# Romanticism, Subtlety, and Pathos



## Conky (Apr 1, 2013)

I'd like to ask you all a question: what comprises "subtlety" in music to you?

I ask because, having listened to mostly Romanticism for a long time, I find that I'm beginning to appreciate music that I consider more "subtle," but which has less bangs and booms than Romanticism. This isn't to say that my love for the Romantic composers is flagging (far from it!), just that I'm beginning to branch out. Now I'm curious about the nature of subtlety.

I almost want to define subtlety as implication - if the music _implies_ something that is not actually there, then the music is subtle in some respect. I can't think of any examples of this off the top of my head, however.

Perhaps when I say "subtle," I just mean "muted." Debussy's string quartet doesn't have the screams and wails of Schubert's 14th string quartet, but it does have a tension and pathos all of its own.

Perhaps by "subtle" I just mean "difficult." But this isn't all true - Shostakovich's melodies can be difficult (i.e. they take a while to process correctly), but I don't know if that makes them subtle.

What do you all think?


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## Guest (Aug 10, 2014)

Romanticism can vary in subtlety as well, you know. See the Brahms vs. Tchaikovsky thread


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

I think true subtlety is an unnoticeable complexity. Something which in ingenious but sounds so simple and effortless. Think Bruckner for example: when I first listened to any of his music I always thought that is was so simple, but his understanding of counterpoint is truly remarkable and the complexity in his work could only have been constructed by a genius.


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## Conky (Apr 1, 2013)

> Romanticism can vary in subtlety as well, you know. See the Brahms vs. Tchaikovsky thread


That's a good point. I suppose I shouldn't have implied that Romanticism isn't subtle. I find that Brahms is, on average, more subtle than Beethoven, inasmuch as Beethoven's emotional power is right-in-your-face, so to speak, while Brahms gives the impression of comparable power hidden just beneath the surface.

Not that Beethoven is _never_ subtle, just that, for the most part, he's more out in the open than Brahms.


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## Couac Addict (Oct 16, 2013)

_*subtle*
adjective
1. (especially of a change or distinction) so delicate or precise as to be difficult to analyse or describe. _

How about something like Messiaen's 5th movement from Quartet for the End of Time...
You have just a cello and piano creating this homophonic piece - it feels really static and like nothing is changing but its modality is constantly shifting. It's really a very dynamic piece but it's that dynamism that creates the harmonic spaces...making the piece feel empty and still.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

For me subtlety can be something new I notice in a piece I think I've known for years. It may be as simple as a motif or phrase that is the building block of a main theme appearing in one movement becoming a unifying or accompanying rhythm in another movement. Those are the kinds of jig-saw puzzle musical subtleties that thrill me. Romanticism abounds with them.

But I confess, these days I enjoy it both with and without the cymbal crashing melodrama, and maybe a bit more often without.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

I usually go for some Ligeti or Takemitsu. The perception of subtleties in music is obviously relative to the listeners ears and understanding. I was listening to Per Norgad's 3rd symphony last week, and I have no idea how he creates the sounds and structures in his music. It sounds very complicated, but I don't find it fatiguing to listen to. It's just a bit baffling.

Ligeti's music is also incredibly sophisticated and complex, but he explains in detail how he constructed these masterpieces in the excellent liner notes for the Teldec Ligeti Project box. There are things going on in the music that can't even be written down in standard notation. Micro-intervals and such.


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

I don't believe that subtlety and complexity are the same, though there certainly is a relationship between the two.






One may not realize the complexity here right off the bat, but the bass line is actually a canonic duplication of the melody (that is, the same notes, but coming afterwards).

Of course, often the word subtle connotes the almost imperceptible, the concise, and the finely detailed. This of course describes Webern to a T.






But subtlety is by no means confined to one style, and one can find plenty of subtleties in Beethoven and Bruckner and Wagner.






The subtlety of the Kindertotenlieder is precisely what makes them so affecting. Note that the above song is the one quoted at the end of the Ninth.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

I would say that subtlety is something that is actually there, but not designed for being deliberately perceived, and not as a core element of what's being presented in the music. Rather, the subtlety gives to the core material more strength. The piece can survive without the subtlety, but definitely one has the sensation of something more "rough" without it.

Orchestration is one of the realms in which this take on subtlety is very real. Take the third movement of Ligeti's Piano Concerto. There, at 1:18 you have the entrance of the rototoms playing a 4:3 cross rhythm. But before this, the strings were playing that same cross rhythm in pizzicato very quietly, as a kind of anticipation. Since the timbre of the strings in pizzicato is similar to the rototoms, this makes the entrance of the rototoms less abrupt, the strings "smooth" out the entrance of the rototoms. This is quite subtle, but it makes a difference (which can be heard more clearly if you have the recording, the youtube link has low quality). That concerto is full of these tricks.

But you don't need to go to the "avant-garde" in order to find these things. Take the opening bars of Mozart's famous Piano Concerto No.20. The piece starts with an opaque texture, only the strings play. But as the introduction accumulates harmonic tension, the texture very gradually becomes more brighter by the introduction of the brass and woodwinds. First the horn at 0:16, it's almost indiscernible from the low strings. Then the bassoon at 0:19, still opaque but more bright than the horn. Then the oboe at 0:22, clearly bright, but reminiscent of the bassoon. And finally the flute closes the phrase and releases the tension.


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

Conky said:


> I'd like to ask you all a question: what comprises "subtlety" in music to you?


In a word, Mozart.


> I almost want to define subtlety as implication - if the music _implies_ something that is not actually there, then the music is subtle in some respect. I can't think of any examples of this off the top of my head, however.


His mature piano concertos come to mind - very often relaxed and cheerful on the surface, yet somehow tinged with grief and yearning for something unattainable. Try out his piano concerto no. 23, for example.


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## Conky (Apr 1, 2013)

aleazk said:


> I would say that subtlety is something that is actually there, but not designed for being deliberately perceived, and not as a core element of what's being presented in the music. Rather, the subtlety gives to the core material more strength. The piece can survive without the subtlety, but definitely one has the sensation of something more "rough" without it.


So for you, subtlety is an element of the music that doesn't make up the core, and is felt rather than heard, so to speak? I think that that is a good characterization of musical subtlety. It reminds me of the bass in the coda of the first movement of Beethoven's 7th. You don't really _hear_ it on first listen, but it gives an otherwise joyous passage a somewhat deranged feeling.

Also, the Mozart concerto you recommended is excellent. Listening to it now.


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