Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

feelings stirred in them by external objects, but!
rather to present the objects themselves to the'
minds of an audience.
To this kind of music, the term programme-
music has been applied, and we may here perhaps
fitly show wherein it differs from romantic music,
with which there is a tendency in the present
day to confound it. In reality a distinct line
divides the two. Eomantio music implies an
eniotional and imaginativg^ atmosphere, combine3^with
an ideajiatic, as distinct from an
imitative presentment of whatever theme-may be
associated with the music. Programme-music
avowedly endeavours to dfiEJct-and imitate the
actual scenes and sounds, sp literally that no
doubt is left lif the mind of the hearer as to
what the composer desired to represent or reproduce.
Neither emotional nor imaginative
f
128 ROMANTIC EOMANTIC
spell of romance over his muaic. Wagner we
pass by, because he cannot be counteoStmong
the followers of the romantic school, and,
within the limits of this article, it would be
impossible to show the points wherein he
differs from all former romanticists. We may,
howevei', designate one of the greatest of modem
composers as oneofthegreatestromantioists ; and
it is no disparagement to the individuality of
Johannes Brahms to say that he is in many
respects the disciple of Schubert and Schumann.
The romanticism of such productions as the
beautiful romances from Tieck's 'Magelone'
(op. 33) or the cantata ' Einaldo ' (op. 50) is of
course visible at a glance, and there are many
other songs in which the presence of romantic
sensibility is felt throughout. For instance in
one of his most ex(juisite songs Immer ' leiser
wird mein Schlummer,' the phrase 'Eh'- die
Drossel singt im Wald ' reaches a point of
romantic emotion difficult to describe. In
Brahms's greater works the romanticism seems
sometimes veiled, but there~are passages in his
chamber - music and symphonies where this
quality in its deepest sense besides. As examples,
the romanticism of which could hardly be
surpassed, we may cite the slow movement of
the A major pianoforte quartet and the opening
of the last movement of the C minor symphony ;
or the last part of the first movement of the
T) major symphony (seventy-three bars before
the end, where the horns enter and the strings
are kept in the low register) ; or the andante
of the tliird symphony in F, where the different
instruments softly call to each other, as if from
another world after the passionate working-up
tjWenty-seven bars before the close.
Chopin holds a solitary position in romantic
art. Ko school can claim him wholly for its
own, and the best poetic gifts of the French,
German, and Sclavonic nationalitie.3 were united
in him. 'Chopin,' says Liszt, 'refused to be
bound by deference to rules which fettered the
play of his imagination, simply because they
had been accepted as classical.' But the classic
training and solid studies of his youth, combined
with his exquisite taste and Annate refinement,
preserved him from abuse of the liberty which
he was determined to enjoy. The mental
atmosphere of his life in Paris may be felt in
his works. In hatred of whatever was commonplace
and ordinary, he was one with the French
romantic school ; but unlike them he would
not allo^ originality alone to stand in his compositions.
Beauty there must always be to
satisfy him ; and he would have recoiled from
the crudities and extravagances which disfigure
some works of the French romantic period. So
uniformly romantic was Chopin in every stage of
his career, that it would be impossible to illustrate
this quality of his music by extracts. Among
the Sclavonic and Scandinavian races the romantic
element is especially marked ;
a study of the
poetic creations of Tchaikovsky and Grieg will
illustrate this.
The French romantic school of literature was
of later date than the German, and was considerably
affected by it. The general features
of the two schools were very similar, but the
French authors wrote even more than the
German in the mediaeval and mystic vein, and
were more prone to unhealthy exaggeration.
In France, moreover, the antagonism between
the romantic and classical schools was carried to
a i)itch that had no parallel in Germany. The
completeness and universality of the empire
which classic example and tradition had gained
over the educated public of France intensified
the revolt against them, when at last it arrived.
The revolt was as widespread as it was uncompromising:
therewasnota field of art or literature
in which the rebel flag of the new school was
not unfurled, and a revolutionary temper, inflamed
perhaps by the political storms of that
time, was manifest in all that they did. In
the false simplicity and sickly sentimentality,
in the stilted diction and threadbare forms of
expression affected by the reigning school, the
insurgent authors had indeed much to provoke
them. But in the vehemence of their reaction
against such faults they were apt to fall into
an opposite extreme ; and thus, finish of form,
clearness of outline, and coherent sequence of
thought are too often absent from their works.
With respect to music, Berlioz is the typical*
name of the renaissance of 1830 ; but Liszt, on
whom the French school exercised so strong an
influence, may be associated with him. So far
were these composers and their countless followers
borne by the revolutionary impulse, that
they did not shrink at times from a total rejection
of the old traditional forma in their instrumental
music ; but it cannot be said that very valuable
results were obtained by their hardihood. They
chose indeed romantic subjects for musical representation,
as Weber and Schumann had done,
but there the resemblance ceased. They iimed
not, as the earlier masters did, to reproduce the •