Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

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126 ROMANTIC ROMANTIC
strings,
Horns.
That there are times when music has a fuller
and wider range of meaning than language, and
defies expression in words, might be illustrated
by many passages in Beethoven's B flat trio or
the last five sonatas. But with regard to the,
choice of examples we must remind the reader
that, where the standpoint of criticism is almost
wholly subjective, great diversities of judgment
are inevitable.
It was not until after the appearance of the
works of Carl Maria von Weber, who lived in
close relation wit^ the romantic school of literature,
and who drew his inspirations from their
writings, that crit|es began to speak of a
' romantic school of music' Beethoven had
by this timeTeeiT accepted as classical, but in
addition to Weber himself, Schubert and afterwards
Mendelssohn, Schumann, and Chopin were
all held to be representatives of the romantic
school. Widely as the composers of this new
school differed in other respects, they were alike
in their °'ifl(iept'^''''*^y *" *'^° *•""" "*' ^'hnij;*'*^ and
feeling which so -deeply cnloiired the romantic
lit,eratiirBjTf_their time. {Tone of them were
strangers to that weariness of the actual world
around them, and those yearnings to escape
from it, which pursued so many of the finest
minds of the generations to which they belonged.
T(f men thus predisposed, it was a relief and
delight to live in an ideal world as remote as
possible from the real one. Some took refuge
in mediaeval legends, where no border divided
the natural from the supernatural, and where
nothing could be incongruous or improbable
some in the charms and solitudes of nature
and others in the contemplation of peace and
beatitude beyond the grave. But in all there
was the same impatience of the material and
mundane conditions of their existence, the^ame
longing to dwell in the midst of scenes and
images which mortals could but dimly see
through the glass of religious or poetic imagination.
As might have been expected of works
produced under su(ph influences, indistinctness
of outline wasacommon attribute of compositions
of the romantic school. The hard, clear lines
of reality were seldom met with in them, and
the cold analysis of pure reason was perpetually
eluded.
It was equallynatural that the creations
of minds withdrawn from contact with the
actual world and wrapt in their own fancies,
should vividly reflect the moods and phases of
feeling out of which they sprang—that they
should be, in short, intensely subjective. Nor
was it surprising that when impatience of
reality, indistinctness of outline, and excessive
subjectivity co-existed, the pleasures of imagination
sometimes took a. morbid hue. Such
conditions of origin as we have been describing
could not fail to affect the forms of composition.
It was not that the romanticists deliberately
rejected or even undervalued classic models,
but that, borne onward bY_the impulse to give
freg_gjpr£ssiqn[to theif^own individuality, they
did not suffer themselves to be bound by forms,
however excellent, which they felt to be inadequate
for their purpose. Had the leaders of
the romantic school been men of less genius,
this tendency might have degenerated into
disregard of form ; but happily in them liberty
did not beget license, and the art of music was
enriched by the addition of new forms. 'The
extremes,' says Goethe, speaking of the romantic
school of literature, 'will disappear, and at
lei%th the great advantage will remain that a
wider and more varied subject-matter, together
with a freer form, will be attained.' Goethe's
anticipations were equally applicable to music.
Among masters of the romantic school,
Weber stands second to none. In youth he
surrendered himself to the fascination of literary
romanticism, and this early bias of his mipd
was confirmed in later years by constant intercourse
at Dresden with Holtei, Tieck, E. T. A.
Hoffmann, and other men of the same cast of
thought. The subjects of Weber's Qgeras were
selected exclusively from romantic literature,
and the 'RomanticjOpeia,le£j£hich Gei-manyhas
so much reason to be proud, owed to him its
origin and highest development, although the
names of Spohr,i Marschner, Lindpaintner,
Kreutzer, Lortzing, and others are justly associated
with it. The romantic effects which
Weber could produce in his instruittentation are
indisputable; and never, even in the least of his
pianoforte works, did he cease to be romantic.
Though Weber holds the first place in the
opera of the romantic school, he was surpassed
in other branches of composition by his contemporary,
Franz gehtihgrt. Pure and classic as
is the form of Schubert's symjJiQnies and
sonata, the very essence of romanticism is disclosed
in them. His unrivalled wealth of
melody was the gift of romanticism. It gave
him also a certain indefiniteness and, as it were,
indivisibility of ideas, which some critics have
judged to be a failing, but which were in fact
the secret of this strength, because they enabled
him to repeat and develop, to change and then
again resume his beautiful themes and figures
in long and rich progression, without pause
and without satiety. None have known, as he >
knew, how to elicit almost human sounds from a
single instrument— as for instance, in the wellknown
passage for the horn in the second
movement of the C major Symphony, of which
Schumann said that 'it seems to have come
-i,!!P'T ''°"''' •">'','?P0'"-'» ol»in> to priority of inventioi
Komantic of th(?
opera, are discumed in OpEUi, vol. iil. p. 456. oto.