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Ask any
“serious” music lover to name their favorite orchestral or
operatic composition and chances are very high that they
will mention a work written between the late eighteenth and
the early twentieth centuries. Why is it that the majority
of these so-called musical warhorses fall into this 150-year
period? What is the special appeal of music form this era
that has been labeled “Romantic”?
In order
to answer these questions we must first understand that,
like all art, music is a reflection of the volitional nature
of man as a thinking/emotional being with free will;
therefore, choices are always possible. Music can be
rational and structured or irrational and unstructured, or
any combination of the two.
Imagine
the history of Western music as represented by a trapezoid
(see figure), where the lower horizontal line represents
music which is mostly unstructured and sensory, or
“primitive,” and the shorter upper horizontal line
represents music which is mostly structured and cerebral.
Imagine also that the four angles of our figure represent
the following dates: the lower left, 1450; the upper left,
1700; the upper right, 1800; and the lower right, 1950. Now
let us follow the perimeter of this geometric figure with
reference to the changes that have taken place in music
composition.
Prior to
the fifteenth century, music was used primarily for sacred
or ritualistic purposes, deriving from the emotionally
expressive needs of man. To the improvised single vocal
lines of Gregorian Chant, Western composers from the
eleventh to the fourteenth centuries eventually added more
voices, creating a polyphonic style of music which was
experimental in nature. This music was rhythmically complex,
full of dissonance and devoid of clear tonal centers. But by
1450, composers such as Josquin des Prez were paying more
attention to the resolution of dissonance and to the
rhythmic and harmonic structure of music. Here is where we
begin the ascent from the lower left angle of our figure.
Influenced by the newly discovered Greek culture, the ideas
of balance and form in the visual arts began to capture the
attention of composers as well. They began to experiment
with counterpoint, which juxtaposes two or more similar
melodic lines and results in a harmonic effect. Rules were
developed for the resolution of dissonance, while harmonic
progressions and rhythmic patterns emerged. At its peak,
this “Renaissance” music (the halfway point up the left side
of our figure) struck a balance between emotion and reason.
The texts were still predominantly sacred, although
this, too, was undergoing changes. For a prime example of
this style of music, one could listen to a Mass by
Palestrina, a composer whose music is an expression of
medieval mysticism set in an intentionally restricted
Renaissance musical vocabulary.
Continuing up the left side of the trapezoid we encounter
many more rules for the handling of melodic movement,
harmonic progression and dissonance. As we enter this
“Baroque” period we also encounter a great deal more secular
music—dance forms, vocal music, and instrumental music—that
follows certain rhythmic patterns and is set in particular
meters with specific tempo markings. Music becomes more
formalized as we reach the upper left angle of our figure,
where we come to a turning point. At this juncture, which we
have labeled 1700, we meet that great genius of the Baroque,
J.S. Bach. His music, although predominantly designed for
the church, is filled with mathematical intricacies
displaying an enormous amount of cerebration.
Once we
turn this corner we discover less sacred music and an
increasing number of concert works, solo instrumental works,
court music and opera. This period from 1700-1800 is the
most formal, structured, cerebral period in music; hence,
the term “Classical” music. It is no accident that this time
frame corresponds to the Age of Enlightenment. Mysticism had
become passé. Listen, for example, to “The Creation” by
Haydn. Although the subject is religious in nature, the
music is highly cogent, representing the antithesis of
medieval mysticism.
Toward
the right end of this upper horizontal line we arrive at
another significant point, where music begins to break
away from the purely cerebral. Emotional expression
again becomes an integral part of music, but, this time, it
is not in response to the supernatural but rather as a
reflection of the human condition. Love, nobility, tragedy,
heroism and man’s emotional response to nature are the newly
discovered feelings of the age.
Although
Mozart was the first composer to “humanize” his works, he
did not live long enough to see the idea through. As a
result, it was Beethoven who transformed music from the
cerebral formalism of the classical period into the highly
charged emotionalism of the Romantic period. Just as Bach
stood astride our first turning point, so Beethoven
straddles this second one.
But
Beethoven, inadvertently, spawned two schools of thought in
the nineteenth century. The more conservative composers such
as Mendelssohn, Brahms and Bruckner continued to utilize the
classical forms of symphony, sonata and string quartet,
while at the same time imbuing their music with emotion and
beauty. Radical composers such as Berlioz, Liszt and
Wagner—taking their inspiration from Beethoven’s Sixth
Symphony—wrote descriptive, narrative works which are
generally categorized as program music. They abandoned the
structured classical forms in favor of a freer,
“through-composed” style, that is to say they composed
without the repetition of large sections which tend to hold
a composition to form. New harmonic progressions, more
complex chordal structures, rhythmic flexibility, and an
expanded use of dissonance all come into play at this point.
We are
now at the halfway point on the right side of our figure, a
very critical time in the history of music. By the end of
the nineteenth century there existed a chasm between the two
schools. Compare, for example, the First Symphony of Brahms
and the music drama Parsifal by Wagner, both of which
premiered in 1877.
At the
bottom right of our figure we find music that continues to
distance itself from the formalism of the Classical Period.
Dissonance is no longer resolved, rhythm is unrecognizable,
formal structures disappear, and melody is unessential.
Then, reacting to the excesses of the radical nineteenth
century composers but continuing their philosophy of change,
early twentieth century composers (such as Stravinsky and
Schoenberg) cut all ties with tradition and sought to invent
new musical languages. Unfortunately, in the process they
eliminated the poetry and beauty of music.
Standing
at the brink of the twenty-first century, we can now look
back over the past fifty years and realize that, with rare
exception, composers erred when they followed the path of
the radical composers of the mid-nineteenth century to its
inevitable dead end. One can only bend something for so long
before it breaks. Sadly, we are the heirs to these mere
fragments of what was once a great art.
Now that
we have made our journey around the perimeter of our figure,
let us examine the two periods of music history where
composers struck a balance between the head and the heart,
these being the Renaissance and the Romantic periods.
Renaissance music certainly has a large share of adherents.
But Romantic music has far more. Why?
The
answer may lie not only in the balance between the emotional
and the cerebral but also in the emotions themselves. In the
case of the Renaissance the emotions resulted from the
relationship between man and the supernatural, while in the
Romantic period they were responses to man’s relationship
with himself, with his fellow humans and with nature. Over
the years, science has helped to dispel (in any literal
sense) a great deal of myth and mystery, so we do not
experience the same mystical awe of the supernatural that
men felt in the Middle Ages. We still, however, maintain
passions of love and hate, we continue to require a need for
heroes, we still want to experience the nobility of
humanity, and we continue to be moved by the beauty of
nature. All of these emotional desires and expressions can
be found in the music of the Romantic period; therefore, the
music of this particular period of emotional/cerebral music
rings as true for us as it did for those living a century
ago.
Have we
witnessed the last great age of music? No fortune teller can
foresee the future. But it is probable that in order to at
least begin to recapture what has been lost to music for
half a century, we need to return to that time in the
nineteenth century when the two roads diverged. A
re-examination of the works of Brahms, especially with his
ability to infuse emotion into works of formal structure,
will give us insight into the process of regaining this
powerful balance.
If from
that past period we then create a new road into the
future, it can truly be hoped that important and possibly
great things can be heard again in music appealing to both
the head and heart but, this time, informed by a
contemporary context that can be full of fresh promise and
possibilities. After all, man does not use his mind devoid
of all feeling, (nor the reverse) to the exclusion of the
other in life. Why should his art be otherwise? We might
well remember that it is the fusion of reasoned intelligence
and emotional responses which distinguishes man from the
rest of the animal kingdom—a fact worthy of musical
celebration.
John Massaro, composer and conductor of note,
made his Carnegie Hall debut in the summer of 2005
conducting the Mozart
Requiem.
As a result, he was invited to Europe to conduct several
works by Mozart in 2006 as part of the 250th
anniversary of the composer’s birth. This tour includes
Budapest, Krakow, Prague, Salzburg and Vienna. For seven
years he was Conductor for the Arizona Opera.
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