# Who was the first Romantic?



## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

Who would you say was the first Romantic composer?


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

Most early Romantics weren't even Romantic by its Latin definition. They were Individualistic. The first true Romantic was Wagner.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

Ethereality said:


> Most early Romantics weren't even Romantic by its periodical definition. They were Individualistic. The first true Romantic was Wagner.


Hmmm, interesting. I didn't even think to make Wagner an option. He strikes me as the quintessential Romantic, but not the first.


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

Secondary question when people are done. Didn't want to make a new thread.

Who we're the first Bromantics?


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## Simplicissimus (Feb 3, 2020)

My vote is for Beethoven. IMV, his Symphony No. 6 "Pastoral" (1808) is foundational because it is clearly programmatic and features Nature (notice capital "N"). One of the influential sources for Romanticism across the arts was Goethe's _Die Leiden des jungen Werthers_ (1774), in which the protagonist sees his psychological states projected onto Nature, and Nature's states mirrored in his psychological and emotional experiences. The "human in nature" fixation of Romanticism continued strongly in later composers like Mendelssohn (Hebrides), Dvorak (In Nature's Realm), Sibelius (pick one), and plenty of others.


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## MusicSybarite (Aug 17, 2017)

I voted Beethoven, but I think Schubert deserves credit too.


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## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

In terms of being the founder of musical Romanticism as a sweeping 19th century movement, it's undoubtedly Beethoven. But music with a Romantic _aesthetic_ dates all the way back to Bach (and earlier):


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Hummel and the Romantics: the Classical Composer and Keyboardist Influenced a Whole Generation of Younger Artists
https://www.earlymusicamerica.org/files/EMagSummer07Hummel.pdf


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## Richannes Wrahms (Jan 6, 2014)

The textbooks say Carl Maria von Weber and I tend to agree, Beet remained *C*lassical all his career.


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

Richannes Wrahms said:


> The textbooks say Carl Maria von Weber and I tend to agree.


One of the most influential composers of all time?


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## Knorf (Jan 16, 2020)

It was Joseph Haydn. 

The "Classical period" is a misnomer anyway.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

Knorf said:


> It was Joseph Haydn.
> 
> The "Classical period" is a misnomer anyway.


If Haydn is Romantic, then there is no Classical period.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Interestingly, Beethoven and English poet William Wordsworth share the same birth year, 1770. I suspect that Wordsworth knew he was on the crest of a poetic revolution; he titled his 1798 collection _Lyrical Ballads_. That seems a title one such as Alexander Pope could not even have conceived of. Pope worked within a range detailed by rules and expectations; his genius flourishes without expanding forms. Much the same could be said of Haydn and even Mozart*; they were content to let their music serve man (as Pope did his poetry). Wordsworth and Beethoven seem less in the service of man than they do in the service of their own expressions. Thus, Romantics.

I count the Beethoven Third Symphony as the first major expression of Romanticism in music; it clearly seems something different from anything by Haydn (which cannot be completely argued of the First or Second Symphonies). The form is changed; the expression is passionate and emotional; and that funeral march seems to seal the deal. Recall that Wordsworth's brand of Romantic lyrical poetry derived from what we term today "The Graveyard School", of which Thomas Gray's "Elegy..." is the leading exponent. Painters of this same era turned to landscapes for inspiration, many of which included cemetery scenes. The pull of Nature, the deep reflection on the meaning of life (and death), a fascination for the ancient and the fantastical, the lure of the human heart rather than the human mind, and a general exploration of and subsequent modifications of forms and styles mark Romantic art, whether it be poetry, music, or painting.

Just as, I believe, Wordsworth knew his undertakings were different from what had come before in poetry, Beethoven, I suggest, realized a similar mode in his composition. If Pope and Haydn created art for the instruction of man in society, Wordsworth and Beethoven created art for the expression of the individual's deepest heartfelt passions. As Wordsworth aptly puts it: "Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears".

We can quibble about eras and art styles and who comes first in whereever, but in the generally accepted notions of "Classical Period" and "Romantic Period", it seems clear to me that Beethoven remains the strongest argument for the position of "First Romantic Composer" in the same sense that William Wordsworth lays claim to the title of "First Romantic Poet". There were dabblers among their predecessors, but not until Ludwig and William stepped forth was any artist's full footprint inlaid in the clay of the new and revolutionary Romantic spirit.

*Late Mozart is problematical at best, and verges on the Romantic. Had the _Jupiter _Symphony been written by Schubert, we'd likely term it a Romantic expression.


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## Fabulin (Jun 10, 2019)

Georg Friedrich Haendel

but seriously, von Weber.

Mozart reached the step into Romanticism, but a vast majority of his work is not romantic, so calling him that would make the word lose its meaning.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

Beethoven, whose 1803 symphony "eroica" defines the Romantic period in music: bigger ideas, greater range from PPP to FFF than previously, longer or larger forms, and often naming music after a romantic idea or legend. 

In the case of the eroica symphony this all fits: the symphony was twice the duration of any previous symphony, its ideas ranged from the heroism of its given name to the funeral march, It used a larger orchestra and it was louder than any symphony prior to it. This was the entree of romantic music in the 19th century.

Schubert, by contrast, was 6 years old in 1803. Carl Maria von Weber, sometimes called the first romantic opera composer, had published three operas by 1803, the year he penned Peter Schmoll und seine Nachbarn. All his famous operas came at least a decade later, sometimes two decades later.


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## Caryatid (Mar 28, 2020)

It's very arguable, of course, but Weber is the obvious candidate. Beethoven is a transitional figure. He may have had a Romantic sensibility, but his harmonic language and sense of form are a long way from Schumann, Chopin, Berlioz, etc. On the whole, if a composer wrote mainly in sonata form, I'd say they are probably not a Romantic.



SONNET CLV said:


> Pope worked within a range detailed by rules and expectations; his genius flourishes without expanding forms. Much the same could be said of Haydn


Haydn's genius flourished without expanding forms?


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## annaw (May 4, 2019)

Couchie said:


> If Haydn is Romantic, then there is no Classical period.


No, no, J.S. Bach was the first composer of the Classical period .


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## Beebert (Jan 3, 2019)

Schubert for sure, he is the expression of the first birth pangs of romantic music. Definitively not Beethoven.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

I guess any era can show composers who were somewhat romantic in their approach to their art and others who were more classically inclined. But the Romantic (capital R) era can't really have started before Beethoven. CPE Bach, for example, did much to usher in the Classical era and explore the possibilities of its aesthetic. He may have been something of a revolutionary and may have had a somewhat romantic disposition but he surely can't have been a Romantic!


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

Étienne Méhul (1763 - 1817)









"Méhul was the very first composer to be styled a Romantic; a critic used the term in _La chronique de Paris_ on 1 April 1793 when reviewing Méhul's _Le jeune sage et le vieux fou_." (Wikipedia)


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## Dima (Oct 3, 2016)

Couchie said:


> Who would you say was the first Romantic composer?


You don't think that Vivaldi-Seasons is romantism really?


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## mahlernerd (Jan 19, 2020)

I voted Mozart and was a little surprised to see that nobody else did. I feel like the D Minor piano concerto feels like a Romantic piece and even foreshadows Beethoven quite a bit, especially in the Third movement.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Caryatid said:


> It's very arguable, of course, but Weber is the obvious candidate. Beethoven is a transitional figure. He may have had a Romantic sensibility, but his harmonic language and sense of form are a long way from Schumann, Chopin, Berlioz, etc. On the whole, if a composer wrote mainly in sonata form, I'd say they are probably not a Romantic.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


True. Awkwardly stated, though fuller context of the remark might clarify somewhat.

Haydn developed the symphony and the string quartet, etc., but the relative forms (sonata-allegro, theme and variation, rondo) he utilized did not undergo much growth or expansion throughout his career. There is a similar texture (feel) to the early Haydn symphonies as to the late ones. Though Haydn did experiment with "form" and did utilize humor and such in his music, it is clearly not strongly emotional music, where the passions dominate the structure. Haydn doesn't "let loose" and throw in lengthy developmental diversions or rhapsodic interludes in order to press a point. Tchaikovsky's Sixth Symphony has an opening movement that is a model of sonata form, that same form Haydn cherished, but one would not mistake the Tchaikovsky for a Haydn work because its form is propelled by emotional content outside the consideration of Haydn and his contemporary "classical" composers. Beethoven's First and Second Symphonies present wonderful classical models while straining at the seams, but it is that "monstrous" Third that fully steps out of the shadow of classicism and gives us something else to be reckoned with. And we can hear and feel that it is different from anything that came before, even as we study the sonata-form of the opening movement or the Ternery form of the second movement, forms familiar to Haydn. I suppose I'm speaking of "form" in a larger than strict definition and including not just structural elements but other musical determinants such as harmonic concerns and melodic phrasings -- stuff that is difficult to put into words, which is why we have the musical language in the first place: because words prove inadequate for certain forms of human expression.

Thanks for calling me out on this. You were right. And I'm not certain my brief explanation clarifies anything. But there may be proof in the pudding, if the pudding is a listen to Haydn v. Beethoven and other hard-core Romantics. Alas ….


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

I voted Berlioz. Even if traces of the Romantic aesthetics could be found in the works of previous composers, for example in the _Pastoral_ symphony or in the opera _Der Freischütz_, I believe that the first truly romantic composer is the french. I think in the generation of great composers ended in the late 1820s (Weber, Beethoven, Schubert) as transitional figures between romanticism and the Classical period, and for me a reasonable formal "starting date" for the former (for pedagogical purposes) could be 1830, the year of the first presentation of the _Symphonie Fantastique_.

Some people claim that there can be found romanticism in some works of composers as diverse as J.S. Bach and Mozart, but could these composers, considering the majority of their works, really be considered romantic?


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## Swosh (Feb 25, 2018)

Yea it's between schubert beethoven and weber for me. can't decide.


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## ZeR0 (Apr 7, 2020)

I voted for Beethoven, as although I cannot definitively say that he was the first romantic composer, his works undoubtedly left a huge shadow over the romantic period and influenced many composers during the period. In fact, I think it could be argued that the whole of 19th century music would potentially look a lot different if Beethoven had never existed.


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## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

Couchie said:


> If Haydn is Romantic, then there is no Classical period.


When I think "Classical," I think of _The Creation_ and the _Trumpet Concerto_ over anything else.


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## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

Dima said:


> You don't think that Vivaldi-Seasons is romantism really?


Let's submit Rebel's _Les Elemens_ as the first Modernist piece while we're at it!


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## Knorf (Jan 16, 2020)

*On the Arbitrary Nature of Musical "Periods"*

There are a number of problems with the usual designation of musical periods. I was taught the same way everyone was, with the same traditional names and rough dates for each period. A deeper study of the composers involved, however, reveals how arbitrary and sometimes very misleading these designations are.

Any composer of sufficient merit and reasonable lifespan does not compose the same way at the end of their careers as they did at the beginning. Mozart did not compose the same at 30 as he did at 20. Beethoven did not compose the same at 50 as he did at 30. Haydn did not compose the same at 70 as he did at 50.

The great composers wrestle with their own craft and creativity through their entire lives, and their styles necessarily evolve with them. It's true that there are some notable mediocrities who compose the same at 50 as they did at 20 (I'm looking at you, Eric Whitacre,) but I feel those are the exceptions that prove the rule.

Commentators often try to shoehorn composers' styles to fit their period designation narrative. Thus does a composer like Haydn, who outlived Mozart by almost two decades and lived long enough to have been able to hear Beethoven's first six symphonies, get treated as if all his symphonies were stylistically the same, as if stuck in the 1770s. Anyone with even a little depth of study in this body of work realizes quickly how different the "London" Symphonies are from the "Paris" Symphonies, how expanded in form and further developed in style and instrumentation they are. It is simply not true that Haydn didn't continue to expand the potential of the sonata principle through his entire career. There's no question that he did.

The next big problem is devising the arbitrary beginning and end points for these periods. A simple example would be the Post-tonal period. When does it start? Some point to Schoenberg, Op. 11 as the first "atonal" piece. But Franz Liszt wrote his _Bagatelle sans tonalité_ in 1885. Some point to Wagner's _Tristan und Isolde_ prelude. But everything Wagner did in that prelude, including the famous "Tristan chord," can be traced to antecedents, especially in Liszt. And let's not forget that composers such as Richard Strauss continued to compose in a common-practice tonal idiom into the late 1940s.

Let's take the Baroque period. Did it end in 1750, when J. S. Bach died? Obviously the big problem there is that is very well known that Bach was considered hopelessly old-fashioned by his death. The musical world had moved on stylistically by a couple decades earlier. Did it begin when Monteverdi began composing operas, and developed his particular style of homophony? But he continued writing polyphonic music that sounds very much like high Renaissance polyphony almost his whole life.

For that matter, Arnold Schoenberg continued writing conventionally triadic, common-practice tonal music through his whole life as well.

A further problem is what the period designations actually _mean_. I can find little agreement as to what "Romantic" means, except that it applies more or less to composers in the 19th century. The "Classical" period is even worse. It's clear what it meant in poetry, but composers didn't do anything like what "Classical" poets of the 18th century did, in reviving _very_ old poetic forms from antiquity.

"Romantic" as a designation also comes from poetry, and is usually applied roughly to the same period of time as music. "Romantic" poets had a clear, often polemical reaction against the Neoclassical poets as part of what defines them. _That flatly did not happen in music_. In fact, Romantic composers carried on working with and expanding what the composers of the so-called "Classical" period did! In fact, unlike the poets, the traditionally-labeled Romantic composers _revered_ their immediate predecessors, Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven!

Anyone who says Haydn didn't continue to expand on the sonata principle, I suspect, has done very little detailed study of the actual music. You can find totally absurd statements such as, well, everyone agrees that Tchaikovsky was a Romantic composer, and he doesn't sound like Haydn (even though he very obviously uses forms developed by Haydn), so therefore Haydn cannot be a Romantic composer. Bach doesn't sound like Monteverdi, at any point of either composers' careers. Shall we then say that Bach was not a Baroque composer?

In studying Haydn symphonies, I discovered that almost every "innovation" in the sonata principle was tried by Haydn at some point. Examples:

Introducing a new theme in the coda of a sonata principle movement, a much-admired feature of Beethoven's Third. Haydn did that.

Recapitulating the the third movement of a symphony in the development section of the last, a much admired feature of Beethoven's Fifth. Haydn did that.

Using mediant and chromatic mediant key relationships as stand-ins for the usual fifth-based relationships, a much-admired featured of Beethoven's "Waldstein" sonata. Haydn did that.

Expanding the resources of the symphony orchestra by adding new instruments, a much-admired feature of Beethoven's Fifth and Ninth Symphonies. Haydn did that his whole career! (About the only thing Haydn didn't try is a choral symphony.)

Composing about nature, a much-admired feature of Beethoven's Sixth. Haydn did that.

Presenting the thematic groups in a different order in the recapitulation of a sonata principle movement, a favorite trick of Brahms. Haydn did that.

Introducing further thematic development in transitional or closing sections of a sonata principle movement, a much admired feature of many of Beethoven's works. Haydn did that.

I could go on. I leave it as an exercise for the reader to discover which of Haydn's works I'm referring to. Studying Haydn is a wonderful activity for any lover of music.

Obviously, Haydn didn't expand all of these things as far as others did. So what? Almost all of it basically started with him.

Haydn didn't invent the Symphonic Poem (thank you, Franz Liszt), or try out an explicitly programmatic symphony (thank you, Ludwig), although the "Farewell" Symphony is a nascent beginning. Ok, so I can't ascribe _every_ Romantic innovation to Haydn. But notice how many of them started there! ETA: anyone who says Haydn didn't write emotional music deserves to be laughed at.

To recap: the "Classical" designation in poetry makes sense, because those poets revived very old forms from antiquity. That didn't happen in music in any meaningful sense. The "Romantic" designation in poetry was in regard to a reaction against "Classical" poets in the 18th century. Romantic composers _revered_ the so-called "Classical" composers, very much _unlike_ the poets. Nothing like that happened in the Romantic period except for...

Wait. Wait a minute. What did composers react against in the 18th century? Wait for it....

The Baroque.

If there's a parallel to composers reacting in opposition to the past in music, that parallels the reaction of "Romantic" poets against "Classical" poets, it's the composers who reacted _against Baroque music_.

This is why I said up thread that the "Classical" period in music is a misnomer. I think it is. In the very least, it's highly misleading.

Of course, Haydn was not alone in expanding and developing the sonata principle in music form. We have Boccherini, C.P.E. Bach and others to thank as well. But nevertheless I posit that everything we see in terms what develops into what we call "Romanticism" has its ultimate, nascent source in the music of Joseph Haydn.


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## Dima (Oct 3, 2016)

ORigel said:


> Let's submit Rebel's _Les Elemens_ as the first Modernist piece while we're at it!


Real modernists image not only haos haoticly, but everyting they see (love, peace, nature) as one big haos.


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## Simplicissimus (Feb 3, 2020)

Knorf said:


> *On the Arbitrary Nature of Musical "Periods"*
> 
> There are a number of problems with the usual designation of musical periods. I was taught the same way everyone was, with the same traditional names and rough dates for each period. A deeper study of the composers involved, however, reveals how arbitrary and sometimes very misleading these designations are.
> 
> ...


I feel like I want to disagree with you because the connections among Romantic music (starting with Beethoven), literature (e.g., Goethe), graphic art (e.g., Caspar David Friedrich), and philosophy (e.g., Fichte, Hegel) are patently obvious to me. These Romantics were part of a movement (I contend) and were not only aware of each other, but positively inspired each other's creative endeavors. They were all part of a philosophical, artistic, and greater European cultural movement away from the objective and toward the subjective, toward greater freedom and creativity of the human spirit. This is not a movement in which Haydn was particularly involved.

The problem is that I cannot make this argument rigorously with respect to the musical developments that you cite. I cannot point exactly to how German Idealist philosophy, Goethe's writings, or Friedrich's paintings inspired Beethoven to use the musical figures that he used. I perceive that Haydn's musical compositions refer in a Classical, objective way to a bird, a frog, and the sunset, but that Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony refers to a Romantic, subjective experience of a human in nature. However, I cannot justify my perceptions rigorously, and must admit that they might be colored by received knowledge about Classicism and Romanticism, about Haydn and Beethoven.

In sum, I have to acknowledge the persuasiveness of your arguments within the realm of music. Bravo.


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## Knorf (Jan 16, 2020)

Certainly the ties to overt Romanticism in the other arts lend strength to a later starting point for Romantic music. But the reason why the argument⁠—over when, precisely, the Romantic period in music starts⁠—is so common and so unending is that music was already doing a lot of what we later call Romantic long before. The starting point for the Romantic period in music is one of the most arbitrary of any of them. And I've already explained why I think "Classical" period is a misnomer in music.

To me, what's more important than the label is recognizing that changes and developments in music are always spread out, sometimes over decades. Not everything you'd call Romantic music was happening with Haydn, but some of it was, and he was one of the first. That's the important point.

(Thanks for the kind words, Simplicissimus. I enjoy these discussions. No one has all the answers.)


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Knorf said:


> *On the Arbitrary Nature of Musical "Periods"*
> 
> There are a number of problems with the usual designation of musical periods. I was taught the same way everyone was, with the same traditional names and rough dates for each period. A deeper study of the composers involved, however, reveals how arbitrary and sometimes very misleading these designations are.
> 
> ...


I don't have at all the knowledge to confute what you're saying, but I have the impression that you are reducing the distinction (or the lack of distinction) between the classical and romantic period to technical elements, but isn't the character and the aesthetic values of the music important? I'm not an expert of the two composers, but when I hear Wagner and Tristan and Isolde for instance I feel a sense of longing and the idea of the sublime that I don't remember in the music of Haydn.


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## Bigbang (Jun 2, 2019)

Well, I asked my trusty all-knowing phone and the answer was Hector Berlioz, with early works such as symphonie fantastique.

And the source? I heard it came from Talk Classical. :tiphat:


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## Knorf (Jan 16, 2020)

norman bates said:


> I don't have at all the knowledge to confute what you're saying, but I have the impression that you are reducing the distinction (or the lack of distinction) between the classical and romantic period to technical elements, but isn't the character and the aesthetic values of the music important? I'm not an expert of the two composers, but when I hear Wagner and Tristan and Isolde for instance I feel a sense of longing and the idea of the sublime that I don't remember in the music of Haydn.


Part of the problem is how one defines "Romantic." I personally think "a sense of longing and the idea of the sublime" _is_ at times present in Haydn. But, I mean, that's totally subjective, right?

In the end, esthetics and technical elements are bound together. There is a decently clear break between esthetics and technical elements of the Baroque and what follows, and between the Romantic period and the Post-tonal period (although it's never 100% simple, is it?), but between the so-called "Classical" period and the Romantic? _Way_ less clear. There is very little agreement. I'm trying to get at why that is. As I wrote above, the period labels are really not very important. Saying Berlioz is the first Romantic thereby excludes clear elements of Romanticism by most definitions in the music of Beethoven. I'm arguing many of those elements are present in Haydn as well.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

I voted for Beethoven. He certainly fits the idea of the heroic solitary genius.


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## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

I'd say it was the Chopin-Schumann-Liszt trio, whichever you want to put first. I think it was with their works that music became much less tied to form and also an emphasis on smaller-scale, "fleeting" pieces to express emotions or ideas. Actually of those three I guess Schumann was the one who still more or less followed the Classical forms most of the time. So Chopin or Liszt.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Musical styles tend to develop over time and not always even in a very structured, coherent way. We tend to simplify things in our minds for the sake of giving things the appearance of a more logical framework and for simplicity and convenience. It is true that many of the seeds of romanticism predate significantly the actual musical era as it is generally thought of. We can certainly find traces of it in Haydn and Mozart, (just as we can find elements of the classical style in D Scarlatti and CPE Bach) indeed we can even see elements of what eventually became romanticism in both J.S. Bach and CPE Bach. 

That is why I don't think there is one composer who was the first romantic. But there are certain figures who were crucial to its development like Beethoven, Schubert and Weber etc. To say it all came down to one person is an over simplification and diminishes the contributions of other composers. 

This said while knorf brings up some good points, focusing so much on technical, structural elements of sonata form ultimately I feel doesn't get down to the essence of the style and while interesting perhaps obfuscates more than it clarifies.

The truth is the classical era and romantic are very different approaches to music, sonata form no longer functioned the same way after Beethoven. In some respects (in terms of how harmony is used in the vertical sense for expressivity) the romantic era has more in common with the baroque era. Classical composers on the other hand typically were more focused on a long narrative, horizontal approach to harmony. Romanticism certainly contains elements of both previous eras but became its own thing. 

To me the 'spirit' of Haydn's music is very far removed from what I hear in the romantics. It does not focus on the more turbulent aspects of human emotion to the same degree. As Charles Rosen once put it Haydn's music is almost like listening to music before the original sin. It has a (perhaps pseudo) naivete that to me is almost polar opposite of the aural effect of the intense use of inner harmonies we hear in so much romanticism. One can hear this kind of thing in J.S. Bach and it was largely absent from music after him until it reappeared in different form in composers like Chopin and Wagner. 

So in conclusion, I don't think there is a first romantic, but by taking a birds eye view we can distinguish the different characteristics of the two eras. Aside from transitional figures that appear between the changing of one era to the next we can observe that some composers are clearly classical (like Haydn) and some are clearly romantic (like Chopin).


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## Knorf (Jan 16, 2020)

I focused to some extent on technical means, because formal aspects are more objective, and all the stuff about "spirit" or "emotion" is totally subjective. But it must be stated Haydn's music did at times touch on subjective emotion, which is why his Symphony No. 49 in F minor is known by its nickname "La Passione." Sure, it seems fair to argue that Tchaikovsky and Mahler went further in that regard, but highly misleading to suggest Haydn didn't at all. But how is this to be measured? If Chopin is 67 tdc emotion units but Haydn "only" 49, then Haydn isn't Romantic but Chopin is? Why should Haydn be excluded because Tchaikovsky took it further? (He took it further than Chopin as well.)

I also focused on the sonata principle because its expansion and development are at the center of what so many people use as an argument to distinguish the Romantics from the "Classical" period, in spite of the fact that there's much more in common between them than different in its concrete application. And the development of the sonata principle itself is very distinguishable from the ritornello principle that dominated in the Baroque period. The move, especially in harmonic and developmental terms, from ritornello to sonata was huge. In short, the "Classical" period and Romantic have the development and expansion of the sonata principle in common as a feature distinguishing them from the ritornello of the Baroque.

Look, it's no skin off my nose if someone wants to say that Chopin is the first Romantic composer, or whomever. But that should be recognized as being an _arbitrary_ choice. And it puts aside so much of what Haydn, Beethoven, and Mozart did that was in totally common at the deepest level with what Romanticism is all about, and not just in terms of form. Let's not forget that Haydn, at the end of career, was one of the first successful freelance composers, liberated from patronage. I.e., one of the biggest goals of every Romantic composer.

There's no doubt in my mind Haydn has much more in common with Schumann, Mendelssohn, and Brahms, or even Bruckner, than he does Handel, for instance, especially by the end of his career.

Every period has early, middle, and late distinguishing features. I'd argue the Classical period is essentially incipient Romantic at least. But again, the labels aren't as important as understanding the features, esthetics, and form that are in common and are in contrast.


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## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

I think Berlioz has to figure in there as well. While still producing big-form music he was also adopting the cyclic approach later taken up by Liszt and Wagner. Also, Beethoven: late Beethoven was clearly departing from the Classical tradition in works like the Opp. 101, 106 and 111 piano sonatas, which were probably unimaginable just 20 years earlier. So there's a sort of divide even within Beethoven's own output.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

tdc said:


> *intense use of inner harmonies* we hear in so much romanticism. One can hear this kind of thing in J.S. Bach and it was largely *absent from music after him until it reappeared in* different form in composers like *Chopin* and Wagner.
> So in conclusion, I don't think there is a first romantic, but by taking a birds eye view we can distinguish the different characteristics of the two eras. Aside from transitional figures that appear between the changing of one era to the next we can observe that some composers are clearly classical (like Haydn) and some are clearly romantic (like Chopin).


Certain early Romantic composers namely Schubert and Chopin at the time certainly knew how to **** around with the newly-fashionable harmonic devices involving mediants, (which late Mozart also employed in works like the sextet of Don Giovanni and Fantasie K475), but I still doubt if there's as much "harmonic depth" in their inner voices as you claim. Take Chopin for example, count the number of times he makes argument relying on only parallel 8ths. Op.44, Op.35, Op.28 No.14, 18, Op.48 No.1. Rhythmic monotony of Prelude Op.28 No.24 and Berceuse. Then there are the "exercises" that use chromatic scales flashly, like Op.10 No.2 and Op.25 No.11, the kind of style derived from Moscheles Op.70 No.3. And what of the left hand octave spam of Heroic Polonaise. ("Intense inner harmonies"? Are we even talking about the same thing?) 
Why am I suddenly reminded of Larkenfield, who would often say the most ridiculous statements ever: _"Chopin is the greatest harmonist since JS Bach"_. _"Chopin is the greatest harmonist of the Romantics"_.

*"a composer for one right hand." -Wagner on Chopin*

I find stuff like this way closer to Bachian ideals as far as "intense inner harmonies" are concerned:



hammeredklavier said:


> *3:00 ~ 3:24
> 5:39 ~ 6:41
> 7:30 ~ 7:50
> 13:13 ~ 15:27*


-----



norman bates said:


> ... the distinction (or the lack of distinction) between the classical and romantic period ...
> ...isn't the character and the aesthetic values of the music important?...
> ...a sense of longing and the idea of the sublime...


what are the "aesthetic values" of these?:
Waltz For Chopin - Yuhki Kuramoto
Romancing Time - Yuhki Kuramoto
Yiruma, 이루마 - Nocturne No.2 in Eb
Yuhki Kuramoto - Romance/Virgin Road/Tears For You/Lake Louise


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)




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## Knorf (Jan 16, 2020)

consuono said:


> I think Berlioz has to figure in there as well. While still producing big-form music he was also adopting the cyclic approach later taken up by Liszt and Wagner. Also, Beethoven: late Beethoven was clearly departing from the Classical tradition in works like the Opp. 101, 106 and 111 piano sonatas, which were probably unimaginable just 20 years earlier. So there's a sort of divide even within Beethoven's own output.


And 20 years before Beethoven's late sonatas, Haydn was doing things unimaginable 20 years before that. There's a divide in his output, too. So what?


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## Knorf (Jan 16, 2020)

By the way, what are "intense inner harmonies." I hold a doctorate in composition and have taught music theory at university for 25 years, and have never heard this term before. Does it mean chromatic? Does it mean linear embellishing? Does it mean dissonant? You can find all of those in Haydn as well, if it does.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Knorf said:


> I focused to some extent on technical means, because formal aspects are more objective, and all the stuff about "spirit" or "emotion" is totally subjective.


I don't think these things are totally subjective, only partially. One can point out that major keys generally sound 'happy', and minor keys 'sad'. Of course there are exceptions, and people who will hear things differently, that doesn't mean there isn't a pronounced difference between the two, beyond the realm of pure subjectivity. So it is in the differences in the use of form and harmony between the classicists and romantics.



Knorf said:


> I also focused on the sonata principle because its expansion and development are at the center of what so many people use as an argument to distinguish the Romantics from the "Classical" period, in spite of the fact that there's much more in common between them than different in its concrete application. And the development of the sonata principle itself is very distinguishable from the ritornello principle that dominated in the Baroque period. The move, especially in harmonic and developmental terms, from ritornello to sonata was huge. In short, the "Classical" period and Romantic have the development and expansion of the sonata principle in common as a feature distinguishing them from the ritornello of the Baroque.


However, there are examples of early sonata form in composers J.S. Bach and D Scarlatti, and as pointed out in post #37 one of the distinguishing features of romanticism is that it is _less_ tied to form, the 'short fleeting pieces' described in that post are perhaps not so far removed from what one might hear in a prelude from Bach.



Knorf said:


> Let's not forget that Haydn, at the end of career, was one of the first successful freelance composers, liberated from patronage. I.e., one of the biggest goals of every Romantic composer.


This describes a social phenomenon but isn't directly related to anything in the music.



Knorf said:


> There's no doubt in my mind Haydn has much more in common with Schumann, Mendelssohn, and Brahms, or even Bruckner, than he does Handel, for instance, especially by the end of his career.


I don't think his music is closely related to any of those composers. Schumann is quoted as saying Haydn had 'nothing new to tell us'.



Knorf said:


> Every period has early, middle, and late distinguishing features. I'd argue the Classical period is essentially incipient Romantic at least. But again, the labels aren't as important as understanding the features, esthetics, and form that are in common and are in contrast.


I don't see quite as close a connection as you between the eras, though there certainly is some. You do have some good points though.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Knorf said:


> By the way, what are "intense inner harmonies." I hold a doctorate in composition and have taught music theory at university for 25 years, and have never heard this term before. Does it mean chromatic? Does it mean linear embellishing? Does it mean dissonant? You can find all of those in Haydn as well, if it does.


Rosen on Inner harmonies


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

consuono said:


> 111 piano sonatas, which were probably *unimaginable* just 20 years earlier. So there's a sort of divide even within Beethoven's own output.


With Op.111, I'm not sure about the "spiritual lyricism" of the Arietta, but in terms of expressions of dissonant chromaticism at least, I don't think Beethoven "surpassed" Mozart.


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## caracalla (Feb 19, 2020)

Simplicissimus said:


> They were all part of a philosophical, artistic, and greater European cultural movement away from the objective and toward the subjective, toward greater freedom and creativity of the human spirit.


For me that is the overriding consideration, which in my view dwarfs questions of musical structures. To prioritise form over content is itself a very Classical thing to do, and of course was one of the things the Romantics were rebelling against. They did not want their artistic expression to be bound by rules or authority of any kind. One thing which Voltaire deplored in Shakespeare, but which enthused the French Romantics, was the fact that he drove a coach and horses through the classical unities.

However, being compelled to use established forms to maintain artistic credibility, and choosing to use them because they suit (or at least do not impede) your artistic purposes are clear different things. To me, it is no more telling that Beethoven continued to use sonata form than that the Romantic poets wrote odes (as did Pope) and resuscitated the sonnet. Romantic painters employed naturalism, and for the most part obeyed the rules of perspective. Few people would think that sufficient reason to place Delacroix and David in the same box.

To my ears, the sea-change in sensibility between Beethoven's 1st Symphony and his 3rd is manifest. The one belongs to the 18thC, his heritage and his training, the other belongs to the new zeitgeist which had been bubbling away for long enough, and was now starting to erupt across Europe. I have no more difficulty classifying Beethoven as a Romantic than I do his close contemporaries, Friedrich and Novalis. He and they belonged to the Revolutionary Age, and for all their innovations in music, Mozart and Haydn simply didn't. No Romantic's Romantic wears a periwig, but I don't think anyone has ever argued that the arts of the Ancien Regime were static, and of course no one who listens to 18thC music could begin to entertain this idea.

Sadly, attempting to periodise is inherently fraught with difficulty - the history of anything always presents a tangled skein of change and continuity. Everything has a long gestation and ghosts linger. We can only focus on those factors we consider most important, while recognising that others will bring different (and entirely legitimate) perspectives to the table. We only do it because imposing some kind of structure helps us navigate the vast ocean of past time and make some sense of it. It's not necessary that everyone uses the same maps, though it is convenient when they do.

Perhaps most people would at least agree (albeit to a greater or lesser extent) that Beethoven was a transitional figure in music; that he had a foot in both the Classical and Romantic camps. The squabble is really about which foot was the bigger; whether his work as a whole is more appropriately classed with his predecessors or his successors. We may disagree, but I don't think the latter had much doubt about this. The later Romantics and their descendants (I mean in all the arts, not just music) claimed him as one of their own throughout the 19thC, indeed often held him up as their ultimate icon.

Here is Wagner on the subject:

"Mozart died when he was just piercing the inner mystery. Beethoven was the first to enter wholly in."

And on Beethoven specifically:

"At last, at a concert at the Gewandthaus, I heard one of the master's symphonies for the first time; it was the Symphony in A major. The effect on me was indescribable. To this must be added the impression produced on me by Beethoven's features, which I saw in the lithographs that were circulated everywhere at that time... I soon conceived an image of him in my mind as a sublime and unique supernatural being, with whom none could compare."


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

@hammeredclavier as far as harmony I think Mozart is the exception in the classical era, perhaps that is why I prefer his music to his contemporaries. I don't think Haydn's music is very closely related to Bach, and I think Beethoven also willfully went in a different direction. 

Mozart applied principles of Bach into his music more so than Haydn or Beethoven I think.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Knorf said:


> There's no doubt in my mind Haydn has much more in common with Schumann, Mendelssohn, and Brahms, or even Bruckner, than he does Handel, for instance, especially by the end of his career.


This is true when you consider that Schumann (in his late years), Mendelssohn, Brahms, admired Haydn and studied his works. Haydn's Seven Last Words of Christ for string quartet Op.51 clearly forshadows the spirituality of late Beethoven. Schumann in his late years also said Chopin was a pomegranate tree that produces year after year nothing but pomegranates.


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

All the major innovative composers were Romantic by its colloquial definition. They had to be firm and true to themselves and their inner identity, to defend and embrace their impulse of ideas and their new image. That's what art is, a faithfulness to one's own thought and self.


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## Knorf (Jan 16, 2020)

You know, I could get on board with "more dissonance" is more Romantic. 

Ok, so "intense inner harmonies" is just descriptive. That's fine. Rosen was a great musician. His books _The Classical Style_ and _The Romantic Generation_ are required reading. Such a great musical thinker! But that doesn't mean he was right about everything.

If I'm honest, at the end of the day, I'm still going to call Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven "Classical period" composers. Well, maybe if I'm ornery I'll say "incipient Romantics." If nothing else, this is way too entrenched in our musical language to try to overturn. I may as well joust that windmill.

My intention here, however, is to try to shine a light on how arbitrary the boundary between "Classical" and "Romantic" really is. Also, describing the period 1750-18teens or whenever as "Classical" really is a misnomer.

But so is "English horn," and what are ya gonna do about that?


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## Knorf (Jan 16, 2020)

Let's be very clear about something. The sonata principle as a musical form was _new_ to the second half of the 18th century. It does not in any way parallel the revival of the Sonnet, which as a poetic form was much, much older, dating back to the 13th century.

Implicit to the sonata principle as well is an inherent dramatic opposition of keys and themes, which did not exist in the ritornello principle that dominated instrumental and vocal forms the Baroque period. This opposition, in terms of a vehicle for emotional drama in the music, was appealing to almost all Romantic composers, for very obvious reasons, from Haydn through Mahler.

The smaller forms, binary, rounded binary, and ternary, were employed in the Baroque, the so-called "Classical" period, the Romantic period, and in fact never went away. They're highly malleable. Chopin's (and Schumann's, and Grieg's) employment of such in smaller scale keyboard pieces was in no way a move away from the sonata principle. The small forms are ubiquitous.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

caracalla said:


> of course was one of the things the Romantics were rebelling against. They did not want their artistic expression to be bound by rules or authority of any kind.





Ethereality said:


> All the major innovative composers were Romantic by its colloquial definition. They had to firmly be true to themselves and their personal identity to defend and embrace their impulse of ideas and their new image. That's what art is, a faithfulness to one's own thought and self.


These kinds of ideas sound interesting but on close inspection are questionable, I think. Sounds like a kind of philosophical ideal that sounds good on paper and perhaps used to hold up romanticism as the paragon of what art should be.

However, there are innovators in all eras, no one sounds quite like Dufay, or Josquin or Bach before or after, these are unique artists. Yes they had influences just as one can actually hear some Haydn in the music of Beethoven, it is not as though he decided to just create a completely new music from scratch.

Wanting to not have art conform to any rules or authority at all, might sound great, but what happens in practice? Certainly that does not describe the kind of music the romantics actually produced. It sounds much closer to the approach taken by some post-modernists. John Cage perhaps? Some of these newer composers have been more innovative and less bound by rules by far than any previous composers. Does that mean they produced better music? Maybe that kind of music is caracalla and ethereality's ideal? I'm guessing it is not though.


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

I'm not convinced a focus on rules and norms was the dominant priority of most of the great composers we know. Why, because they were such a given, and still are. Even today when you seat at your instrument you don't have an impulse to produce ugly or unconventional sounds and disharmony (most people) as the rules are what were more easily grasped and understood from adolescent upbringing. In any era there was much more than just 'static culture' and the experiential comprehension of law. Intrinsically there was always self-expression at the core, even when occasionally struggled against, self-identification defined one's obsession from the start. When their path was prearranged, then for any great composer it was done through a disposition of self-identification. _Rules_ strictly were the very catalyst that enabled personal expression, but that's because rules are precisely what define the artform called music in the first place 




However I never suggested that a romantic inclination must encompass a composer's entire identity, if but inherently. As you eloquently stated, that cannot be possible. However as the question is stated so simply as "Who was the first Romantic?" then perhaps it should be worded more specifically. Let's ask the experts then what is "a Romantic." Surely they cannot exist prior to its designated zone of time. I had commented on the root word _Roman _applying very consistently to the original ambitions of Wagner, but obviously that isn't the more agreeable definition.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

Knorf said:


> Part of the problem is how one defines "Romantic." I personally think "a sense of longing and the idea of the sublime" _is_ at times present in Haydn. But, I mean, that's totally subjective, right?
> 
> *In the end, esthetics and technical elements are bound together.*


I have some doubt about this. I mean, it seems a very reasonable thing, but for instance if I think of painting, a lot of romantic painters weren't technically different or revolutionary compared to what existed before. Like Caspar Friedrich or Bocklin, the way they painted to me seems still very traditional (unlike say, William Turner or late Peder Balke), but at the same time it's impossible not to see a true romantic spirit in their work.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

hammeredklavier said:


> what are the "aesthetic values" of these?:
> Waltz For Chopin - Yuhki Kuramoto
> Romancing Time - Yuhki Kuramoto
> Yiruma, 이루마 - Nocturne No.2 in Eb
> Yuhki Kuramoto - Romance/Virgin Road/Tears For You/Lake Louise


"easy sentimentality"? 
I'd say that there's a romantic feeling in the music, altough simplified and depured from all asperities and turbulences, making it closer to new age that tries to have a calming effect on the listener. But why are you asking?


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## caracalla (Feb 19, 2020)

tdc said:


> Maybe that kind of music is caracalla and ethereality's ideal? I'm guessing it is not though.


Well, in my case you certainly guess correctly. Beyond that, I'll hold my peace wrt Cage & Co on a family forum. But actually, I wasn't trying to champion the Romantics at all. I'm very strong drawn to Romanticism in the visual arts, but less so in literature, still less in music. Although I work on it, a lot of 19thC music bores me rather badly. Beethoven and Brahms are the best of them afaic, which probably suggests an unRomantic affinity with formal discipline. And my real enthusiasm is reserved for the Baroque and Renaissance periods, back when composers had proper jobs and needed to keep their employers happy.

But you are right that, in practice, most of the Romantics in all fields were a lot less free-wheeling than the theory allowed them to be. The more extreme polemics about Romanticism come from France during the Restoration, when Classicists and Romantics were locked in a fierce and protracted culture war. As often in these circumstances, the critics and journalists made rather more extravagant claims in the heat of battle than many of the artists they represented would have condoned - or at least were willing to put into practice.

On the Beethoven question, it strikes me that it would be very interesting to know what the average Classicist or Romantic in the street thought about this. In the Paris of, say, 1825-40. They often had strongly polarised tastes, as wrt Shakespeare. When Beethoven was playing, who attended the concerts? The answer should be there somewhere in the memoirs and diaries of the period.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

If these had the name "Beethoven" attached to them, I'm sure people would have perceived them differently:











tdc said:


> However, there are examples of early sonata form in composers J.S. Bach and D Scarlatti, and as pointed out in post #37 one of the distinguishing features of romanticism is that it is _less_ tied to form, the 'short fleeting pieces' described in that post are perhaps not so far removed from what one might hear in a prelude from Bach.


You seem to fantasize that Romanticism's philosophy of being "less tied to form" consistently produced greatly inspired artistic achievements. But certain Romantic composers wrote just as many songs, waltzes, polkas, or any other miniature genres (that excessively rely on A-B-A ternary form) as a Classicist wrote sonatas, rondos. Did they consistently embody or represent "The Revival of the Bachian spirit"? I doubt if everything they did was wonderfully ideal and exemplary as you make it out to be. Weren't there cases of downright "dumbing-down of Classical form"? For example, preludes that consist of like only 10 bars of music?





Also see Charles Mayer (21 March 1799 - 2 July 1862) and his 'Le Regret Op.332', which used to be incorrectly attributed to a contemporary of his as 'Valse mélancolique in F-sharp minor'.


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## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

Knorf said:


> And 20 years before Beethoven's late sonatas, Haydn was doing things unimaginable 20 years before that. There's a divide in his output, too. So what?


Stylistic divides, which is the topic of the thread. That's what. By the way I don't think the statement is really true. The differences between Haydn c. 1795 and Haydn c. 1775 were nowhere near as great as Beethoven c. 1825 vs. c. 1805.


hammeredklavier said:


> With Op.111, I'm not sure about the "spiritual lyricism" of the Arietta, but in terms of expressions of dissonant chromaticism at least, I don't think Beethoven "surpassed" Mozart.


It's not a question of "surpassed", which is subjective. It's a question of a work's character. Beethoven's late sonatas are vastly different from anything Mozart composed. Mozart would only have done such if he had lived another 40 years or so, maybe. There is an enormous gulf between K. 475/457 and Beethoven's Opp. 106 and 111, regardless of interesting harmonies in this or that measure. And Mozart never wrote anything like this:




Not to mention the last movement of your sorta namesake, Op. 106. That isn't to say that these Beethoven selections are "better" or "greater", but they are definitely different. To paraphrase Northrop Frye, in the Kyrie of Bach's B minor Mass we see what amazing things the fugue can do; in the finale of Beethoven's Op. 106 we see what amazing things can be done with the fugue. That's what the Romantics were about: a desire to expand and exceed the old formal boundaries while still seeking to work within them. Or trying to come up with new ones.


hammeredklavier said:


> If these had the name "Beethoven" attached to them, I'm sure people would have perceived them differently:


We would probably call them early Beethoven.


> You seem to fantasize that Romanticism's philosophy of being "less tied to form" consistently produced greatly inspired artistic achievements. But certain Romantic composers wrote just as many songs, waltzes, polkas, or any other miniature genres (that excessively rely on A-B-A ternary form) as a Classicist wrote sonatas, rondos. Did they consistently embody or represent "The Revival of the Bachian spirit"?


An A-B-A da capo form has been used in countless pop songs. I don't think many would call them "Baroque" or "Classical". "Greatly inspired artistic achievements" can come in many forms, and they can range from a minute long to 3 hours or more. You seem to be concentrating excessively on judgements of quality or value which are always going to be subjective.


> Weren't there cases of downright "dumbing-down of Classical form"? For example, preludes that consist of like only 10 bars of music?


Well, subjectively speaking it could be said those 10 bars got to the heart of the matter instead of a long-winded 45 minutes.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

hammeredklavier said:


> You seem to fantasize that Romanticism's philosophy of being "less tied to form" consistently produced greatly inspired artistic achievements.


Actually no, and I'm not sure what in my post makes you think that. I do find the romantic era generally more interesting from a harmonic perspective in the vertical sense relative to the classical era, but indeed in many cases it loses some of the formal logic. That is generally what happens as music evolves. Certain aspects of the aesthetic have to be sacrificed in order to make progress in other areas. If Chopin would've been obsessed with adhering to classical forms as we hear in Mozart and Haydn, that would be very boring, and we would not remember Chopin today. This comment does not imply that I think everything produced in the romantic era was consistently a towering artistic achievement, (nor was this the case in the classical era).

My tastes if anything are more aligned with earlier music and modernism, in other words, sonata form itself is not what I'm especially drawn to. I pointed out that there are some similarities between the looser forms of some of the romantics and the free forms of Bach such as in his preludes, that does not mean that I'm implying the compositional quality is equal. To me the only such works in the romantic era I find of comparable (or close) to the quality of Bach would be in some of the keyboard pieces of Brahms, in particular the op. 116-119. My tastes are more aligned with the aesthetic of Bach and also of the impressionists (specifically Debussy and Ravel). I tend not to listen to much of the music of the classical and romantic eras outside of Mozart and Brahms, but I recognize the merit and importance of many other composers in these two eras.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

.


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## Beebert (Jan 3, 2019)

hammeredklavier said:


> I too agree Chopin has a lot of positive attributes that justify his popularity as one of the quintessential composers in today's classical music community. In terms of neatness and fluency of piano writing, he obviously knew things better than Tchaikovsky. He also had an extraordinary sense to crystallize a single particular performance technical problem in a character piece, in the form of the Etude. I think the D flat major from Trois Nouvelles Etudes is cleverly-written. Chopin often has novel harmonic ideas like Prelude No.28 No.4 in E minor that make him unique as well.
> But I think "screw-the-rules attitude to music" only properly works if you actually have the prowess. I don't particularly consider Chopin as the best guy for this sort of thing. For example, the tonic-dominant-tonic-dominant progression on parallel fifths the bass that opens Mazurka No.24 No.2, (which I posted earlier), just seems like a "joke piece" that ridicules the convention. And I do find in Chopin a lot of what people perceive as "negative attributes of Liszt". I don't find the ending of Ballade Op.23, or the middle sections of Polonaises Op.44, Op.53, Nocturne Op.48 No.1 very intelligently written. It seems sort of unfair to me Chopin always retains the image of "Poet of the Piano (who always values subtlety over bombast)" in the minds of people (such as Eva Yojimbo, or the countless piano-fans following TwoSetViolin), while Liszt doesn't. And I cannot agree with people like Larkenfield who often expressed this sort of Chopin-centric view: _"There are only JS Bach and Chopin, and between them there is nobody"_ or something along the lines.
> I think it's fair to call Chopin an innovator, but in his work, what sticks out to me like a sore thumb is (what I perceive as) a certain "shallowness of harmonic depth" (probably caused by his shortcomings) that we don't often find in the work of other greats.
> 
> ...


I am sorry, but you don't seem to know what you are talking about. What is your educational background in music?

To say that there is a "shallowness of harmonic depth" in Chopin, is an unmusical and ignorant statement. And I can give you an insane amount of examples that proves you are wrong.

How about almost all the Mazurkas (especially the late ones)? How about the last three nocturnes; Op 55 2, Op 62 1 and Op 62 2? How about the 4th Ballade? How about the Barcarolle?! Or the Polonaise-Fantaisie!? To talk about shallowness of HARMONIC depth of all things when it comes to Chopin, must be at the height of musical ignorance.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Beebert said:


> Polonaise-Fantaisie


Thanks for mentioning this piece, I think it contains excellent examples of Chopin expressing dreaminess with his use of arpeggiated figures. But when there is a need to intensify tension and drama, 



 he again does the thing he had done in Nocturne Op.48 No.1. It's not a bad thing, but it sort of cringes me when people (like the massive number of piano-fans following TwoSetViolin) talk like "Bach -> Chopin -> Wagner.." as if Chopin fully deserves to belong in the group. It's just my opinion.


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## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

hammeredklavier said:


> ..It's not a bad thing, but it sort of cringes me when people (like the massive number of piano-fans following TwoSetViolin) talk like "Bach -> Chopin -> Wagner.." as if Chopin fully deserves to belong in the group. It's just my opinion.


My opinion is that ranking is just about right. Chopin most definitely deserves to be in that group.


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## Beebert (Jan 3, 2019)

hammeredklavier said:


> Thanks for mentioning this piece, I think it contains excellent examples of Chopin expressing dreaminess with his use of arpeggiated figures. But when there is a need to intensify tension and drama,
> 
> 
> 
> he again does the thing he had done in Nocturne Op.48 No.1. It's not a bad thing, but it sort of cringes me when people (like the massive number of piano-fans following TwoSetViolin) talk like "Bach -> Chopin -> Wagner.." as if Chopin fully deserves to belong in the group. It's just my opinion.


When Nietzsche heard Chopin's Barcarolle, he had changed his mind about Wagner and thought that Wagner had nothing of great value to say. Chopin on the other hand; he was incomparable, too unique an artist to be compared with anyone, he said. To his mind, there was no longer any doubt who was the greater artist and musician between the two.


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## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

Beebert said:


> When Nietzsche heard Chopin's Barcarolle, he had changed his mind about Wagner and thought that Wagner had nothing of great value to say. Chopin on the other hand; he was incomparable, too unique an artist to be compared with anyone, he said. To his mind, there was no longer any doubt who was the greater artist and musician between the two.


Well I'm not a Nietzsche fan really and Nietzsche developed a personal animus toward Wagner. Plus he was really good at flinging bile. It's interesting that apparently Nietzsche thought Wagner was really good in short spurts but couldn't really handle big works. Personally though I'd rather listen to Chopin's complete nocturnes than the entire Ring cycle. In the words of the oft-mentioned but hard-to-attribute quip, "Wagner has lovely moments but ugly half-hours".


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

consuono said:


> Well I'm not a Nietzsche fan really and Nietzsche developed a personal animus toward Wagner. Plus he was really good at flinging bile. It's interesting that apparently Nietzsche thought Wagner was really good in short spurts but couldn't really handle big works. Personally though I'd rather listen to Chopin's complete nocturnes than the entire Ring cycle. In the words of the oft-mentioned but hard-to-attribute quip, "Wagner has lovely moments but ugly half-hours".


I think that the Wagner operas are amongst the most rewarding music I've ever heard since I started listening to classical music back in 2008. But I suppose that this doesn't matter at all. Why this discussion has turned into a Chopin vs Wagner?


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## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

Allerius said:


> I think that the Wagner operas are amongst the most rewarding music I've ever heard since I started listening to classical music back in 2008. But I suppose that this doesn't matter at all. Why this discussion has turned into a Chopin vs Wagner?


They're both usually grouped in the "Romantic" category. Otherwise I have no idea.

PS...I hate autocorrect.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

.


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

hammeredklavier said:


> I think it's fair to call Chopin an innovator, but in his work, what sticks out to me like a sore thumb is (what I perceive as) a certain "shallowness of harmonic depth" (probably caused by his shortcomings) that we don't often find in the work of other greats.
> 
> I doubt Chopin is really closer to the Bachian ideals and spirit than Bach's own second son, C.P.E. Bach is. Think of Bach's binary forms. For an examples of Bach having a Classicist mindset, I can think of the masterfully-written A minor or F minor preludes from Well Tempered Clavier Book II. I think Mozart's K466 concerto and the K310 sonata both adhere to this sort of "Bachian spirit" with Mozart's own added elements of "innovation".


Chopin brought a whole new style, and with that a very fresh and knowledgable use of harmony _when it came to _practically enhancing themes in a big way, ie. new combinations in the just the right rhythm of melodic procession. Chopin as a piano writer was more like Bach also in that his pieces are very forward-moving and rounded, ie. simple exercises, so it's easier for Chopin's basic idea of theme-making to manifest and take over. Thus, this combination of rounded piece flow and thematic profundity is why Chopin's ideology can be so catchy and easy to revere. These specific type of harmonic moments Bach and Mozart touched on among many things, but Beethoven and Chopin especially took this specific type to a more comprehensive level, whether you call this melodic-_context_ harmony less deep and more broad or not, it made them sound more profound and discerning to some people. It's why their pop pieces are often grouped together in playlists as though they were some kind of songwriting duo in the early 1800s. So we might not say Chopin is more 'advanced', but more 'discerning', in that the human spirit really gravitates to this new post-Classical style and wishes it became more developed among greater potential composers. It kind of has with Debussy, but one could argue that no one really does it as well as Mozart, Bach, Beethoven and Chopin. Eine Kliene Nachtmusik, Prelude in C, Symphony 5-1, and for Chopin, the adoption of rounded thematic works is too common to name one. Even his best progressive work, the 1st Piano Concerto, is filled with it. If anything also, this rounded sound is why people gravitate towards Beethoven. Mozart was more of a Romantic in the root sense, like the blossoming of a tree, really fleshed out and adventurous, while Beethoven was a new seed. Haydn-Mozart are to Beethoven-Wagner, in that Haydn and Beethoven brought lovely new interpretations to what music _inherently_ sounds like, the vertical direction's _inherent_ sound, while Mozart and Wagner 'broadened' the bounds of what the previous's could be through expressive potential and development, the horizontal direction's _comprehensive_ sound. Hence, Mozart blossomed the prior tree out, and Beethoven is the best seed of Mozart to produce a new tree. Like all sprouts Beethoven has a succinct, rooted focus and a new vertical direction. In his unique case it could naturally be part of the widespread appeal, for no more than this tree is the ideal human upbringing. It hinges on the work of previous generations, but it itself has reached a perfect stage.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

hammeredklavier said:


> I too agree Chopin has a lot of positive attributes that justify his popularity as one of the quintessential composers in today's classical music community. ...but in his work, what sticks out to me like a sore thumb is (what I perceive as) a certain "shallowness of harmonic depth" (probably caused by his shortcomings) that we don't often find in the work of other greats.


I, too, read this post with interest. After all, a Chopin/piano post by one dubbed kammeredklavier must have merit. I admit to being caught off guard by the remark quoted above in the second sentence. I suspect that much of Chopin's lastingness has to do exactly with his harmonic adventurousness. He was ahead of the curve in his day, and his harmonic experimentation not only makes his music sing out with a personal splendor found in no other piano composer of his day, but also paved new ground into the later Romantic age to inspire other composers' ideas about harmony. Just compare the Nocturnes of Chopin's near-contemporary John Field. The harmonic surprises in the younger composer's works virtually assure they will dominate over the well-made and lovely nocturnes of Field. We may wonder if Chopin could have written a nocturne without Field having done so first. But we don't much figure that the works of both are equal in quality and interest. Something about the Chopin pieces gives them the nod. Even a casual listen seems to suggest it is the surprising harmonic turns Chopin introduces into his works. Field just could not conceive of such harmonies.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

.


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## AeolianStrains (Apr 4, 2018)

Beebert said:


> I am sorry, but you don't seem to know what you are talking about. What is your educational background in music?
> 
> To say that there is a "shallowness of harmonic depth" in Chopin, is an unmusical and ignorant statement. And I can give you an insane amount of examples that proves you are wrong.
> 
> How about almost all the Mazurkas (especially the late ones)? How about the last three nocturnes; Op 55 2, Op 62 1 and Op 62 2? How about the 4th Ballade? How about the Barcarolle?! Or the Polonaise-Fantaisie!? To talk about shallowness of HARMONIC depth of all things when it comes to Chopin, must be at the height of musical ignorance.


It's the same axe-grinding for years. Same with the Beethoven v. Mozart stuff. Just ignore it.


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

hammeredklavier said:


> putting down Haydn as _"music before the original sin"_


that doesn't sound as putting down Haydn. Actually it sounds great and interesting, if I had never Haydn I'd like to hear that immediately, and it's just a good description to say that the focus of the classical period was on other things and not necessarily with less value.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

I am the first romantic and I will be the last. 

Good luck trying to protect your sisters and daughters when I dress up and bring my irresistible charm to town.


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## TalkingPie (May 15, 2020)

Idk, but I think Dussek should be in the poll, too


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

This was not actually a poll, but rather a test.

*And you all failed. *

CPE Bach was the first romantic. His dramatic _empfindsamer Stil_ has little in common with galant style that characterizes the Classical period. Indeed he was the first Romantic! Not to mention he was subverting the expectations of form long before Beethoven and Liszt were ever thought of.

Challenge me. :devil:


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

Couchie said:


> This was not actually a poll, but rather a test.
> 
> *And you all failed. *
> 
> ...


Actually, that's a fascinating idea. Do you have any works that exemplify CPE Bach's Romanticism? Everything I've heard of his seems to be more on the classical elegance and lightness side of the spectrum.


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## Logos (Nov 3, 2012)

It's Weber. Although Beethoven was the greatest influence on the romantics that does not make him a true romantic composer; any more than Shakespeare was a romantic poet simply because he was the greatest influence on literary romanticism. In Weber we see characteristics of romanticism that Beethoven never possessed; namely, a wish to unify formerly separate art forms, making him Wagner's forerunner in anticipating the 'total-artwork'. Like Wagner, he was a self-conscious artistic theorist; interested not only in music but in poetry, drama, folklore, and painting. He was also something of a chauvinistic German nationalist, yet another romantic quality.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

flamencosketches said:


> Actually, that's a fascinating idea. Do you have any works that exemplify CPE Bach's Romanticism? Everything I've heard of his seems to be more on the classical elegance and lightness side of the spectrum.

















Far more Beethoven/Mendelssohn than Haydn/Mozart.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

*Emanuel Bach: A Composer ahead of His Time
*
_Up until recently, many musicologists perceived music history through the lens of what is known as the "linear view." This is the idea that one "musical period" seamlessly gave way to another, with brief transitionary periods to bridge the gaps. As a result, composers were expected to fall neatly into categories depending on their chronological placement. For this reason, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, the eldest son of J. S. Bach, was (and still is) regarded as merely the bridge between the late Baroque style and that of the Viennese Classicists. In the past half-century, however, scholars have begun to study Emanuel Bach in his own right, giving an honest look at his works without imposing any preconceived notions on them. These scholars became captivated with the "pre-Romantic" aspects of his style, especially in the genre he advocated known as empfindsamer stil, or "sensitive style."_
https://digitalcommons.cedarville.edu/musicalofferings/vol10/iss1/3/


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

*CPE Bach is also foundational to the German Romantic art lieder:*

_In his Lieder, C.P.E. Bach sought to forge a new relationship between contemporary poetry and keyboard accompaniment. It has been little recognized that many songs in his final collection of Lieder, the Neue Lieder-Melodien (1789) exhibit an innovative approach to text-sensitive melody, eloquent harmony, and an expressive treatment of modulation, dynamics, and form. The songs also evince much of the character and accessibility of German folk music, which was appealing to the burgeoning middle class in the second half of the eighteenth century. Bach's style, less conservative than that of his Berlin contemporaries,influenced younger Lied composers such as Reichardt and Zelter, both of whom incorporated some of Bach's ideas into their ow n works. This study thus suggests that C.P.E. Bach played a much more important role in the emergence of the nascent Romantic Lied than has been previously recognized._
https://repository.arizona.edu/bits...216_E9791_1995_278.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Couchie said:


> This was not actually a poll, but rather a test.
> *And you all failed. *


I mentioned CPE Bach in post #38:



tdc said:


> indeed we can even see elements of what eventually became romanticism in both J.S. Bach and CPE Bach.





Couchie said:


> *Emanuel Bach: A Composer ahead of His Time
> *
> _Up until recently, many musicologists perceived music history through the lens of what is known as the "linear view." This is the idea that one "musical period" seamlessly gave way to another, with brief transitionary periods to bridge the gaps. As a result, composers were expected to fall neatly into categories depending on their chronological placement. _


_

This was another point I mentioned earlier in this thread and it is why in my view you cannot credit just one composer for being the first romantic. Ignoring the linear view we can see elements of it in other earlier composers as well, another good example of this is Vivaldi who I feel was also a contributor.

You do bring up some interesting points about CPE though, and I think that his impact probably is under estimated._


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

Couchie said:


> Far more Beethoven/Mendelssohn than Haydn/Mozart.


Most enlightening. I can see where you're coming from. I need to hear more of this stuff.


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## caracalla (Feb 19, 2020)

Romanticism didn't take off from a standing start in any of the arts. I think CPE Bach does exhibit the Romantic sensibility quite often, and this can also be detected in Mozart and Haydn. But this shouldn't surprise; the Romantic aesthetic was starting to poke its nose above the surface quite frequently in the later decades of the 18thC. Goethe's 'Sorrows of Young Werther', which had such a powerful impact on European youth, dates from 1774. Romanticism was so well established in the English zeitgeist by the end of the century that Jane Austen (not herself a Romantic) could critique it in 'Sense and Sensibility' and satirise it in 'Northanger Abbey'. There were even outbreaks of Romanticism in French art (people like Robert and Vernet) before it got temporarily squashed by the Revolution and Empire.

Where do you draw the line between precursors and mainstream practicioners? To me, Beethoven's Eroica announces that Romanticism in music is not just making another probe, it is now parking its tanks on the lawn. And the 5th and 6th confirm that it hasn't just arrived, it fully intends to take over the shop. Doing this at precisely the time when Classicists throughout Europe and across the arts were starting to twig that this was no longer some marginal eccentricity to be patronised; that they now had a real fight on their hands to preserve their dominance. Beethoven's key role in this has more to do with his contemporary and subsequent stature as a composer than the relatively minor question of who, precisely, was the first.

The Romantic mood is eternal, of course. It can be detected in much earlier artists, and later.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Couchie said:


> CPE Bach was the first romantic. His dramatic _empfindsamer Stil_ has little in common with galant style that characterizes the Classical period.





Couchie said:


> Far more Beethoven/Mendelssohn than Haydn/Mozart.







I think Emanuel has a lot more in common with his own father, brothers, Quantz and Mozart. One similarity he has with his father is the baroque concept of Affektenlehre, a tendency to explore one mood per movement. There is however a gradual tendency toward the later Classicist way, which was more fully realized by Mozart (and Haydn), who expanded form further to explore multiple moods per movement (by use of contrast, operatic effects, mood shifts). 
ex. Mozart K466
1st movement: 4:40 , 10:40
2nd movement: 15:50 , 19:95
3rd movement: 24:40 , 31:30
or K453 2nd movement: 0:00 , 2:00
In terms of motivic working, I hear a quite a bit of Emanuel in Mozart. I can't remember now which C minor concerto by Emanuel it was, (it could have been WQ31, or WQ37) but in one passage it strongly reminded of Mozart's 12th or another piano concerto. (I can't find it now.) I think these sections show Emanuel's influence on Mozart:

C.P.E. Bach - Symphony In F Major Wq. 183/3
Mozart - Symphony No. 40 In G Minor K 550

C.Ph.E. Bach Concerto For Harpsichord & Fortepiano in E flat major, WQ47
Mozart: String Quartet No.19 In C, K.465 - "Dissonance" - 4. Allegro molto

The writing for winds in Symphony in D major (Wq 183:1 / H 663)

The dramatic gesture that starts the last movement of Mozart's D minor concerto K466 seems to be stylistically close to that of Emanuel's WQ22. From what I understand, Mozart's K396, K397 were inspired by Emanuel's fantasie style.
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Fantasie in C minor
Mozart Fantasia in C Minor, K.396 , Fantasia in D minor K 397

I think Christian also follows empfindsamer stil, albeit to a lesser degree. 
J.C. Bach - W C69 - Harpsichord Concerto No. 2 in F minor
J.C. Bach - W C73 - Harpsichord Concerto No. 6 in F minor
In fact, as some academics have suggested, I think of the empfindsamer stil as a close, compatible dialect of the galant style. (It's just that their philosophies in use of form are slightly different.) I think some people make a bit too much of a deal about how peculiar it was at the time. In the hands of skillful composers (such as Haydn and Mozart), the galant style is just as effective a tool for dramatic expression. 
ex. Mozart Divertimento K334: 25:00 , 9:20 , 3:00 , 20:00
(also, see "Thematische arbeit")

Emanuel's final masterpiece (written on the same year (1787) as Mozart's Rondo K511), _"C.P.E. Bachs Empfindungen"_. 
I think they're an interesting pair for comparison




there's also a good performance of the piece on the modern piano:
Anna Tsybuleva plays Carl Philipp Emaunel Bach Fantasy in F-sharp minor H. 300 





Another good example of later Classical dramatic mood shifts:



hammeredklavier said:


> In missa longa K262 for example, the way he creates contrast and tension and then relieves them is masterful. At 10:48, there is this serene, lyrical section "Et incarnatus est", but at 11:41, the C minor "Crucifixus" hits like a thunderbolt, and then in going from the dominant to a new key in G major, 12:38 "Et resurrexit" (with somewhat "neo-Handelian" characteristics of effect) counteracts and relieves the tension. The use of strettos in "Et vitam venturi" 18:00 is just masterful as well.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

tdc said:


> I mentioned CPE Bach in post #38:
> This was another point I mentioned earlier in this thread and it is why in my view you cannot credit just one composer for being the first romantic. Ignoring the linear view we can see elements of it in other earlier composers as well, another good example of this is Vivaldi who I feel was also a contributor.
> 
> You do bring up some interesting points about CPE though, and I think that his impact probably is under estimated.


Ok, you get a *B+*


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