am justifiably curious in what way that this and future works are thus "Romantic". And what is "Romantic"? And what about Op 135 then?  :)

Uh, oh... ;D

Well, in view of the op.135's conciseness - it's the shortest of the last quartets by a significant margin - I'd say the piece is more an homage to its forbearers than anything. Nothing wrong with a throwback piece or two in Beethoven's oeuvre any more than there's a problem with his tendency for the ol' switch-a-roonie all throughout his composing career. Bouncing between styles seems to be a signature of B's (the fifth and sixth symphonies the obvious example) so I see the op.135 as little more than a naturally occurring piece of the B composing puzzle. The man was nothing if not an enigma. ;D

As far as the op.131, it's puzzling to me how anybody could view the work as anything BUT romantic. Echt-romantic, to be more precise. I would say the language of the work speaks for itself: the looseness, the crooning, the fixation on the obtuse, etc... Heck, the work actually reminds me of Berlioz for God's sake! But the power of Beethoven's resolve to reel in the meandering tendencies of the work to give it such a fine overall sense of architecture is nothing short of amazing. But, again, those are the hallmarks of the romantic Berlioz himself!!

But not just Berlioz. Sibelius, Wagner, the other Bridgemeister Schubert, and any number of romantics. In fact, I can thoroughly see that ultra-form-breaker Schumann taking as his point of departure the op.131.

Anyway, I don't have a lot of time but that's what I think of when I think of (late) Beethoven the romantic. Laying the foundation for those to follow. Quite a nice foundation I'd say! ;D 


EDIT: oops, that should have been Schumann taking his cue from op.131.

Quote from: eyeresist on May 09, 2011, 04:45:25 PM
Beethoven started Classical but ended Romantic. Unlike his predecessors, he would not submit his music to elegant order, but instead desired to stir or even shock the listener

And previous composers like Haydn didn't want to surprise people?

Quote from: eyeresist on May 09, 2011, 04:45:25 PM
, and to express his passions without restraint, and was not afraid to do things considered chaotic or ugly to achieve this.

But Beethoven liked restraint and order as well.  Not sure he would agree to his music being quite as you say.

Quote from: eyeresist on May 09, 2011, 04:45:25 PM
The character of Classical music is submission; the character of Beethoven is individualistic rebellion.

That seems a bit simple / stereotypical.

Quote from: Dancing Divertimentian on May 09, 2011, 05:48:29 PM
As far as the op.131, it's puzzling to me how anybody could view the work as anything BUT romantic. Echt-romantic, to be more precise. I would say the language of the work speaks for itself: the looseness, the crooning, the fixation on the obtuse, etc... Heck, the work actually reminds me of Berlioz for God's sake! But the power of Beethoven's resolve to reel in the meandering tendencies of the work to give it such a fine overall sense of architecture is nothing short of amazing. But, again, those are the hallmarks of the romantic Berlioz himself!!

Divertimentos are quite meandering and diverting too, that is what op130 is sometimes compared to in some ways.  And the opening fugue of op131 and the set of variations are paricularly Romantic in what way?  Op 127 with it's Haydnesque high spirits in the last two movements.  Somebody even suggested the influence of Mozart's A major Haydn quartet in op132....

www.aproposmozart.com/Lodes%20--%20Beethoven%20&%20Mozart%20rev.pdf

This article is also very good on how Beethoven related to the earlier composers.

Quote from: Dancing Divertimentian on May 09, 2011, 05:48:29 PM
Anyway, I don't have a lot of time but that's what I think of when I think of (late) Beethoven the romantic. Laying the foundation for those to follow. Quite a nice foundation I'd say! ;D

I don't remember the great string quartets of Berlioz, Lizst, Chopin, Wagner...

That last quote wasn't by me!

Of course Beethoven has Classical aspects. But at his most vital, and in the works for which he is most renowned, he stretches musical bounds in an overtly individualistic expressiveness that was almost unprecedented - a way we call Romantic.

This webpage has some nifty quotes (some self-contradictory) from B on composition:
http://www.public-domain-content.com/books/beethoven/6.shtml

Quote36. "Yes, yes, then they are amazed and put their heads together
because they never found it in any book on thorough bass."

(To Ries when the critics accused him of making grammatical
blunders in music.)

37. "No devil can compel me to write only cadences of such a kind."

(From notes written in his years of study. Beethoven called the
composition of fugues "the art of making musical skeletons.")
...
42. "Many assert that every minor piece must end in the minor.
Nego! On the contrary I find that in the soft scales the major
third at the close has a glorious and uncommonly quieting effect.
Joy follows sorrow, sunshine--rain. It affects me as if I were
looking up to the silvery glistering of the evening star."

(From Archduke Rudolph's book of instruction.)

43. "Rigorists, and devotees of antiquity, relegate the perfect
fourth to the list of dissonances. Tastes differ. To my ear it
gives not the least offence combined with other tones."

(From Archduke Rudolph's book of instruction, compiled in 1809.)
...
46. "In order to become a capable composer one must have already
learned harmony and counterpoint at the age of from seven to
eleven years, so that when the fancy and emotions awake one
shall know what to do according to the rules."

(Reported by Schindler as having been put into the mouth of
Beethoven by a newspaper of Vienna. Schindler says: "When
Beethoven came to Vienna he knew no counterpoint, and little
harmony.")
...

55. "On the whole, the carrying out of several voices in strict
relationship mutually hinders their progress."

(Fall of 1812, in the Diary of 1812-18.)
...
61. "Were it not that my income brings in nothing, I should
compose nothing but grand symphonies, church music, or, at the
outside, quartets in addition."

(December 20, 1822, to Peters, publisher, in Leipzig. His income
had been reduced from 4,000 to 800 florins by the depreciation of
Austrian currency.)

Quote from: starrynight on May 10, 2011, 12:40:41 AM
Divertimentos are quite meandering and diverting too, that is what op130 is sometimes compared to in some ways.  And the opening fugue of op131 and the set of variations are paricularly Romantic in what way?  Op 127 with it's Haydnesque high spirits in the last two movements.  Somebody even suggested the influence of Mozart's A major Haydn quartet in op132....

Sorry, but I don't see the point in any of this. There's still an advanced language in late Beethoven despite the outward appearances. Later generations can easily look through the facade to take cues from various points in the music.

Quotewww.aproposmozart.com/Lodes%20--%20Beethoven%20&%20Mozart%20rev.pdf

This article is also very good on how Beethoven related to the earlier composers.

All that indicates is that Beethoven was influenced by earlier composers! So now we know that influence exists! ;D

QuoteI don't remember the great string quartets of Berlioz, Lizst, Chopin, Wagner...

Sheesh, lay off the red herrings and strawmen already. ::) Influence can be used in a variety of ways. There's no law that says someone has to write a string quartet just because they've been influenced by a string quartet!!! Any more than future generations (modernists) restricted themselves to writing orchestral works ONLY after Debussy's massively influential Faun debuted!

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". 

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.

First para doesnt make any sense.

Beethoven's opinion of himself as a classicist - any sources on this? Irrelevant anyway, as of course he could not have larger historical perspective. Wagner certainly thought Beethoven was Romantic.

Quote from: eyeresist on May 12, 2011, 02:44:21 AM
First para doesnt make any sense.

Beethoven's opinion of himself as a classicist - any sources on this? Irrelevant anyway, as of course he could not have larger historical perspective. Wagner certainly thought Beethoven was Romantic.

Well, since, as I said earlier, there didn't then exist "Classicist" or "Romantic", he can scarcely have said "Hey wait, I'm not a freakin' Romantic!   >:( " now can he?   However, there is plentiful documentation that he felt himself to be an extension of his predecessors and that his contemporaries were less so. I think the inference that he felt he was a Classicist is logical from that.

Wagner (and his contemporaries) did not base their opinion of Beethoven's Romantic classification simply on his music. It was based on his personality. I personally discount that altogether. Being a Romantic personally and composing "Romantic" music are two different things. :)

BTW, no one yet has defined what the hell you are talking about when you say "he was a Romantic composer" or "he was a Classical composer". Can it be that since no one has risen to the challenge that in fact there IS no difference?  'Cause ya know, everyone here is all full of intellectual rigor when we're talking about the Kennedy assassination or the 9/11 conspiracy (George W. done it!), and yet now we've come to al alleged dichotomy in the very subject we are here for, and no one seems able to delineate it.   ::)

8)

Who really cares, anyway?  ;D

Quote from: Florestan on May 12, 2011, 05:41:54 AM
Who really cares, anyway?  ;D

You do. Smartass. :D

8)

Quote from: Gurnatron5500 on May 12, 2011, 05:59:52 AM
You do. Smartass. :D

Ummm... no, I don't. I just keep visiting the thread because it's informative and enjoyable. But about whether Beethoven was Classical or Romantic I couldn't care less.  :D

Quote from: Florestan on May 12, 2011, 06:09:54 AM
Ummm... no, I don't. I just keep visiting the thread because it's informative and enjoyable. But about whether Beethoven was Classical or Romantic I couldn't care less.  :D

Oh, no, well neither do I. It was the bigger picture that I was trying to shift the focus to. That I do care about. :)

8)

Quote from: Leon on May 12, 2011, 06:15:43 AM
For me, and this is vastly simplfied the Classical period celebrated restraint and the espression of emotions through accepted formal practices whereas the Romantic era celebrated freedom, rebellion even, or the release from the "chains" of the Classical restraint.

Then the iconic Romantic is Arnold Schoenberg (as quoted in haydnfan's signature):

"I strive for complete liberation from all forms, from all symbols of cohesion and of logic."

:)

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. :)

Quote from: Leon on May 12, 2011, 06:27:59 AM
And yet he created a very structured and rule-bound system of composition.

A Romantic contradiction, you know...  :)

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. :)

8)

Quote from: Leon on May 12, 2011, 06:27:59 AM
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. :)

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

Quote from: ¡DavidW! on May 12, 2011, 06:37:30 AM
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... ;)

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Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on May 12, 2011, 06:44:25 AM
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. :)

Quote from: Gurnatron5500 on May 12, 2011, 06:46:29 AM
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... ;)

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

Quote from: Leon on May 12, 2011, 06:53:22 AM
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.... :)

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Quote from: Gurnatron5500 on May 12, 2011, 07:08:01 AM
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! :D  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.

Quote from: ¡DavidW! on May 12, 2011, 07:10:53 AM
If you lift sonata form, you would have a definition that included baroque, classical and romantic eras! :D  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. :)

Quote from: Leon on May 12, 2011, 07:14:59 AM
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.  :)

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Quote from: Leon on May 12, 2011, 06:53:22 AM
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.

Quote from: Leon on May 12, 2011, 08:03:36 AM
[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.

Quote from: starrynight on May 12, 2011, 12:00:41 AM
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.

QuoteHis 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.

Quote from: Leon on May 12, 2011, 08:30:53 AM
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!

Quote from: Gurnatron5500 on May 12, 2011, 07:38:50 AM
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. ;D   

   

Quote from: Leon on May 12, 2011, 09:39:13 AM
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.

Quote from: Leon on May 12, 2011, 09:30:22 AM
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. :)

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Quote from: Leon on May 12, 2011, 10:25:26 AM
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.  :)

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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. :D

Quotefrom: 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. :D

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Quote from: Gurnatron5500 on May 12, 2011, 10:12:19 AM
...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? :D

Quote from: jochanaan on May 12, 2011, 12:24:58 PM
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? :D

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);

(http://i202.photobucket.com/albums/aa159/Gurn_Blanston/ClassicoRomantic-1.jpg)

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

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Whoa, Gurn — whaddya mean, it's not a flat either/or ?!

I think it is worth noting that the French Revolution actually occured in the period music historians call the classical period and The Enlightenment was actually centered on the 18th century (including the baroque period as well).  For example one book, which I haven't read, is called Evening in the Palace of Reason: Bach Meets Frederick the Great in the Age of Enlightenment .  The 18th century was certainly a period of change throughout parts of Europe that still had absolute monarchy (unlike Britain which had already experienced change in the previous century).

The first superstar composers existed well before the romantic period.  Handel was a freelance composer for example.  Haydn managed to break away from Esterhazy and made a big name for himself being respected internationally. Composers were already seen as major figures and not just craftsmen.  Mozart was famous first of all as a prodigy and then later as a great composer.  Great composers of the baroque and classical period could have the respect of the most powerful people in the land.  The ability to become freelance also gave them independance to write more what they wanted rather than what one individual might want them to write.  Mozart's Marriage of Figaro was quite controversial for example.  Composers obviously didn't have to be subservient.

As for expression in music all composers can write very moving personal works, this is not limited to the romantic period.  JS Bach's Chaconne for example.  And with number of movements there were experiments from composers before Beethoven.  JH Knecht's Portrait of Nature from 1784 probably gave Beethoven the idea for his own 5 movement symphony.  Of course most composers in any period are relatively conventional and not groundbreaking, but that doesn't mean you can't have more original ideas from others as well. 

To understand a composer's music I think it is best to look at them in their time rather than to take an unhistorical view by looking back in hindsight.  The latter can mean imposing on them musical ideas that we have no idea whether they would have been happy with or not.  To assume that a composer if they had continued to live would have evolved into some future style is just guesswork.  And to assume that musical development in a particular direction is inevitable is perhaps also an assumption which can be easy to make from a distant perspective but which is unlikely to be helpful.  Then there is always the potential shadow of the snobbery of chronology where we think that things will improve compared to earlier history, this certainly is not always the case with art.

Quote from: Gurnatron5500 on May 12, 2011, 12:51:20 PM
Anyone can take issue with this, of course, but it is a mental picture that works for me. :)

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I know I do... cyan and orange are f-ing ugly, they don't match at all!

Oh wait... that's not what you meant... ;D

Quote from: ¡DavidW! on May 12, 2011, 01:14:15 PM
I know I do... cyan and orange are f-ing ugly, they don't match at all!

Oh wait... that's not what you meant... ;D

No, no, that's what I meant. It is a f***ing ugly mental picture... but it works for me. :D

Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on May 12, 2011, 01:04:33 PM
Whoa, Gurn — whaddya mean, it's not a flat either/or ?!

Who woulda believed it, eh Karl?  No, there are shades of blue/orange in there. :P   :D

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Quote from: starrynight on May 12, 2011, 01:13:17 PM
I think it is worth noting that the French Revolution actually occured in the period music historians call the classical period and The Enlightenment was actually centered on the 18th century (including the baroque period as well).  For example one book, which I haven't read, is called Evening in the Palace of Reason: Bach Meets Frederick the Great in the Age of Enlightenment .  The 18th century was certainly a period of change throughout parts of Europe that still had absolute monarchy (unlike Britain which had already experienced change in the previous century).

The first superstar composers existed well before the romantic period.  Handel was a freelance composer for example.  Haydn managed to break away from Esterhazy and made a big name for himself being respected internationally. Composers were already seen as major figures and not just craftsmen.  Mozart was famous first of all as a prodigy and then later as a great composer.  Great composers of the baroque and classical period could have the respect of the most powerful people in the land.  The ability to become freelance also gave them independance to write more what they wanted rather than what one individual might want them to write.  Mozart's Marriage of Figaro was quite controversial for example.  Composers obviously didn't have to be subservient.

As for expression in music all composers can write very moving personal works, this is not limited to the romantic period.  JS Bach's Chaconne for example.  And with number of movements there were experiments from composers before Beethoven.  JH Knecht's Portrait of Nature from 1784 probably gave Beethoven the idea for his own 5 movement symphony.  Of course most composers in any period are relatively conventional and not groundbreaking, but that doesn't mean you can't have more original ideas from others as well. 

To understand a composer's music I think it is best to look at them in their time rather than to take an unhistorical view by looking back in hindsight.  The latter can mean imposing on them musical ideas that we have no idea whether they would have been happy with or not.  To assume that a composer if they had continued to live would have evolved into some future style is just guesswork.  And to assume that musical development in a particular direction is inevitable is perhaps also an assumption which can be easy to make from a distant perspective but which is unlikely to be helpful.  Then there is always the potential shadow of the snobbery of chronology where we think that things will improve compared to earlier history, this certainly is not always the case with art.

Back for more later. Interesting post. :)

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Quote from: Gurnatron5500 on May 12, 2011, 12:51:20 PM
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);

(http://i202.photobucket.com/albums/aa159/Gurn_Blanston/ClassicoRomantic-1.jpg)

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

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Quote from: Gurnatron5500 on May 09, 2011, 11:08:58 AM
To all again;
Those of you who have said (and presumably will keep saying?) that Beethoven was a Romantic (arguable) and therefore his music was Romantic despite its Classical structure are simply wrong. Plus you aren't entitled to declare for one or the other without definitions. Gut feelings are worth a bucket of warm spit.    0:)

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Quote from: Walt Whitman, "Song of Myself"Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself, (I am large, I enclose multitudes)

:)

I don't see any contradiction there. ???

Quote from: Leon on May 12, 2011, 01:59:03 PM
I would generally agree with the chart, however, and this is the most important point or put differently, the point I am most interested, you have not given any indication of what you consider Classical and Romantic.

Well, I'm not exactly down with those 2 terms, as you are aware by now. :)   And I believe that all composers in the 'Sonata-Allegro' Era were a blend of the features that we now use to describe and categorize their music. So if I say, for instance, that Mozart is more classicizing, I will be stuck with the implication that he is not Romantic. When in fact, I feel that he is Romantic in a lot of his late work. Mozart was a real experimenter in some sense.

I am not a musical theorist (unlike Poco for example) and so I approach music in historical terms, which is what I can understand. The explanations and definitions that I have read by theorists go on at length about harmonic schemes and complexity and things of that nature (I'm sure you've read them too). But IMO, those only indicate that composers were experimenting and trying some ideas that were not only more daring but more complex, since that is what systems do naturally, with or without people being involved. I don't know what extent theory appeals to you, or if you are even expert at it. But read some analysis of Haydn's Symphony #46 in B major and then come back and tell  me again how Classical composers were restrained and mannered. Or Mozart's K 516 g minor quintet for that matter. I read an interesting story by Donald Tovey about Haydn; he discusses a particular part of one of the symphonies, and points out that at this point here, he seems to be in this key and does what appears to be a standard cadence at that point, all appears 'normal', and then he says 'OK in the midst of all this normality, stop right here and I challenge any musician or theorist to predict what key we will change to now'. The terms you use to define classicism simply don't fit. Neither does 'simple' because a lot of it is incredibly complex.

However, my definition of Classical would include 'simple' but I would instead approach it this way; it is intended to sound simple, no matter how complex the route is to presenting it that way.

Another part of my definition would encompass the fact that the emotions evoked by the music are always the emotions of the listener and not the emotions of the composer.

So here is a first draft of my personal definition of "Classical" music;

Absolute music based on a tonal harmonic system underpinning (and often comprising) a long-line melody. It is based on any of a thousand variants of what we now call sonata form. It is 'classical' because the effect it produces appears to the listener as classically simple. It requires the engagement of the listener as an essential part of its existence, and if successful, it draws in the listener both intellectually and emotionally.

Phew!

Romantic is way harder because you have 2 wholly different creatures to deal with. We'll have a go at that in a little while. First, I'll let y'all throw out all the parts of the classical definition that you don't like. :D

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Now playing:
La Petite Bande / Kuijken - Hob 01 091 Symphony #91 in Eb 2nd mvmt - Andante

Quote from: jochanaan on May 12, 2011, 02:23:51 PM
:)

Well, Jo, I don't know that I can say or do anything at all on this topic without someone thinking that i am contradicting myself.  :)  However, what I am charting here are 2 tendencies of musical expression. And I am further saying that those 2 tendencies are always present in the works of every composer, and they are in balance differently in each one, according to his artistic temperament, shall we say?  And the main effect that defines the Classical style, the appearance of simplicity and the other qualities that I noted in the previous post, are more prevalent in the latter half of the 18th century than they are in the latter half of the 19th century. Still, both qualities are present at all times. It's only a theory, and uniquely mine, so it can't contradict itself. :D

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Now playing:
Quatuor Festetics - Hob 03 57 Quartet in C for Strings Op 54 #2 2nd mvmt - Adagio

Quote from: Gurnatron5500 on May 12, 2011, 04:27:40 AMWell, since, as I said earlier, there didn't then exist "Classicist" or "Romantic", he can scarcely have said "Hey wait, I'm not a freakin' Romantic!   >:( " now can he?   However, there is plentiful documentation that he felt himself to be an extension of his predecessors and that his contemporaries were less so. I think the inference that he felt he was a Classicist is logical from that.

Did Beethoven have Romantic contemporaries? I don't think Romanticism in music really took off until after his death.

BTW, the Wikipedia page 'Beethoven's musical style' has an interesting summary of the debate:

QuoteBeethoven's place as a transitional figure between the neo-classical period in the arts, called the "classical" period in music, and the Romantic period was a conscious intention of the many 19th century writers and composers, who pointed to his work as the radical departure from the past. As a result, a great deal of literature, including writing by ETA Hoffman, Robert Schumann, Richard Wagner and Gustav Mahler, placed his work at the pinnacle of what they were trying to achieve in music.

... Beethoven's life was seen as the model for the "heroic artist", who cast his personal experiences, perceptions and biography into works, which would then be experienced by the audience members who would be transported to the emotional state of the artist, and thus participate in a "sublime" experience. That Beethoven had great difficulties in his life was joined to the sense of struggle and difficulty in his music, and used as the basis for an entire mythology of the role of the artist in society, and the difficulties of artistic creation. A biography by Anton Schindler was in accordance with this sense of Beethoven as Romantic, constantly putting direct emotional symbols into his work, such as saying "Thus Fate Knocks at the Door!" for the opening of the C Minor Symphony, number 5. Beethoven as icon can be seen in the efforts to erect a monument to him, led by Franz Liszt, and in the arguments over whether Johannes Brahms or Richard Wagner better represented the tradition of music that Beethoven was thought to have created.

With the 20th century a reaction against this "cult of the Romantic artist" began to be seen. In a sense it was a continuation of the Romantic cult in a different form: a new generation of artists wanted to claim Beethoven as their own, and place him in the context as the pinnacle figure of musical enlightenment and rationality. The emphasis on harmonic practice led to arguments that Beethoven was not "really" a romantic because of his general rejection of chromaticism in melodies, and his structural practices in preparing modulations. By the 1950s it was common to deny that Beethoven was a Romantic at all.

In the late 20th century, the pendulum began to swing back in the other direction, in some measure because of a revival of interest in Romanticism, and in part because of a change in the status of musical technique. With the falling out of favor of the idea that music was about "progress", the need to see Beethoven in technical terms diminished. The differences between his work and Mozart's became accentuated, in part because of the rise of neo-classical styles of playing or historically informed performance. Beethoven came to many to be seen in relation to contemporaries such as Goethe and Jacques-Louis David - having both neo-classical and Romantic elements to their work.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beethoven's_musical_style#Beethoven_and_Romanticism

ADDITION:

Quote
BEETHOVEN AND ROMANTIC IRONY

By REY M. LONGYEAR

Many of Beethoven's musical devices strike even today's listeners as being arbitrary, eccentric, or capricious, and have aroused bewilderments and misunderstandings too numerous to mention. Attempts at explaining these effects have ranged from citation of Beethoven's deafness as the reason for his works becoming "immer barocker, unzusammenhangender und unverstandlicher" after 1815 to description of his humor, the "Beethovenian jokes which walk on two left feet." Yet his flouting of musical conventions, his contrast of prosaic roughness and poetic beauty, his blunt destruction of sublime moods, and his practical jokes on musicians and audiences can be interpreted within the framework of a literary device which attained its peak during Beethoven's young manhood: romantic irony.
...

[The Musical Quarterly, 1970. Vol. 56, no. 4, pp. 647-664]

http://www.jstor.org/pss/740931

I guess everyone agreed with what I said then.   :D


First this simplicity / complexity argument, how do you define those terms?  Perhaps there is a complexity to all this music but in different kinds of ways.  Complexity isn't maybe just about more notes, perhaps it is just about expressing deeper ideas or feelings or the interaction of them in inventive ways.  And is there that underlying idea out there, though not expressed, that somehow more complex is better?  That doesn't have to be true, it just depends on the overall musicality of a piece.

And icons / myths are not relevant historically perhaps to a composer, they are people using someone from the past for their own later purposes.

Here's the Romantic attitude in a nutshell:

I pay no attention whatever to anybody's praise or blame. I simply follow my own feelings.

Those feelings prompted the composer to write music that elicited reviews like:  "too strongly spiced"; "impenetrable labyrinths"; "bizarre flights of the soul"; "overloaded and overstuffed".

This arch-Romantic's name was... ?

Hee! I guessed Haydn, so I was close...

Quote from: Florestan on May 13, 2011, 01:22:36 AM
Here's the Romantic attitude in a nutshell:

I pay no attention whatever to anybody's praise or blame. I simply follow my own feelings.

But is the attitude always the same as the reality?


And referring to points by others, the emotion felt by the listener in many instances is surely likely to resemble that of the composer, roughly if not precisely.  The classical style can embrace absolute music but there has been programmatic music which directly conveys particular emotions or visualizes something well before the romantics.  It was nothing new, they just used it in more pieces perhaps.  Or perhaps better to say they used it to more extremes.  Whether that is preferable is more a matter of taste than anything.   Even some baroque music like Vivaldi's Four Seasons is programmatic.  Operatic music for example is always following the ebb and flow of specific individual emotions, and that genre is definitely not tied solely to the romantic period.

Quote from: starrynight on May 13, 2011, 02:46:48 AM
But is the attitude always the same as the reality?

Good question.

Quote
And referring to points by others, the emotion felt by the listener in many instances is surely likely to resemble that of the composer, roughly if not precisely.  The classical style can embrace absolute music but there has been programmatic music which directly conveys particular emotions or visualizes something well before the romantics.  It was nothing new, they just used it in more pieces perhaps.  Even some baroque music like Vivaldi's Four Seasons is programmatic.

Yes, of course. Programmatic instrumental music is certainly not a Romantic invention.

Quote
  Operatic music for example is always following the ebb and flow of specific individual emotions, and that genre is definitely not tied solely to the romantic period.

Exactly. The point is worth stressing; in what "Romantic" respect are "L'incoronazione di Poppea", "Orlando furioso", "Rinaldo" or "Don Giovanni" missing?

Quote from: Florestan on May 13, 2011, 01:22:36 AM
Here's the Romantic attitude in a nutshell:

I pay no attention whatever to anybody's praise or blame. I simply follow my own feelings.

Those feelings prompted the composer to write music that elicited reviews like:  "too strongly spiced"; "impenetrable labyrinths"; "bizarre flights of the soul"; "overloaded and overstuffed".

This arch-Romantic's name was... ?

Mozart  :)

8)

Actually, I think that Gurn is considering context perfectly well.

Quote from: Gurnatron5500 on May 12, 2011, 10:12:19 AM
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?   

You didn't ask me, but I can't help answering, though.  :)

Brahms' music (or Mendelssohn's, Dvorak's, even Tchaikovsky's) is more like Brahms' (or Mendelssohn's, Dvorak's, even Tchaikovsky's) than either Haydn's or Liszt's.  ;D

My own theory is that, besides the categories used by historians, "Classical" and "Romantic" are first and foremost psychological traits of the human personality. One can find "Romantic" and "Classical" temperaments and biographies in every art and historical period. Take, for instance, Gesualdo, Caravaggio and Torquato Tasso: Romantics to the core, both personally and artistically, long, long before "Romanticism" was invented.  :D

Quote from: Leon on May 13, 2011, 04:22:43 AM
That's why I wrote "many" ... let's say, 10 of 26 who voted.

You did say many, but your statement appears to be a deliberate consequent to an (ineffectual) objection to Gurn's pointing out that even this "quintessentially Romantic trait" is already alive even in the "pristinely mannered" Classical period.

Quote from: Leon on May 13, 2011, 04:19:04 AM
I would not read too much into that statement because the manner in which Mozart or any composer of that time "follow[ed his] feelings" was very different that how Liszt, or Chopin, or Berlioz, e.g., did.

I keep feeling that context is not being considered by many contributors to this thread.

You're right in this. I think a lot of people don't take context into account much of the time. This is why you can see wild comparisons across 100 years. As though you could do that intelligently. I have found that the only safe and relevant comparisons are those of a composer's work to his own work (earlier or later).

To follow up on my beloved Classical Music definition, I want to toss out this one for music which is chronologically Romantic, but not Romantic in the Lisztian vein.

Absolute music based on a tonal harmonic system underpinning (and often comprising) a long-line melody. It is based on any of a thousand variants of what we now call sonata form. It is 'Romantic' because the effect it produces appears to the listener as both complex and emotional. It requires the engagement of the listener only insofar as to listen well and react to its innate statements.

So, it is a natural evolution of the first, merely changed to reflect the times that it was happening in. 19th century audiences did not have the education or the inclination to listen to music the way 18th century audiences did, so the basic elements of the music were customized for them.

There is an entirely different sort of Romantic music too, contemporaneous with this one. Beethoven didn't have any part in that one either. :)

8)

Quote from: Leon on May 13, 2011, 04:19:04 AM
I would not read too much into that statement because the manner in which Mozart or any composer of that time "follow[ed his] feelings" was very different that how Liszt, or Chopin, or Berlioz, e.g., did.

Oh, I agree. No composer operates in a vacuum and the general mentality of the period he lives in certainly influences him.

What I object to --- not that you specifically proposed such a theory, but it could be read into your posts, and others', and please correct me if I made unwarranted inferences --- is the notion that Romanticism somehow "liberated" music, which until its coming to prominence lingered under the weighty double yoke of rules / forms and patronage system. This is simply not true: (1) granted, the most hardcore Romantics, such as Berlioz and Liszt, rejected the traditional instrumental forms --- but only to replace them with others: their music is not meaningless, formless and cohesionless wandering; they simply replaced the former rules and structures with others; (2) triumphant Romanticism simply replaced the old, aristocratic / ecclesiastical & elitist patronage with the new, bourgeois & democratic one --- although, interestingly enough, the most ardent supporters and patrons of Liszt and Wagner were aristocrats of the highest rank.  :)

OTOH, I do agree with you that, even when they kept the Classical forms, the "Romantics" sound very different than the "Classics": Tchaikovsky and Haydn are galaxies apart, and I challenge our dear Gurn to find one, just one, Haydn symphony which is as heart-on-sleeve as Tchaik's 5th.  ;D

Quote
I keep feeling that context is not being considered by many contributors to this thread.

Well, AFAIC, "Classical" and "Romantic" are heavily context-dependent --- that's exactly what my riddle about Mozart purported to show.  :)

Quote from: Florestan on May 13, 2011, 04:26:55 AM
You didn't ask me, but I can't help answering, though.  :)

Brahms' music (or Mendelssohn's, Dvorak's, even Tchaikovsky's) is more like Brahms' (or Mendelssohn's, Dvorak's, even Tchaikovsky's) than either Haydn's or Liszt's.  ;D

My own theory is that, besides the categories used by historians, "Classical" and "Romantic" are first and foremost psychological traits of the human personality. One can find "Romantic" and "Classical" temperaments and biographies in every art and historical period. Take, for instance, Gesualdo, Caravaggio and Torquato Tasso: Romantics to the core, both personally and artistically, long, long before "Romanticism" was invented.  :D

I wish that was helpful, Florestan. :)

IMO, Romanticism has become a catchall for the various indefinables of 200 years. First and foremost it was a literary movement. That it had traits that reflected actual human feelings and behaviors is inevitable, but if one were writing a spreadsheet and trying to work out a mathematical formula for this, then most of the input so far would come back with an error message about self-referential loops... :-\

8)

Quote from: Florestan on May 13, 2011, 04:51:15 AM
Oh, I agree. No composer operates in a vacuum and the general mentality of the period he lives in certainly influences him.

What I object to --- not that you specifically proposed such a theory, but it could be read into your posts, and others', and please correct me if I made unwarranted inferences --- is the notion that Romanticism somehow "liberated" music, which until its coming to prominence lingered under the weighty double yoke of rules / forms and patronage system. This is simply not true: (1) granted, the most hardcore Romantics, such as Berlioz and Liszt, rejected the traditional instrumental forms --- but only to replace them with others: their music is not meaningless, formless and cohesionless wandering; they simply replaced the former rules and structures with others; (2) triumphant Romanticism simply replaced the old, aristocratic / ecclesiastical & elitist patronage with the new, bourgeois & democratic one --- although, interestingly enough, the most ardent supporters and patrons of Liszt and Wagner were aristocrats of the highest rank.  :)

OTOH, I do agree with you that, even when they kept the Classical forms, the "Romantics" sound very different than the "Classics": Tchaikovsky and Haydn are galaxies apart, and I challenge our dear Gurn to find one, just one, Haydn symphony which is as heart-on-sleeve as Tchaik's 5th.  ;D

Well, AFAIC, "Classical" and "Romantic" are heavily context-dependent --- that's exactly what my riddle about Mozart purported to show.  :)

I couldn't. That's why my definition of classical blocked out emotion like that, and why my definition of Romantic 1 put it in. :)

8)

Gotta go to work now, guys. Y'all keep hacking away at this and I'll happily rejoin you later. Thanks for your support, Karl. YOU are a classic!  :D

8)

Quote from: Gurnatron5500 on May 13, 2011, 04:52:31 AM
I wish that was helpful, Florestan. :)

My purpose is not be helpful or hamful; I simply follow my own feelings.  :D ;D

Quote
IMO, Romanticism has become a catchall for the various indefinables of 200 years.

Most Hollywood's "Romantic comedies" immediately come to mind: there is nothing even remotely Romantic in them (I'd bet most Romantics, be they writers, painters or composers, would recoil in horror seeing them); as for comedy, not even my a$$ laughs (Romanian idiosyncratic expression)  ;D

Quote
First and foremost it was a literary movement.

I respectfully disagree. Or, better said, I agree if you say the same about Classicism.  ;D

Quote
That it had traits that reflected actual human feelings and behaviors is inevitable, but if one were writing a spreadsheet and trying to work out a mathematical formula for this, then most of the input so far would come back with an error message about self-referential loops... :-\

Absolutely. Ex post facto reasoning & all that...

Quote from: Leon on May 12, 2011, 06:52:58 PM
For a guy who claims to approach this more from a historical perspective, you describe it in non-historical and almost exclusively in theoretical ideas.

But you just asked him yesterday to define classicism, and once he does you promptly attack him for doing so?  I think you're just being argumentative.

Quote from: Florestan on May 13, 2011, 05:05:02 AM
My purpose is not be helpful or hamful; I simply follow my own feelings.  :D ;D

Most Hollywood's "Romantic comedies" immediately come to mind: there is nothing even remotely Romantic in them (I'd bet most Romantics, be they writers, painters or composers, would recoil in horror seeing them); as for comedy, not even my a$$ laughs (Romanian idiosyncratic expression)  ;D

I respectfully disagree. Or, better said, I agree if you say the same about Classicism.  ;D

Absolutely. Ex post facto reasoning & all that...

Oh, I DO say the same about Classicism. I am the last person in line when it comes to lumping all the arts into one Grand Unified Theory.

If it was me, we would have the Age of Polyphony, the Age of Homophony and the Age of Cacophony... always exceptions duly noted, of course...   :D  (hey, it's a freakin' joke, guys, lighten up!).   0:)

8)

The Age of Atonal Honking . . . .

Quote from: Gurnatron5500 on May 13, 2011, 04:54:20 AM
I couldn't. That's why my definition of classical blocked out emotion like that, and why my definition of Romantic 1 put it in. :)

Ok, then we have the following definitions:

Quote from: Gurn Blanston on "Classical" music
Absolute music based on a tonal harmonic system underpinning (and often comprising) a long-line melody. It is based on any of a thousand variants of what we now call sonata form. It is 'classical' because the effect it produces appears to the listener as classically simple. It requires the engagement of the listener as an essential part of its existence, and if successful, it draws in the listener both intellectually and emotionally.

Quote from: Gurn Blanston on "Romantic'  music
Absolute music based on a tonal harmonic system underpinning (and often comprising) a long-line melody. It is based on any of a thousand variants of what we now call sonata form. It is 'Romantic' because the effect it produces appears to the listener as both complex and emotional. It requires the engagement of the listener only insofar as to listen well and react to its innate statements.

Now, talking about self-referential loops: defining "Classical" music as having "classically simple" effects is rather tautologic.  ;D

But I see what you mean --- please correct me if I'm wrong: for an effect that Mozart acomplished with 20 strings and two pairs of winds, Mahler required an orchestra of 150.  ;D

The most problematic, though, are the fourth sentences of each definition, which I'm not sure I understood well.

Are you implying that the "Classical" audience felt music to be an essential part of its existence, one that seriously engaged them both intellectually and emotionally and to whose afterwards study and pondering they were fully committed --- as opposed to "Romantic" audiences, for which music was just an accessory, a pastime that was worth only the time needed for hearing it, with no afterwards study and pondering?

If this is so, then it strikes me as contrafactual: while the Classical-era aristocratic audience, knowledgeable as it was, had obviously many other interests besides music, which wasn't exactly a life-and-death matter, it is precisely Romanticism, with its relentless cult of creative geniuses, of artistic heroes, of arts as philosophy and religion that elevated music to an intellectual status unheard of before. I'm willing to bet that, had Haydn told his good prince Eszterhazy that "Music is a higher revelation than all wisdom and philosophy ", or that the composer is on an even, nay, higher level than a prince, the latter would have thought his kapellmeister was in dire need of medical attendance.  ;D

Quote from: Florestan on May 13, 2011, 05:46:41 AM
. . . But I see what you mean --- please correct me if I'm wrong: for an effect that Mozart acomplished with 20 strings and two pairs of winds, Mahler required an orchestra of 150.  ;D

Hah! To your earlier gauntlet:

Quote from: Florestan on May 13, 2011, 04:51:15 AM
. . . I challenge our dear Gurn to find one, just one, Haydn symphony which is as heart-on-sleeve as Tchaik's 5th.  ;D
show.  :)

I nearly parenthesized: It's the trombones, you know . . . .

Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on May 13, 2011, 05:52:10 AM
I nearly parenthesized: It's the trombones, you know . . . .

Q: What do you get if you add trombones to Haydn's Symphony no. 88?

A: Mahler's Third.

;D :P :D

Quote from: Florestan on May 13, 2011, 05:57:15 AM
Q: What do you get if you add trombones to Haydn's Symphony no. 88?

A: Mahler's Third.

;D :P :D

76 trombones, maybe... :)

8)

Quote from: Gurnatron5500 on May 13, 2011, 06:06:56 AM
76 trombones, maybe... :)

8)

And an elephant! :D

Quote from: Leon on May 13, 2011, 06:15:26 AM
What I mean when I contrast "restraint" and "freedom" vis a vis Classical and Romantic is not what you have written here. 

Classical restraint does not imply over reliance on rules or being devoid of emotional expression, it means that the manner in which a person of the Classical age, not just a composer, expressed himself with understatement, hints, or representative signs/gestures to deeper more emotional content.  The Romantic was not so reserved in how he expressed himself, and that kind of attitude was emblematic of the age.  It is the manner in how these same aspects are handled which constitute the difference in the styles, imo.  They are styles of music, after all  - not completely different species, and as Gurn has pointed out they populate a continuum across two centuries.

Thanks for clearing things up. Put this way, I tend to agree.

Quote
I also think what has been missing from this discussion is the observation that the Classical style is a form of dramatic writing, not melodramatic which might describe the Romantic, in instrumental garb.  Dramatic in that themes and keys perform roles in the music, and there is a distinct rhetoric at work in the compositions.

Certainly. Gurn has posted extensively about the rhetoric of Classical music  in several other threads --- I hope he'll provide the links to those very informative posts.

Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on May 13, 2011, 05:44:13 AM
The Age of Atonal Honking . . . .

Honk honk honk hoooooonnnnnnnnk! ;D (Sorry; knee-jerk reaction there. :))

Quote from: Gurnatron5500 on May 13, 2011, 06:06:56 AM
76 trombones, maybe... :)

With 110 cornets, and trumpeters who improvise (muted) a full octave higher than the score! ;D

Quote from: jochanaan on May 13, 2011, 10:24:12 AM
Honk honk honk hoooooonnnnnnnnk! ;D (Sorry; knee-jerk reaction there. :))With 110 cornets, and trumpeters who improvise (muted) a full octave higher than the score! ;D

I love it, that would make even Mahler palatable! :D

8)

Quote from: ¡DavidW! on May 13, 2011, 06:16:00 AM
And an elephant! :D

That would be more appropriate for Koechlin's "The Song of Kala Nag. . . ."

Quote from: eyeresist on May 12, 2011, 06:59:35 PM
Did Beethoven have Romantic contemporaries? I don't think Romanticism in music really took off until after his death.

This is about right although there were many young composers who were being brought up in the new Romantic ethos during Beethoven's lifetime. Certainly the Mendelssohn siblings were experimenting with it from 1821 onwards. The Midsummer Night's Dream Overture is one of the first major Romantic works (1826).

Quote from: Ten thumbs on May 13, 2011, 02:02:01 PM
...The Midsummer Night's Dream Overture is one of the first major Romantic works (1826).

So is Der Freischütz of 1821.  Carl Maria von Weber composed several other Romantic operas before Freischütz, but not much remains of them.  One, Silvana from 1810, has been recorded; the others are either lost or survive only in incomplete form.  So yes, whether one includes Beethoven as a Romantic or not, one can say that musical Romanticism was very active before Beethoven's death. 8)

While in the misty midst of the vast Cato Archives, I came across my copy of Ronald Taylor's The Romantic Tradition in Germany, which delineates mainly the philosophical foundations of the movement (Fichte, Herder, etc.) but also addresses the literary and musical aspects.

pp. 194-195 (Examining the ideas of E.T.A. Hoffmann and Artur Schopenhauer)
"(According to Schopenhauer) music (never) expresses 'the appearance, but rather the inner being, the essence (das Ansich) of all appearance, the Will itself...For this reason our fantasy is so easily stirred through Music.'...

"If music is the 'reflection of the Will itself' and if the cosmic Will, as Schopenhauer postulated, is wicked, then music is left in a position of dubious integrity.  The notion of 'wicked music'...would strike many as preposterous, but having used Kantian vocabulary...Schopenhauer, in whose system Will is indifferent to conventional morality, is not disturbed by this conclusion.  Hoffmann had written of Beethoven's music: 'it moves the lever of fear, of shuddering, of horror, of pain;' and in one sense Schopenhauer's implication of the sinister and the destructive is an extension of this range."

(My translation of the quotes from Schopenhauer and Hoffmann).

Quote from: jochanaan on May 13, 2011, 10:24:12 AM
Honk honk honk hoooooonnnnnnnnk! ;D (Sorry; knee-jerk reaction there. :))With 110 cornets, and trumpeters who improvise (muted) a full octave higher than the score! ;D

Sounds like Khatchaturian's 3rd.


To me, Vivaldi's Four Seasons is a thoroughly Romantic work! :D

Beethoven Classical or Romantic?  He was one of the last classicists and the first romantics.  He is Romassical.    ???

Quote from: Gurnatron5500 on May 12, 2011, 10:12:19 AM
Would you say that Brahms' music [...] is more like Haydn's than it is like Liszt's?   

Well, after listening to his piano sonatas op. 2 & op. 5 (Arrau), the answer is no. Haydn is far, far away --- while Liszt is just around the corner.  :)

Quote from: John of Glasgow on May 15, 2011, 06:09:25 PM
. . . He is Romassical.

That goes perfectly with the new av, Johnnie! : )

Another aspect of this question is Beethoven's response to the lied and, looking at Op48/52, this does seem to be more classical than romantic with the piano part often mirroring the voice. Of course these are not late works and his deafness may have turned him away from this genre.
A classical song is basically a melody with an accompaniment that gives harmonic support. An idealised romantic lied has a melody accompanied by an independent piano part that operates in counterpoint, and which may even conflict harmonically with, the voice. This ideal can also be found in many examples of the 'song without words' for solo piano.

Quote from: Dancing Divertimentian on May 12, 2011, 09:53:51 AM
Which is why the label "transitional" applies so well to him.

None of my associations with "transitional" works for Beethoven at all. For me, it is very hard to think of him in terms of "not yet", of imperfect experimentations that came to fruition later etc. (One exception might be the "An die ferne Geliebte" that seems a little like a much simpler prefiguration of Dichterliebe.)
I can think of Hummel as a "transitional" figure between Mozart and Chopin, but not of Beethoven as a transition between Haydn and Schumann or Liszt or Wagner. This seems to be grounded in the impression that his works are both experimental and "formally convincing" at the same time and to an incredibly high degree. But I also admit that I have thought of Beethoven as a "classical" composer from my earliest experiences with his music and was also influenced by the writings of Riezler, Tovey and Rosen, who all see him on the "classical" side, albeit with a rather narrow conception of "classical" in Rosen and a wider one in the other authors.

If forced, I'd much rather say that Beethoven is the closure and perfection of the classical style, than the beginning of romanticism. The beginning of romanticism was more strongly rooted in Beethoven's younger contemporaries like Hummel, Spohr, Field, especially Weber, all of which were shocked already by some things in "middle Beethoven". Beethoven and those guys are somehow at an oblique, skewed angle with each other. They share relatively few essential features.
(Of course, the most plausible story might be to deny a sharp distinction at all, as Gurn apparently has argued for.)

Quote
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.

To some extent this debate suffers from the unavoidable vagueness of "classical" and "romantic. But despite this vagueness, I do not see why "forward-thinking" should be incompatible with classical. I also dislike the metaphor of "pushing boundaries of form". As has been pointed out by many (and shown in detail by Rosen and others), "classical form" was extremely flexible already with Haydn. (I doubt that one would find in early or middle Beethoven many movements as "formally odd" as the outer movements of Haydn's Farewell, the first movements of the quartets op.76, no. 5 and 6 or the finale of the 103rd symphony. I am cherrypicking here but Haydn is remarkable free and flexible also in less obvious cases)
What Beethoven demonstrated was that the forms (or dynamical principles) were even more flexible and admitted an even wider range of expressive and also "formal possibilities.

Quote
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... 

What's their message? Even as a vague "poetic idea" we do not know of any (other than in case of the Pastoral symphony and maybe even the Eroica).
But more importantly: Hardly anything by the romantic composers following after Beethoven seems to me similar to op.131 or op.130/133. I think the first piece that tries to go in a similar direction as op.131 is Hugo Wolf's bold string quartet from around 1880 and closer cousins will be found with Schoenberg's op.4 and Zemlinsky's 2nd quartet, maybe also some of Reger's.
op.133 is even further from the romantics. (Except for the feature to somehow merge sections that roughly corresponds to the movements of a sonata in one big piece, but Schubert's Wandererfantasie was probably the closer model for e.g. the Liszt sonata than the "chinese fugue".)
I also find op.131 way too "abstract" to be described as "heart on sleeve". The Appassionata or the Kreutzer sonata would fit such a description much better. (And the differences between such vague characterizations are huge among composers we would describe as romantic, take Mendelssohn vs. Schumann, Brahms vs. Tchaikovsky etc.)
True, Mendelssohn takes op.132 as model (in some respects) for his early a minor quartet but his later pieces hardly share anything with late Beethoven. Schumann was influenced by "An die ferne Geliebte" and maybe by the Diabellis and Bagatelles, but his symphonies and quartets take middle Beethoven as point of departure. Even Brahms sticks to 4 movements with traditional characters and while he shares with Beethoven the continous development within a movement and tight connections between movements (and takes those features even further), he usually lacks the "gaps and clashes", the demonstrative shocking boldness of Beethoven. (And in other respects he is also far more conservative than Beethoven was at his time.)

Quote
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. ;D   

There has actually been the idea that (some of) late Beethoven basically skips most of 19th century romanticism and that only the first modernists take up that "challenge".

Quote from: Jo498 on February 12, 2016, 12:56:02 AM

I also find op.131 way too "abstract" to be described as "heart on sleeve".

This is just an informal impression you understand, but the rapid mood changes in the central sections of this quartet make me think of Schumann op 11/i. The two are . . . mad.

Quote from: Jo498 on February 12, 2016, 12:56:02 AM
To some extent this debate suffers from the unavoidable vagueness of "classical" and "romantic. But despite this vagueness, I do not see why "forward-thinking" should be incompatible with classical. I also dislike the metaphor of "pushing boundaries of form". As has been pointed out by many (and shown in detail by Rosen and others), "classical form" was extremely flexible already with Haydn.

I'm unsure of your point. In that quote of mine I said "pushing the boundaries of CLASSICAL form".

QuoteWhat Beethoven demonstrated was that the forms (or dynamical principles) were even more flexible and admitted an even wider range of expressive and also "formal possibilities".

Yes, which is another way of saying pushing the boundaries of form!! This is where I pick up on the notion that Beethoven is "transitional".

QuoteWhat's their message? Even as a vague "poetic idea" we do not know of any (other than in case of the Pastoral symphony and maybe even the Eroica).

"Message" in the context of making a landmark musical statement, not a work with a subtext tacked on. 

QuoteThere has actually been the idea that (some of) late Beethoven basically skips most of 19th century romanticism and that only the first modernists take up that "challenge".

Yes, that is evident in the music.

QuoteI also find op.131 way too "abstract" to be described as "heart on sleeve".

I didn't just say "heart on sleeve", my friend. I did write "obtuse" there, too, which is in line with "abstract". I would prefer to be quoted in context, please, in the spirit of quality discussion. :-\

Sorry to be so brief. I'm under the weather...

Quote from: Dancing Divertimentian on February 12, 2016, 06:26:17 PM
I'm unsure of your point. In that quote of mine I said "pushing the boundaries of CLASSICAL form".

Yes, which is another way of saying pushing the boundaries of form!! This is where I pick up on the notion that Beethoven is "transitional".

My point was that if we mean that he wrote unconventional movements Haydn (undoubtedly classical) "pushed the boundaries" of (classical) form as well (but he also helped to establish them!) and it is doubtful whether Beethoven did this "pushing" to a larger extent or not. And I often wonder whether that metaphor makes sense at all if "form" is not a given structure but a set of flexible principles.

My problem here is not only the arguments by Rosen and others showing (by looking backwards) the "technical classicality" of Beethoven's forms. (I find them convincing but in most cases I simply lack the theoretical knowledge to challenge them.)

Even on a rather superficial level we can easily see how the post-Beethoven romantics split. On the one hand there is Wagner who basically claimed that Beethoven had exhausted the forms and to go beyond him meant composing musical dramas like Wagner or tone poems like Liszt and Berlioz. From that perspective Beethoven is a starting point but mostly in a negative fashion.
On the other hand, there are Mendelssohn, Schumann and others, later Brahms who hardly go beyond (middle) Beethoven in "pushing boundaries" (at least in the narrowly understood formal dimensions). Or when they do, like Schumann, they do it in completely different forms and genres (cycles of songs and shorter piano pieces).

As one example, take concerto form. It is usually said that Beethoven with the last two piano concertos composed "symphonic concertos". None of the "1810" generation follows him there! They either do soloist- focussed "virtuoso" concertos, far less symphonic than LvB (Chopin, Mendelssohn), or follow the "sonata/fantasy form" with shorter sections corresponding to the typical multi-movement works movements (Liszt, First version of Schumann's pc) starting from the Wandererfantasie and Weber's f minor concert piece, usually also less "symphonic".
The first to take up the "symphonic concerto" (with a vengeance ;)) is Brahms, quite a bit later (and most 1870-90s concertos are not as symphonic as Beethoven's or Brahms).

Similarly with "Uber-symphonies" in the style of the 9th. We do not find those before Bruckner's around 1870 or even Mahler's 2nd. (Admittedly, Liszt's Faust symphony and maybe Berlioz' Romeo & Juliet (one of the oddest hybrids in music history, I guess) could be mentioned.)

All this shows for me that Beethoven although he is without a doubt also a point of departure for most of the romantics (not Chopin, though) he is an "endpoint" as well.

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"Message" in the context of making a landmark musical statement, not a work with a subtext tacked on. 

o.k., I misunderstood this. But then I would claim that "making a landmark musical statement" has not much to do with baroque, classical, romantic, modern: Monteverdi probably wanted to set a landmark with the 8th madrigal book as well and so did Mozart with the quartets dedicated to Haydn. Whereas "poetic ideas" or programmes are a feature of one (the Berlioz-Liszt) strain of romanticism.

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I didn't just say "heart on sleeve", my friend. I did write "obtuse" there, too, which is in line with "abstract". I would prefer to be quoted in context, please, in the spirit of quality discussion. :-\

I'd deny "heart on sleeve" with or without qualifications for late Beethoven. If anything, this is already a feature of early Beethoven (e.g. the slow movements of op.18/1 and op.10/3).
FWIW, I completely agree about the uniqueness of late (and also a lot of not so late) Beethoven compared to Haydn and Mozart. But it is as unique compared to Liszt and Brahms. So I am back at the technical arguments by Rosen and others.

Thanks for taking up this old thread. It is not an interesting question which label we put on Beethoven but I think such discussions can throw light on real aspects of his music.

Quote from: Dancing Divertimentian on February 12, 2016, 06:26:17 PM
Yes, which is another way of saying pushing the boundaries of form!! This is where I pick up on the notion that Beethoven is "transitional".

But if Beethoven is "transitional"... transitional between what and what? Romantic form, after all, isn't Classical form with new boundaries. It's something completely different. (And Beethoven's "innovations" are often simply revisitations of conservative—sometimes ancient—practices.)

Hmmm...Is it possible that all our labels and categories are insufficient to describe any great composer?  That labels are really only useful for two classes of people: academics, and market researchers? :)

Quote from: amw on February 13, 2016, 10:15:07 PM
But if Beethoven is "transitional"... transitional between what and what?

In crude terms, the flood that came after him.

QuoteRomantic form, after all, isn't Classical form with new boundaries. It's something completely different. (And Beethoven's "innovations" are often simply revisitations of conservative—sometimes ancient—practices.)

I think this has all been pretty effectively covered throughout this thread. As I'm suffering from a cold, a perusal there will probably answer your queries better than I can. :)

Quote from: jochanaan on February 14, 2016, 07:12:49 AM
Hmmm...Is it possible that all our labels and categories are insufficient to describe any great composer?  That labels are really only useful for two classes of people: academics, and market researchers? :)

If ever a composer could be pigeonholed as un-pigeonholeable, Beethoven is it! ;D

Quote from: amw on February 13, 2016, 10:15:07 PM
But if Beethoven is "transitional"... transitional between what and what? Romantic form, after all, isn't Classical form with new boundaries. It's something completely different.

How are broadly speaking "classicist" symphonies by Mendelssohn, Schumann, Brahms, even Bruckner "completlely different" from classical ones? They are different, but certainly not completely, that is, Schumann's "Spring symphony" is much closer to a symphony by Beethoven or Haydn than to a suite/ouverture by Telemann or to "La mer". This might be a trivial point but "completely different" seems a misleadingly strong formulation.

Quote from: Dancing Divertimentian on February 14, 2016, 06:48:35 PM
If ever a composer could be pigeonholed as un-pigeonholeable, Beethoven is it! ;D

+1! ;D

Quote from: Lethevich on May 06, 2011, 04:37:52 PM
Like Schubert, most of his works seem to fit within the Classical style, regardless of his unusual personality. Compare the late quartets of Beethoven with, say, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Brahms, Dvořák, etc, and you will find composers deeply indebted to his harmonic soundworld, but the compositions themselves are more alike to each other than Beethoven. It is as if Beethoven, far from creating a template to the style of Romanticism, actually found himself in far more abstract territory while later composers were busy just continuing down the Haydn-Spohr line, inspired by Beethoven but really producing nothing all that relatable to his music.

I am going to quote this old post because it describes my own position on this issue very well. I'll also add that Beethoven, for me, was as much a transitional figure from the Classical to Romantic periods as Sibelius was from the Romantic to Modern periods. Despite their huge influence, many of their idiosyncrasies were never drawn upon stylistically by younger generations.