Romanticism and late-romanticism, its meaning and psychology

[Karl Henning]

Bruckner's music is only a confirmation of the thought "I'm large" (so psychology). His music doesn't stimulate, but degenerates. It's megalomane music.

Rubbish, you say.

[Henk]

Rubbish, you say.

I can hear the beauty in it, really beautiful also to me, but because the music is worldly and megalomane, the music, for me, is spoiled. And besides, it's beauty is so slow.

[Florestan]

Henk, for a guy who dislike Romantic music to talk so much about it is rather odd... 

When it get's worldy the music loses my interest.

I prefer a composer like Birtwistle to Mahler and Bruckner.

I like to listen to more individualistic music, music that's something in it self.

Fine. Stick then to whatever you like and stop criticizing Romanticism. It's not going to get you anywhere. Nobody here cares whether you like it or not.

[Henk]

Florestan, this thread is dedicated to the subject.

[Florestan]

Florestan, this thread is dedicated to the subject.

The thread's title reads "Romanticism and late-romanticism, its meaning and psychology" and as such looks interesting. But alas! how misleading it is... You should change it to "Why Henk doesn't like Romanticism" because this is the real topic.

[Karl Henning]

Henk Pontificates Some More About the Music He Doesn't Care For

(* yawn *)

[starrynight]

All this late-romantic music is worldly music and often idealistic. I hear this "worldly" character also by some Italian composers, the composers of conceto's (Albinoni) and others as well (like Sammartini).

When it get's worldy the music loses my interest. It's presented like the music represents the world, and this is false. Also Mahler's music for instance is false for this reason. I prefer a composer like Birtwistle to Mahler and Bruckner. Birtwistle's music is very heavy, but it stays real to me.

I like to listen to more individualistic music, music that's something in it self.

Idealism in music must have been around from near the beginning.  Music was related to religious ceremony for example.  Pythagorus or whoever it was that created the idea of the scale and octaves probably thought in terms of the beauty and balance of the elements of music.  I find it hard to believe that you dismiss all idealism in music.  It's interesting to hear about your preferences but I'm sure you do enjoy a measure of beauty within music.

[eyeresist]

music should represent itself.

Music doesn't need to represent itself. Music IS itself.


I still can't tell how much of this argument is bad translation and how much genuine crackpottery.

[Henk]

The thread's title reads "Romanticism and late-romanticism, its meaning and psychology" and as such looks interesting. But alas! how misleading it is... You should change it to "Why Henk doesn't like Romanticism" because this is the real topic.

Henk Pontificates Some More About the Music He Doesn't Care For

(* yawn *)

I made some points. I don't want to prevent people from listening to late-romantic music. Yes, I wanted this, but I come back to this now. The points I made can be read, not as critisism, but just as some knowledge (which may be correct or not).

In fact I want to listen to late-romantic music again.

[Sammy]

In fact I want to listen to late-romantic music again.

There you go.  It probably won't be long before you start a thread about why you love late-romantic music.

[Henk]

I've tried, the experience was nice. But probably not to repeat much.

Late-romantic music is a satisfaction which doesn't satisfy. Is rest which makes you tired. Is beauty of a secondary kind, not like a sublime art (the original romanticism), but as a shadow of the real beauty, mythicalized, which is nature itself.

Have a walk outside, and you don't want to listen to late-romantic music after this. I advice to only apply it in small amounts. To absorb it then, so you don't need it for a long period anymore. Because late-romantic music is a need, it leaves you wanting for more, like an addiction, because it never satisfies really. It's a cultural drug for modern human beings, the satisfaction it gives to people, is a compensation for the unsatisfaction people have with their time and society. The experience of late-romantic music feeds this, strengthens this, but can't satisfy fully, there remains a mentally unsatisfactory rest, in which, I see now, comes forward my problem with the whole genre.

When having much amounts of it, I can expect, a walk outside is not a pleasure anymore. People prefer the darker, mythical, variant of nature and are blind for their surroundings, the shapes, colours, sounds, movements aren't experienced in the way it was an inspiration for the original romanticism artists. And in the way it can be experienced by us (in our contemporary time).

[Gold Knight]

 Is it just me, or is "something getting lost in the translation", like Henk's whole train of reasoning? On the other hand, Henk, if you are really writing what you believe and experience accurately, then I really feelsorry for you. To me, beauty is no less beautiful because it is slow, fast or medium; it is what it is. In fact, I daresay that the slower it is {I guess you mean tempi in this regard?}, the longer it is able to be savored and appreciated by the listener. At least, that has been my experience with it. Yours has been, what, then?

[eyeresist]

Because late-romantic music is a need, it leaves you wanting for more, like an addiction, because it never satisfies really. It's a cultural drug for modern human beings, the satisfaction it gives to people, is a compensation for the unsatisfaction people have with their time and society.

I don't think your distinctions between nature and artificiality, and between reality and romance, are valid.
First, humans are of nature, therefore nothing they do can really be contrary to nature.
Second, I don't think anyone can perceive reality in the pure way you demand of them - to see is to interpret; we can't look at something without imagining it, without seeing it as a personal entity, without placing it in the context of a story. The Buddhist (or other ascetic) who imagines he sees the world dispassionately is only living in a different sort of romance.
Third, it cannot be denied that people love beauty, and I don't know if it is valid to apply moral judgement to things of beauty. After all, people like sweet things, but sugar itself has no moral qualities. Some music lovers like to dismiss some music for being "sentimental" - others criticise music for lacking emotion - but really it is only a matter of perception and taste. The vibrations in the air don't care how we regard them.

[Karl Henning]

But the Little People who dance in the air on its vibrations: they care.

[Ten thumbs]

Perhaps Henk is wanting us to analyse the basis of his problem with Romantic music. At the moment I'm not entirely sure what that is. Firstly worldly and idealistic are two opposite extremes, so which of them does he really find a stumbling block. Maybe his reaction to art may help us. Is the perfect depiction of an object or scene a photograph or does he allow the artist an interpretation?

[Karl Henning]

Perhaps Henk is wanting us to analyse the basis of his problem with Romantic music.

If so . . . sorry: I cannot be bothered : )

[starrynight]

Perhaps Henk is wanting us to analyse the basis of his problem with Romantic music. At the moment I'm not entirely sure what that is. Firstly worldly and idealistic are two opposite extremes, so which of them does he really find a stumbling block. Maybe his reaction to art may help us. Is the perfect depiction of an object or scene a photograph or does he allow the artist an interpretation?

Maybe he means he likes what he sees as the superior earlier idealism (seen as more spiritual) more than the later type (which he may see as more worldly).  But maybe it's all part of the same feeling anyway, just in a changed form as the world changes, you can't expect things to just keep the same.

[Henk]

In literature, Romanticism actually had its roots at the end of the 18th century, most notably with the Lyrical Ballads of Wordsworth and Coleridge written in 1798. For an introduction to the tenets of Romanticism, you could read the preface to that work, as they provided a thorough argument for their style and techniques which were considered "experimental" for the time.

Of course, one of the charges levelled against them was vulgarity because of their language (not that you'd think it reading them now!). They hoped to use the vernacular language (the common language of the people) as a vehicle for poetic beauty, unlike their predecessors of the Augustan period who used an upper-class lexicon steeped in references to philosophy and classical civilisation which only a well-educated (and therefore rich) person could hope to understand. It's with the early Romantics that we see art becoming democratised and universal. Is that a bad thing?

Another facet is that it became much more interested with the human as an individual, emotional self. Melodrama abounds because this kind of subjective, quasi-mystical attribute of humanity was praised and explored to its full depths. This is no doubt another reason why it is so accessible (social conditioning isn't everything), though it can also put people off if overbearing.

I think we also have to be wary with what we mean by "nationalism". You can't equate it with the jingoism that we're so familiar with today, although there was undoubtedly some of that, especially leading up to the War in the late-Romantic period. Instead, Romantic nationalism seems more to do with identity once again, and a celebration of culture. One of the things that marks out nationalist works is a use of the country's folk-song - this is, I suppose, the musical equivalent of Wordsworth and Coleridge using the vernacular language. It's not intended as an expression of supremacy, it's a fore-grounding of cultural heritage, and of the common people.

Whenever we talk about artistic movements, however, music is the hardest to pin anything on (compared to literature and the visual arts), and it tends only to be labelled in accordance with labels on the other arts at the time. Absolute music is certainly beyond this kind of philosophical labelling, and much programme music doesn't make it easier. Although we can easily find Romantic traits in the music of many composers of this era, the fact remains that Romantic music is most obviously marked by the tonal language in use at the time and the development of the orchestra. These things can be and were employed without regard to the tenets of Romanticism as an ideal, so it makes no sense to rubbish the period as though it constituted a homogeneous outlook.

Thanks for your commentary and the tips! Goethe was earlier however.

The distinction between identity of people and nationalism is indeed important to make. Many people treat it as one thing, this is a big misconception. Identity has to do with culture, and is open, people want to show their identity to other people. Nationalism is political and closed.

Now, in fact I think romanticism in the second sense, has to do with nationalism more. I think it's mixed, identity as well as nationalism are part of late-romantic music. But I don't think people will draw identity from late-romantic music. Different it's with language driven art. The works by Keats (GB), Baudelaire (France) and Gorter (Netherlands) for instance. This art really forms an image of the identity of a people.

My point is that romanticism in the second sense I mean, is the mythicalised version of romanticism. It's not anymore about an individual experience, it's about society. Society retought in nature, this is somewhat contradictionary, and this mythe results in a dark interpretation of nature. It's always about the people in relation to politics, in relation to the nation, how they want it to be, better than it is, envisioned in art (one can actually hear protest in late-romantic music). Not about the people in itself and how they actually are.

Of course you can see things just in a musical way. I think however this is more something for music professors than for listeners of music.

[Henk]

Perhaps Henk is wanting us to analyse the basis of his problem with Romantic music. At the moment I'm not entirely sure what that is. Firstly worldly and idealistic are two opposite extremes, so which of them does he really find a stumbling block. Maybe his reaction to art may help us. Is the perfect depiction of an object or scene a photograph or does he allow the artist an interpretation?

Wordly and idealistic are no opposites. Wordly can mean an ideal. Ideals are wordly.

Of course all things are interpretation. I mean however that you have individual interpretation and interpretation of a more mediated kind, by art. If you have a walk and you feel the sensation coming from the world around you this is far more direct, and more real, than that of the mediated kind of late-romantic music. There's so much meaning put in late-romantic music already, this is part of the experience. And I tried to describe this meaning in the thread. And why it makes my experience of it, the way it is.

[flyingdutchman]

This guy sounds like Joshua Lilly back in the day when he would only listen to Mozart and everything else was crap.