Romanticism in music can be said to have arisen at the end of the 18th century and lasted through to World War I, although Romantic characteristics can be found in later composers right down to the present day. In the 20th century, these last manifestations of Romanticism range from mystical extremes, as in Alexander SCRIABIN’S pursuit of his “mystic chord,” to more nationalistic music, as in the Scandinavian school of Carl NIELSEN and Jean SIBELIUS.
In its beginnings, Romanticism sprang from the rejection of the classical idiom of music based on internal and tonal logic, replacing it with a music that derived its form from a personal emotional imperative. Composers also extended their means of expression and the classical orchestra was enlarged—vastly enlarged in the case of MAHLER’S symphonies, where upward of 120 players were required. More types of instruments were also introduced—harps, saxophones, many different percussion instruments—and tonality was stretched to its farthest limits, with richer chords and modulation to ever remoter keys.
Gustav Mahler and Richard STRAUSS were the central figures of Late Romanticism. Mahler's immensely long symphonies and his song cycles explore a gamut of intense emotions, whereas Strauss was more concerned with creating luscious sensuousness in his operas, from Salome in 1905 to Capriccio in 1941. At the same time, the last strains of Romanticism were being nourished from another source, the revival of nationalism that gradually spread throughout Europe. This was not only the literal rediscovery of nationhood, as in the final break-up of the Austro-Hungarian Empire after World War I when Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Romania acquired national status, but also in a more general appreciation of national character in music. So RACHMANINOV and Scriabin in Russia, and Suk, Dohnanyi, and SZYMANOWSKI in Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Poland were underpinning Romanticism with a particularly national flavour. This can be also said of characteristically “English” composers such as ELGAR and, later, VAUGHAN WILLIAMS who was a leading figure in the rediscovery of folk music and dances which he used in his work. Perhaps the most intense of these nationalist Romantics were found in Scandinavia—Carl Nielsen in Denmark and Jean Sibelius in Finland. The music of Sibelius in particular reflected profound nationalistic yearnings.
American composers in the early part of the 20th century tended to study abroad and brought back the idiom they had absorbed there. Edward MacDowell studied and taught in Germany before returning to the U.S. to write his piano concertos and symphonic poems. Also, many European musicians emigrated to America, bringing with them their native tradition but also absorbing what America had to offer.
One of these was Erich Wolfgang Korngold. Born in Austria in 1897, he composed operas in the late Romantic style in Vienna before bringing this idiom to Hollywood in 1934, where his score for the film Robin Hood won an Oscar. Samuel BARBER is typical of the next generation of American composers who trained in their own country and absorbed the last vestiges of the romantic idiom. Barber's Dover Beach (1931) and the Adagio for Strings (1936) both belong to this style—Barber later moved on to a more experimental mode. It was this need to experiment that drew composers away from Romanticism. Composers began to crave a sterner spirit and a more disciplined approach, giving rise, among other things, to the so-called neoclassicism of STRAVINSKY and BARTÓK.
Sue Harper
SEE ALSO:
CHAMBER MUSIC; OPERA; ORCHESTRAL MUSIC.
FURTHER READING
Morgan, Robert P. Twentieth Century Music (New York: W. W. Norton, 1991);
Whittall, Arnold. Romantic Music: A Concise History from Schubert to Sibelius (London: Thames and Hudson, 1987).
SUGGESTED LISTENING
Barber: Adagio; Bruch: Violin Concerto in G Minor; Korngold: Piano Sonatas; Mahler: Symphony No. 9; Sibelius: Symphony No. 2; Richard Strauss: Der Rosenkavalier.