Beethoven - Classical or Romantic?

[karlhenning]

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

[starrynight]

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.

[DavidW]

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

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...

[Gurn Blanston]

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...

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

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.    

[Gurn Blanston]

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.

[jochanaan]

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



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

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:)

Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself, (I am large, I enclose multitudes)

[DavidW]

I don't see any contradiction there.

[Gurn Blanston]

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.



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

[Gurn Blanston]

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.




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

[eyeresist]

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.

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:

Beethoven'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:

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

[starrynight]

I guess everyone agreed with what I said then.   


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.

[Florestan]

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... ?

[eyeresist]

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

[starrynight]

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.

[Florestan]

But is the attitude always the same as the reality?

Good question.

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.

  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?

[Gurn Blanston]

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 

[karlhenning]

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

[Florestan]

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. 

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. 

[karlhenning]

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.

[Gurn Blanston]

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.