Neoromanticism (music)
Encyclopedia
Neoromanticism in music is a return (at any of several points in the nineteenth or twentieth centuries) to the emotional expression associated with nineteenth-century Romanticism
. Since the mid-1970s the term has come to be identified with neoconservative postmodernism
, especially in Germany, Austria, and the United States, with composers such as Wolfgang Rihm
and George Rochberg
. Currently active US
-based composers widely described as neoromantic include David Del Tredici
and Ellen Taaffe Zwilich (Pasler 2001).
in his polemical 1851 article "Oper und Drama", as a disparaging term for the French romanticism of Hector Berlioz
and Giacomo Meyerbeer
from 1830 onwards, which he regarded as a degenerated form of true romanticism. Ironically, the word came to be used by historians of ideas to refer to music from 1850 onwards, and to the work of Wagner in particular. The designation "neo" was used to acknowledge the fact that music of the second half of the 19th century remained in a romantic mode in an unromantic age, dominated by positivism
, when literature and painting had moved on to realism and impressionism
(Dahlhaus 1979, 98–99).
According to Daniel Albright, "In the late twentieth century, the term Neoromanticism came to suggest a music that imitated the high emotional saturation of the music of (for example) Schumann [ Romanticism ], but in the 1920s it meant a subdued and modest sort of emotionalism, in which the excessive gestures of the Expressionists
were boiled down into some solid residue of stable feeling" (Albright 2004, 278–80). Thus, in Albright's view, neoromanticism in the 1920s was not a return to romanticism but, on the contrary, a tempering of an overheated post-romanticism
. See: Romantic music
and Neoclassicism (music)
.
Romantic music
Romantic music or music in the Romantic Period is a musicological and artistic term referring to a particular period, theory, compositional practice, and canon in Western music history, from 1810 to 1900....
. Since the mid-1970s the term has come to be identified with neoconservative postmodernism
Neoconservative postmodernism
In music, neoconservative postmodernism is "a sort of 'postmodernism of reaction'," which values, "textual unity and organicism as totalizing musical structures," like, "latter-day modernists," and includes composers such as Fred Lerdahl, John Harbison, and Steve Reich.Neoconservative...
, especially in Germany, Austria, and the United States, with composers such as Wolfgang Rihm
Wolfgang Rihm
Wolfgang Rihm is a German composer.Rihm is Head of the Institute of Modern Music at the Karlsruhe Conservatory of Music and has been composer in residence at the Lucerne Festival and the Salzburg Festival...
and George Rochberg
George Rochberg
George Rochberg was an American composer of contemporary classical music.-Life:Rochberg was born in Paterson, New Jersey. He attended the Mannes College of Music, where his teachers included George Szell and Hans Weisse, and the Curtis Institute of Music, where he studied with Rosario Scalero and...
. Currently active US
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
-based composers widely described as neoromantic include David Del Tredici
David Del Tredici
David Del Tredici, born March 16, 1937 in Cloverdale, California, is an American composer. According to Del Tredici's website, Aaron Copland said David Del Tredici "is that rare find among composers — a creator with a truly original gift...
and Ellen Taaffe Zwilich (Pasler 2001).
Definitions
Neoromanticism was a term that originated in literary theory in the early 19th century to distinguish later kinds of romanticism from earlier manifestations. In music, it was first used by Richard WagnerRichard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
in his polemical 1851 article "Oper und Drama", as a disparaging term for the French romanticism of Hector Berlioz
Hector Berlioz
Hector Berlioz was a French Romantic composer, best known for his compositions Symphonie fantastique and Grande messe des morts . Berlioz made significant contributions to the modern orchestra with his Treatise on Instrumentation. He specified huge orchestral forces for some of his works; as a...
and Giacomo Meyerbeer
Giacomo Meyerbeer
Giacomo Meyerbeer was a noted German opera composer, and the first great exponent of "grand opera." At his peak in the 1830s and 1840s, he was the most famous and successful composer of opera in Europe, yet he is rarely performed today.-Early years:He was born to a Jewish family in Tasdorf , near...
from 1830 onwards, which he regarded as a degenerated form of true romanticism. Ironically, the word came to be used by historians of ideas to refer to music from 1850 onwards, and to the work of Wagner in particular. The designation "neo" was used to acknowledge the fact that music of the second half of the 19th century remained in a romantic mode in an unromantic age, dominated by positivism
Positivism
Positivism is a a view of scientific methods and a philosophical approach, theory, or system based on the view that, in the social as well as natural sciences, sensory experiences and their logical and mathematical treatment are together the exclusive source of all worthwhile information....
, when literature and painting had moved on to realism and impressionism
Impressionism
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement that originated with a group of Paris-based artists whose independent exhibitions brought them to prominence during the 1870s and 1880s...
(Dahlhaus 1979, 98–99).
According to Daniel Albright, "In the late twentieth century, the term Neoromanticism came to suggest a music that imitated the high emotional saturation of the music of (for example) Schumann [ Romanticism ], but in the 1920s it meant a subdued and modest sort of emotionalism, in which the excessive gestures of the Expressionists
Expressionism
Expressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas...
were boiled down into some solid residue of stable feeling" (Albright 2004, 278–80). Thus, in Albright's view, neoromanticism in the 1920s was not a return to romanticism but, on the contrary, a tempering of an overheated post-romanticism
Post-romanticism
Post-romanticism or Postromanticism refers to a range of cultural products and attitudes emerging in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, after the period of Romanticism....
. See: Romantic music
Romantic music
Romantic music or music in the Romantic Period is a musicological and artistic term referring to a particular period, theory, compositional practice, and canon in Western music history, from 1810 to 1900....
and Neoclassicism (music)
Neoclassicism (music)
Neoclassicism in music was a twentieth-century trend, particularly current in the period between the two World Wars, in which composers sought to return to aesthetic precepts associated with the broadly defined concept of "classicism", namely order, balance, clarity, economy, and emotional restraint...
.
Sources
- Albright, Daniel. 2004. Modernism and Music: An Anthology of Sources. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-01267-0.
- Dahlhaus, Carl. 1979. "Neo-Romanticism". 19th-Century Music 3, no. 2 (November): 97–105.
- Heyman, Barbara B. 2001. "Barber, Samuel." The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan Publishers; New York: Grove's Dictionaries of Music.
- Hoover, Kathleen, and John Cage. 1959. Virgil Thompson: His Life and Music. New York: Thomas Yoseloff.
- Pasler, Jann. 2001. “Neo-romantic". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley SadieStanley SadieStanley Sadie CBE was a leading British musicologist, music critic, and editor. He was editor of the sixth edition of the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians , which was published as the first edition of the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians.Sadie was educated at St Paul's School,...
and John TyrrellJohn Tyrrell (professor of music)John Tyrrell was born in Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia in 1942. He studied at the universities of Cape Town, Oxford and Brno. In 2000 he was appointed Research Professor at Cardiff University....
. London: Macmillan Publishers. - Thomson, Virgil. 2002. Virgil Thomson: A Reader: Selected Writings, 1924-1984, edited by Richard KostelanetzRichard KostelanetzRichard Kostelanetz is an American artist, author and critic.He was born to Boris Kostelanetz and Ethel Cory and is the nephew of the composer Andre Kostelanetz....
. New York: Routledge. ISBN 0415937957. - Watanabe, Ruth T., and James Perone. 2001. "Hanson, Howard." The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. S. Sadie and J.Tyrrell. London: Macmillan.
Further reading
- Lewis, Zachary M. 2003. "Neo This, Neo That: An Attempt to Trace the Origins of Neo-Romanticism". New Music Box (1 September). (Accessed 9 January 2011)
- Simmons, Walter. 2004. Voices in the Wilderness: Six American Neo-Romantic Composers. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press; Oxford: Oxford Publicity Partnership. ISBN 978-0-8108-4884-9 (hardcover) Paperback reprint 2006. ISBN 978-0-8108-5728-5.
- Svatos, Thomas D. 2009. "A Clash over Julietta: The Martinů/Nejedlý Political Conflict and Twentieth-Century Czech Critical Culture". Ex Tempore 14, no. 2:1-41.
External links
- Art of the States: neoromantic neoromantic works by American composers
- "Neoromanticism", Canadian Music Centre