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musical practice: anchored in structure
and aiming for newer forms.
Toward the end of the 19th Century,
nationalism became grafted onto
Romantic composition. Composers
like Borodin and Rimsky-Korsakov in
Russia searched for a specific Russian
musical expression. Similar goals were
adopted by Grieg in Norway, Sibelius
in Finland, Dvorák in Czechoslovakia,
de Falla in Spain. Whatever its inspiration,
the music of the period is still
the most popular in the world, and for
the Romantic playlist there are a great
many composers we haven’t named so
far and really should. Rossini, Schubert,
Berlioz, the Strausses father and son, the
Mendelssohns, brother and sister, the
Schumanns husband and wife, Verdi,
Franck, Lalo, Offenbach, Bruckner,
Saint-Saëns, Bizet, Bruch, Mussorgsky,
Tchaikovsky, Janacek, Elgar, Puccini,
Mahler, Debussy, Ravel, de Falla,
Respighi. Whew!
We haven’t included any 20th skills earned him a sponsorship that sent double — to start a Liszt library could
him and his family to Vienna, where well be the Canadian pianist Louis
he studied with Beethoven’s student Lortie’s Complete Années de Pélerinage,
Carl Czerny and met Beethoven and on Chandos. He plays a Fazioli grand;
Schubert. He studied in Paris during the chords are sumptuous and the hall
the 1830’s, a time when new techniques sound is clear.
were being developed for the piano, The Romantic style’s popularity
and resolved to become a virtuoso after showed no sign of diminishing over
hearing Paganini play the violin. This a century of social and technological
he did, and toured Europe extensively upheaval. A reaction had to come,
in the 1840’s, as a result becoming very among composers and musicians above
rich and giving much away to charities, all. Certainly there had been excesses.
especially musical charities. He was Lisztomania was only one flowering of
SHOW REPORTS
received with hysterical admiration by the cult of the virtuoso. Performers were
women, generating a phenomenon called accused of pandering to audiences and
Lisztomania (which may ring a certain outright neglect of the score in the name
bell in our time). Shows A in genuine Las Vegas, Romantic, of self-expression. Some composers felt
he did not marry, in but Toronto, had more or less that there was no adventure left in the
extended and love of course relationships. in Montreal. In the genre.
Sure, you 1860’s, can after find the countless death of show two of reports his three on line, However but… no Beethoven appeared to
children, UHF he adds became its a own Franciscan unique monk. take. drag the music world by sheer creative
Even His our daughter, show pictures Cosima, are married better, have Richard you noticed? force into a new flowering. The Modern
Wagner. We cover the shows on line, for free. period is marked both by schools of new
And then we expand on the experience in UHF musical itself. expression and by individuals
Going to a show? seeking to innovate, many of them
Either way, follow it through our eyes.
radically. The name is ironic, because
arguably the period is over! There is no
single Modern musical current, unless it
is the stretching of earlier formal limits,
especially tonality. We shall have to look
briefly at several composers instead of
choosing one to speak for all.
The neoclassicists returned to form
and thematic elements, but they did it
in three different ways, depending on
whether they were named Stravinsky,
Hindemith or Schoenberg. Stravinsky’s
work evolved from the early Russian
period, which includes The Rite of Spring,
The Firebird and Petrushka, to a neoclassic
period in which he returned to eighteenth-century
forms like the concerto
Known in his lifetime as much or grosso. He never became fixed in a style,
more as a virtuoso pianist than as a and in his final phase he experimented
composer, he still produced innovative with Schoenberg’s twelve-tone system.
-Cen- music. He was the first to compose a Paul Hindemith, a favorite composer of
tury Romantics in that list and we’ve left symphonic poem, writing thirteen of Glenn Gould, reinvented the keyboard
out some earlier ones.
them, as well as other symphonic works, fugue in his Ludus Tonalis. It was based
Who can stand for the Romantics? three piano concertos and a great many on an equal-interval twelve-tone octave.
Franz Liszt encouraged and sponsored shorter works for piano. Notable among The brilliant Schoenberg developed a
other Romantics, including Saint-Saëns these last are the Transcendental and structure for music using the twelve
and Wagner. He was born in Hungary Paganini Études, the Années de Pélerinage, notes of the chromatic scale but no key,
in 1811. His father played several instru- the Grand and Concert Études and the later called serialism. Early in his life he
ments and had worked for the Esterhazy great B minor Sonata. He created many created works in the Romantic tradition
counts who also employed Haydn. The choral works as well, both secular and that seemed to reconcile Brahms and
young Liszt began learning piano at age religious.
Wagner. He also wrote new arrange-
seven; by nine years old his performing A single disc — well, a nicely-priced ments of works by Bach, Handel, his
68 ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine