Classicism vs. Romanticismin the Nineteenth Century

The accomplishment of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven continued a strong sense of classicism throughout the 19th century

Classical Elements:

•Composition in established genres (symphony, sonata, string quartet)

•Order, clarity, simplicity

Romantic Elements:

Greater intensity

Extremity – short characteristic pieces, or long, monumental works

Expansiveness – longer melodies over a larger intervallic ranger; more complex/colouristic harmonies

Folk/national ingredients

Walter Pater, and 19th-Century Attitudes Towards Music

“All art constantly aspires towards the condition of music. For while in all other kinds of art it is possible to distinguish the matter from the form, and the understanding can always make this distinction, yet it is the constant effort of art to obliterate it. That the mere matter of a poem, for instance, its subject, namely, its given incidents or situation – that the mere matter of a pitcture, the actual circumstances of an event, the actual topography of a landscape – should be nothing without the form, the spirit, of the handling, that thi form, this mode of handling, should become an end in tiself, should penetrate every part of the matter: this is what all art constantly strives after, and achieves in different degrees… It is the art of music which most completely realises this artistic ideal, this perfect identification of matter and form. In its consummate moments, the end is not distinct from the means, the form from the matter, the subject from the expression; they inhere in and completely saturate each other; and to it, therefore, to the condition of its perfect moments, all the arts may be supposed constantly to tend and aspire.”

Pierre-Auguste RenoirA Vase of Flowers

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)Grove Summary:

“The successor to Beethoven and Schubert in the larger forms of chamber and orchestral music, to Schubert and Schumann in the miniature forms of piano pieces and songs, and to the Renaissance and Baroque polyphonists in choral music, Brahms creatively synthesized the practices of three centuries with folk and dance idioms and with the language of mid- and late 19th-century art music. His works of controlled passion, deemed reactionary and epigonal by some, progressive by others, became well accepted in his lifetime.”

Major Works:

•Symphonies (4)•German Requiem•Chamber Music:

•String Quartets, String Sextets, Piano Quintet, Piano Quartets, Trios, Sonatas

•Solo Piano:•Sonatas and Character Pieces

Nineteenth-Century Music:Themes and Trends

Classicism vs. Romanticism

Absolute Music vs. Programmatic

Miniature vs. Monumental

The Influence of Beethoven

Nationalistic/Folkloristic Elements

Virtuosity

Literary/Poetic Associations