Microsoft Word - Romanticism 19th Century Research Paper P Crane

7/31/2019 Microsoft Word - Romanticism 19th Century Research Paper P Crane

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wrought the new music.2

Of the developments taking place around the beginning of the 19th

century that saw the rise of instrumental music some were consequences arising from a general

perception of failures of previous belief systems to place man within his changing world. Other

influences were of a more intrinsically musical nature. The rise in the standards of musicianship

and the enthusiasm with which this was supported allowed for the possibility that music could

rise to any demands made of it. This was soon to be.

Theology based on many gods had been displaced by a monotheism which was coming

under increasing pressure as a comprehensive explanation for mans position in his world. A

principal inheritor of theology, the duopoly of empiricism and rationalism, generally

incorporated as philosophy, was itself having limited success as the century drew to a close.

One reason for the difficulties being faced by philosophy was its reliance on language.

Immanuel Kant in particular had predicted boundaries beyond which language could not

proceed3

and as philosophy required language in its own enquiries it was apparent that

language was being stressed to the point where it was becoming virtually incomprehensible.

Added to that was the problem of the minds ability to consider itself objectively. Philosophy

had reached an impasse. Alternatively it was possible that Kant had taken philosophy to the

extent of its reach. The situation, when viewed as the ideas generated by one mind pitted

against those of another and the two running out of language, was disconcerting.

2For example theologian Friedrich Schleiermachers work in hermeneutics, while important in articulating the art-

religion idea which definitely influenced writers and composers, would be better placed as an influence in the area

of reception as the musical import of a Romantic composition would need to be actively sought by the listener.3

Bonds,Aesthetics of Instrumental Music , 398.


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This incompleteness, which had been articulated by Kant, created a zone of low

pressure in that most sensitive area of humankind that of aspiration. Kant had noted mans

religious nature4, his aspiration to transcend his everyday world and seek higher realms. This

had not been extinguished by the current failure of theological and philosophical models. Art,

its creators, its creations and its contemplators came forward and in combination as art-religion

and art-philosophy offered itself as the new way.

The incompleteness of the universal explanation of mans position was reflected in an

idea known soon as the Romantic fragment. Man does not exist as a whole, but only in parts.

Man can never be present as a whole5. So wrote the influential poet Friedrich Schlegel. But

against this the Romantics were at heart optimists. . the tendency towards a greater

synthesis, towards the Absolute, is always also present, articulating itself as hope and

Sehnsucht.6

The endless longing or seeking, the Sehnsucht, became a pillar for the

Romantics.

That traditional theological models were experiencing difficulty was a given and the

problems came from a variety of areas. But the trouble that plagued philosophy was largely due

to the failure of language. As philosophic enquiry deepened language was unable to capture the

content felt to lie beyond. The language became vague and incomprehensible. Instrumental

music had long been viewed similarly7. Without text as a guide it, too, was taken to be vague

4John Butt, Choral Music, in The Cambridge History of Nineteenth Century Music, ed. Jim Samson (Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 2001), Chapter 8,233.5

Beate Julia Perrey, Fragments of Desire: Schumanns Dichterliebe, Cambridge Studies in Music Theory and

Analysis, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), Chapter2, 26.6

Ibid., 31.7

Bonds,Aesthetics of Instrumental Music, 392.


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and indefinite, capable of diverse interpretation. As a result the prevailing aesthetic ascribed to

it had been that of a craft albeit a beloved one. Technically, instrumental music had been

improving apace. Superior instruments, players, education and performing opportunities had

ensured musics remaining a vital functioning entity. Some thought that this text-less non-

representational art form, the only non-representational art form, could be the art to best

express the areas intimated by the Sehnsucht, the area where language cold not go. Friedrich

Schlegel in lectures he delivered in 1804-5 made the connection when he pointed out Now if

feeling is the root of all consciousness, then . Language has the essential deficit that it does

not grasp feeling deeply enough . Music . as the language of feeling . is the only universal

language.8

The seeds for the interpenetration of the arts . were sown by Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

To him, and to a lesser extent the writers of the French Encyclopedie, can be credited the virtual

mania for writing about music that arose around 17709. The developments that produced the

new aesthetic for instrumental music were taking place in disciplines other than music.

Longyears assertion is important in forging the vital connection between the work done by

philosophers and writers and the application of their work to music. The writers associated

with the movement known as Weimar Classicism . had a lively . interest in music. Herder

collaborated with J.C.F.Bach, one of J.S.Bachs sons .10

It was the work of poets, writers,

academics and journalists who had this abiding interest in music that oversaw the application of

the Romantic aesthetic to music. Around the year 1800 a society of Romantic thinkers began to

8F. Schlegel, Philosophische Vorlesungen, II (Munich, Paderborn and Vienna,1964),57.

9Rey M. Longyear, Nineteenth Century Romanticism In Music 2

nded.(Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1973), 8.

10Ibid.


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coalesce into what became the Romantic school. This was centered in Jena and Weimar.

Members of this circle included the Schlegels, Tieck, Novalis, Fichte and Schelling. The actual

usage of the term Romantic is usually attributed to Friedrich and August Schlegel and Jean

Paul Friedrich Richter (Jean Paul) who were leading members of this group.11

Wilhelm

Wackenroder had died in 1789 but his writings, which were assisted by Tieck, were influential

far into the 19th

century12

. Wackenroders position allowed for the possibility of an art-religion

where the transcendence customarily associated with religious experience could be achieved in

a similar way through art.

The writings of the Jena and Weimar circle were taking root. Influenced by this outlook

a broader philosophical program of romantic idealism was developed at the newly established

University of Berlin by Fichte, Schleiermacher, Hegel and . Schelling.13

Arguably before a note

of music had been written in its name, with direct links to Kants work at Koenigsberg

University, with articulate and educated exposition by the Jena and Weimar circle and with

Berlin University taking up its cause, Romanticism received a boost to its musical cause that was

the equal to all.

In 1798, Breitkopf and Hartel Leipzig, commenced publication of theAllgemeine

Musikalische Zeitung (AMZ), a weekly general music journal. The notion of the AMZ as the

11Jim Samson, Romanticism, New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2

nded. Accessed 23/09/2009.

http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com.ezproxy.une.au/subscriber/article/grove/music/2375112

Peter Branscombe, Wackenroder, Wilhelm Heinrich, New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd ed.

Accessed 23/09/2009.

http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com.ezproxy.une.au/subscriber/article/grove/music/29753

13James Gutmann, Romanticism in Post-Kantian Philosophy,

http://etext.virginia.edu/cgi-local/DHI/dhiana.cgi?id=dv4-28.


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cradle of music hermeneutics is appealing in that Rochlitz hand-picked his reviewers .14

The

Oxford Music Online places its examination of the editorial quality of AMZ within its entry on

Hermeneutics. The AMZ was crucial in providing a public forum for the dissemination of

ideology concerning music and the new aesthetic. Significantly the editorial directives implicitly

accepted the new aesthetic and the romantic viewpoint was seen as a natural tool of the

reviewer. The guidelines that Rochlitz provided indicate the extreme quality expected from all

contributors and he published these as emphasis. The editorial position taken had the AMZ see

itself as a literary-artistic institute and a tribunal of artistic judgment15

. Journalistic strictures

included Rochlitzs schema involving [(1) the sense and spirit, (2) the means, (3) the

grammar16

of the work under examination.] Expanding on this, an AMZ writer Hans Georg

Naegeli in 180217

[outlined a horizon . of pure objectivity from which to determine the

purely artistic content of an absolute instrumental work. The horizon has four vantage points

. (1) technical, (2) psychological, (3) historical and (4) idealistic.]

This depth of analysis would be required in the reviews to come of what would be

termed Romantic music. E.T.A. Hoffmanns journalism was notable then as now as exemplary

and spanned the divide from technical, philosophical, aesthetic and entertainment with no

apparent difficulty. His review of Beethovens 5th

symphony of 1810 remains current. He

detailed the new aesthetic through his reviews and noted Beethovens18

setting in motion the

14Jim Samson ed. Hermeneutics, Oxford Music Online.p.4.

http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com.ezproxy.une.edu.au/subscriber/article/grove/music/12871.

15Ibid.

16Ibid.

17Ibid.

18Gerhard Allroggen, Hoffmann, E.T.A., Oxford Music Online. P.5.


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machinery of awe, fear, horror and pain, awakened that infinite yearning which is the essence

of Romanticism. Elsewhere he speaks of Romantic talent as that which opens up the wondrous

realm of the Infinite.19

In Hoffmanns series in AMZ the Kreisleriana his article titled

Beethovens Instrumental Music marks the end of the old-fashioned doctrine of the Affections

in music aesthetics20

. That this should include mimesis becomes clear when Hoffmann writes

Music reveals to man . a world in which he leaves behind all precise feelings in order to

embrace an inexpressible longing. Were you even aware of this . you poor instrumental

composers who have laboriously struggled to represent precise sensations, or even events.21

Hoffmann, a student at Koenigsberg University during Kants tenure, in his writings for

AMZ, outlines explicitly or implicitly the connection that runs from Rousseaus early mention of

composer self expression, through Kants transcendental idealism, and Wackenroders art-

religion, until he places the work of instrumental music as that best suited to describe the

philosophical longing that is to remain beyond language. This unequivocally raises the status of

the music to a position of self sufficiency.

In responding to the question of the forces extant at the time instrumental musics

aesthetic took its current form I have invested the greater part of the reply with the

philosophers and the commentators. The creators of the music, the composers, pose problems.

It has been said that Wackenroder was taking the role of prophet in describing a music that

would soon be written. Hoffmann, whose awareness of the Romantic aesthetic was fully

Http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com.ezproxy.une.edu.au/subscribe/article/grove/music51682.

19Ibid.

20Ibid.

21David Charlton, E.T.A. Hoffmanns Musical Writings (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 96.


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formed, looked back through Mozart, Haydn and even to Palestrina to see evidence of

Romanticism yet the concept there is out of time, anachronistic. Beethoven, seen by Hoffmann

as an exemplary Romantic, was a participant and keen observer of the dynamic and drew

pleasure from it. In a conversation book Beethoven had written The moral law within us and

the starry sky above us Kant!!!22

Ironic it would be if the pleasure drawn by a philosopher in

contemplation of a work of art should be as the pleasure drawn by an artist from the work of a

philosopher.

Beethovens observation may be seen as the moment when the musicians themselves

had been fully drawn into the dialogue. The early 19th

century saw the rise of the travelling

virtuosi such as Paganini, Liszt and Chopin. The virtuoso, as the romantic artist achieving

transcendence through his personal struggle with his instrument became iconic. That those

musician-composers chose the path of predominantly instrumental music demonstrated the

self sufficiency of music minus text.

The post-feudal subject, finding himself in a new society, one less rural and more

industrialized, who could work for pay or aspire to improvement through business, had been

empowered. Self expression was emerging as an attainable option. The philosophical

movement had also been toward the individual with Kants work emphasizing the unique

subject and laying further emphasis on the imagination of that individual in interpreting his

world. If that individual were a musician the opportunities afforded by a move toward self

expression and the use of imagination were in the area of creating the new, not recreating the

old. Kant had advised that the hallmark of genius would be originality. Other philosophers had

22John Butt, Choral Music, in The Cambridge History of Nineteenth Century Music, Chapter 8,233.


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stressed that the move should be in the direction of instrumental music and to leave, for now,

the vocal work. Given that, the direction for the composer was to produce expressive, original,

instrumental music of the highest caliber of which he was capable.

All that was needed now was the audience to appreciate the artists work. The Jena and

Weimar writers had done their work in outlining the situation and offering their insights into

the way ahead. The AMZ and the impresarios now were to complete the circle by providing

educated or prepared audiences to receive the works.

The rise in the aesthetic status of instrumental music then was an amalgam of the work

done by the philosophers, the commentators, the communicators and then the musicians

themselves. How that work impacted on the three elements of music, the composer, the work

and the audience, describes the process.

Bibliography

Hoffmann, E.T.A., E.T.A. Hoffmanns Musical Writings. Edited by David Charlton. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1989.

Longyer, Rey. Nineteenth Century Romanticism in Music, 2nd

ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-

Hall, 1973.

Dupre, Ben. 50 Philosophy Ideas (you really need to know). London: Quercus, 2007.

Rosen, Charles. The Romantic Generation. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995.


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Samson, Jim. ed. The Cambridge History of Nineteenth Century Music. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press, 2001.

Chantler, Abigail. E.T.A. Hoffmanns Musical Aesthetics. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006.

Bowie, Andrew. Philosophy of Music III: Aesthetics, 1750 2000, New Grove Dictionary of

Music and Musicians, 2nd

edition, online version, 2001. Accessed 23/09/2009.

http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com.ezproxy.une.edu.au/subscriber/article/grove/music/52965

pg3

Samson, Jim. Hermeneutics, New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd

edition, online

version, 2001. Accessed 23/09/2009.


Allrogen, Gerhard. Hoffmann, E.T.A., New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd



Branscombe, Peter. Wackenroder, Wilhelm Heinrich, New Grove Dictionary of Music and

Musicians, 2nd



Samson, Jim. Romanticism, New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd

edition, online

version, 2001. Accessed 23/09/2009.



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Jones, Roger. Romanticism, Accessed 14/10/2009.

http://www.philosopher.org.uk/rom.htm

Gutmann, James. Romanticism in Post-Kantian Philosophy, Accessed 14/10/2009.

http://etext.virginia.edu/cgi-local/DHI/dhiana.cgi?id=dv4-28

Kneller, Jane. Kant and the Power of Imagination, Accessed 14/10/2009.

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The Successors of Kant Transitions, Accessed 14/10/2009.

http://www.radicalacademy.com/adiphiltransition1.htm

Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung, Accessed 28/10/2009.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kant

Bowie, Andrew. Music and the Rise of Aesthetics, in The Cambridge History of the Nineteenth

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Bonds, Mark Evan. Idealism and the Aesthetics of Instrumental Music at the Turn of the

Nineteenth Century,Journal of the American Musicological Society50/2-3 (1997): 387-420.


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Perrey, Beate Julia. Fragments of Desire: Schumanns Dichterliebe, Cambridge Studies in

Music Theory and Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002, 26-32.

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