The Art of Listening: Notes
Art of Listening
Notes for Final Pages 223-237
Chapter 16
1. Romanticism
Artistic, literary, and intellectual movement starting in the late 18th Century Europe.
Romantic Literature and literary theory became very popular in the first two decades of 19th Century, followed by Romantic composers around 1820.
Famous English poets such as Shelly, Keats and Byron emerged during this time as well as lesser-known German Romantic literature.
19th Century golden age for opera
Music recognized as major art form and treated with new respect in cultivated circles as messages’ and meaning were taken seriously, not just for entertainment.
Subjects often philosophical and taken from respected literature e.g. Shakespeare
The Cult of Individual Feeling
Rule of feeling, unconstrained by convention, religion, or social taboo was at heart of Romantic Movement.
Emotional expression became the highest artistic goal
Transcendence of barriers between art forms
Romanticism and Revolt
In wake of Industrial Revolution came actual revolution in Europe
Many musicians of the time associated themselves with libertarian politics, starting with Beethoven.
Barriers of hereditary nobility were breached allowing lower and middle classes to assume more social mobility.
Artistic Barriers
The Romantics search for higher experience and more intense emotion meant going against the restraints of artistic form and genre resisting all rules and regulations.
Plays took a more lifelike, turbulent and loose form
Composers attempted to break down barriers of harmony and form.
All composers experimented with chords and chord progressions, which were previously forbidden creating enriched and imaginative new harmonies.
Music and the Supernatural
The supernatural was often incorporated in operas as artists transcended the ordinary.
Composers prepared strange harmonies and sinister orchestral sounds
E.g. Verdi for witches in Macbeth, and Wagner for ghost
Notes for Final Pages 223-237
Chapter 16
1. Romanticism
Artistic, literary, and intellectual movement starting in the late 18th Century Europe.
Romantic Literature and literary theory became very popular in the first two decades of 19th Century, followed by Romantic composers around 1820.
Famous English poets such as Shelly, Keats and Byron emerged during this time as well as lesser-known German Romantic literature.
19th Century golden age for opera
Music recognized as major art form and treated with new respect in cultivated circles as messages’ and meaning were taken seriously, not just for entertainment.
Subjects often philosophical and taken from respected literature e.g. Shakespeare
The Cult of Individual Feeling
Rule of feeling, unconstrained by convention, religion, or social taboo was at heart of Romantic Movement.
Emotional expression became the highest artistic goal
Transcendence of barriers between art forms
Romanticism and Revolt
In wake of Industrial Revolution came actual revolution in Europe
Many musicians of the time associated themselves with libertarian politics, starting with Beethoven.
Barriers of hereditary nobility were breached allowing lower and middle classes to assume more social mobility.
Artistic Barriers
The Romantics search for higher experience and more intense emotion meant going against the restraints of artistic form and genre resisting all rules and regulations.
Plays took a more lifelike, turbulent and loose form
Composers attempted to break down barriers of harmony and form.
All composers experimented with chords and chord progressions, which were previously forbidden creating enriched and imaginative new harmonies.
Music and the Supernatural
The supernatural was often incorporated in operas as artists transcended the ordinary.
Composers prepared strange harmonies and sinister orchestral sounds
E.g. Verdi for witches in Macbeth, and Wagner for ghost