# What's with this late romantic/post-romantic/impressionist thing?



## Roger Knox (Jul 19, 2017)

Since coming to TalkClassical I've spent over three years with a main focus on orchestral music from around 1850-1950 that can be described as late romantic, post-romantic, or impressionist. Especially with German/Austrian, French, and Russian composers. I hadn't expected to be so involved for nearly this long. Right now listening to Miaskovsky, I remember that this was this kind of thing my first professors were trying to steer me _away_ from whether in theory, composition, or history. Even in piano it was only a few "standard repertoire" composers from this era that I played before getting into modernism, which was fine with me (though the post-WW2 avant-garde and post-modernism weren't.)

But with my ears glued to Miaskovsky I feel this music is still highly relevant, in the way that Mahler, Strauss, Reger, Schmidt, Zemlinsky, Schreker, Debussy, Koechlin, Schmitt, Ravel, Glazunov, Kallinikov, Scriabin, Rachmaninoff, Gliere, and many more, as well as the modernists born up to around 1920, are. It's not the only music I listen to, and I know it can tend to gloominess and extremism, but it's what I go for. I can verbalize but I still don't quite know why. And at this point in my life I'm familiar with a hell of a lot of classical music from all eras.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Roger Knox said:


> Since coming to TalkClassical I've spent over three years with a main focus on orchestral music from around 1850-1950 that can be described as late romantic, post-romantic, or impressionist. Especially with German/Austrian, French, and Russian composers. I hadn't expected to be so involved for nearly this long. Right now listening to Miaskovsky, I remember that this was this kind of thing my first professors were trying to steer me _away_ from whether in theory, composition, or history. Even in piano it was only a few "standard repertoire" composers from this era that I played before getting into modernism, which was fine with me (though the post-WW2 avant-garde and post-modernism weren't.)
> 
> But with my ears glued to Miaskovsky I feel this music is still highly relevant, in the way that Mahler, Strauss, Reger, Schmidt, Zemlinsky, Schreker, Debussy, Koechlin, Schmitt, Ravel, Glazunov, Kallinikov, Scriabin, Rachmaninoff, Gliere, and many more, as well as the modernists born up to around 1920, are. It's not the only music I listen to, and I know it can tend to gloominess and extremism, but it's what I go for. I can verbalize but I still don't quite know why. And at this point in my life I'm familiar with a hell of a lot of classical music from all eras.


When I listen to orchestral music (not that often) this period is where I dip my toe. Well maybe mine is probably narrower than yours: ~ 1880-1920. Oh, and I prefer to spell it Myaskovsky.


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## HerbertNorman (Jan 9, 2020)

Roger Knox said:


> Since coming to TalkClassical I've spent over three years with a main focus on orchestral music from around 1850-1950 that can be described as late romantic, post-romantic, or impressionist. Especially with German/Austrian, French, and Russian composers. I hadn't expected to be so involved for nearly this long. Right now listening to Miaskovsky, I remember that this was this kind of thing my first professors were trying to steer me _away_ from whether in theory, composition, or history. Even in piano it was only a few "standard repertoire" composers from this era that I played before getting into modernism, which was fine with me (though the post-WW2 avant-garde and post-modernism weren't.)
> 
> But with my ears glued to Miaskovsky I feel this music is still highly relevant, in the way that Mahler, Strauss, Reger, Schmidt, Zemlinsky, Schreker, Debussy, Koechlin, Schmitt, Ravel, Glazunov, Kallinikov, Scriabin, Rachmaninoff, Gliere, and many more, as well as the modernists born up to around 1920, are. It's not the only music I listen to, and I know it can tend to gloominess and extremism, but it's what I go for. I can verbalize but I still don't quite know why. And at this point in my life I'm familiar with a hell of a lot of classical music from all eras.


I listened to Myaskovsky's early symphonies yesterday... They are quite an introduction to what is to come later in his career... In the first you feel the influence of Tchaikovsky , in the second that of Scriabin,...and in between the composer is finding his own "voice"...


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

I don't know what your question is. It's an era in the evolution of Western art music, without which the later stuff you like wouldn't have happened. No more, no less.


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## Prodromides (Mar 18, 2012)

The header question can be approached from different directions.

I think Roger K. is asking what is it about late-/post-romantic compositions that keep drawing him to re-visit them.

One might also ask what is it about late-/post-romantic works that music academia (especially the generations born during the 1920s and 1930s) wished to distance itself away from.

Myself, I'm not so sure that Romanticism continued on up to 1950. After WW I, _Les Six_ plus Stravinsky & others moved onto neo-classical modes (with sarcastic tongue-in-cheek) and/or with jazz. Folks who continued to desire hearing & writing tone poems during the 1930s & '40s were no doubt left in the dust to resuscitate their old-fashioned notions.

I love a lot of music written after 1870s up through the 1940s myself, but I consider as my home base the music from the 1950s, '60s & '70s. Early '80s is also OK with me, but the 1990s up to the present is not exactly my core area of interest even though I'm receptive toward newer works. The majority of my favorite compositions hover between the early '60s and the late '70s, so I'm not able to answer Mr. Knox's question as to why 1850s through 1950s fascinates him the most.


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## Roger Knox (Jul 19, 2017)

SanAntone said:


> When I listen to orchestral music (not that often) this period is where I dip my toe. Well maybe mine is probably narrower than yours: ~ 1880-1920. Oh, and I prefer to spell it Myaskovsky.


Egad, next thing I'll be writing Mamma Mya ... . Anyway the "late romantic/post-romantic/impressionist thing" may come from my unconscious familiarity with the ubiquitous sounds and the epic quality of Hollywood film music, musicals, TV specials, and so on. For example I grew up on classical piano music, but there was a sense of "coming home" upon hearing orchestral compositions by Mahler, Ravel, & Rachmaninoff. The large number of TC members with an interest in Mahler, Sibelius, Shostakovich even, are I think responding to the epic and narrative aspects of their works.


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## Roger Knox (Jul 19, 2017)

Prodromides said:


> The header question can be approached from different directions. I think Roger K. is asking what is it about late-/post-romantic compositions that keep drawing him to re-visit them. One might also ask what is it about late-/post-romantic works that music academia (especially the generations born during the 1920s and 1930s) wished to distance itself away from. Myself, I'm not so sure that Romanticism continued on up to 1950.


This reply is to Prodromides but it also addresses some other posts in this thread. My speculative OP was a kind of late-night pondering and rhetorical questioning that has caused some misunderstandings:

1. No, of course the dates 1850-1950 are too broad for any reasonable notion of what "late romantic/post-romantic/impressionist" means. But in the OP I referred specifically to my work on (1) German/Austrian, (2) French, and (3) Russian orchestral music. I was actually thinking of the three long-running threads in the Orchestral Music Forum that I started, and that I guessed readers might have noticed. On these specific threads there is a composer-based methodology that is intended to _include outliers_ in terms of date, like Erich Korngold's Symphony (1950-51) or Saint-Saens' early symphonies from the 1850's, as well as works from whatever years "late romantic/post-romantic/impressionist" conventionally encompass.
2. I was trying to suggest that there is perhaps some "X" factor that has kept me liking the music and working for so long on those threads and with that music, as Prodromides has noted.
3. To take it to another level, perhaps some readers have noted that the music involved is sometimes problematic, e.g. for the noxious ideologies and terrible behaviour of certain composers. 
4. As for what musical academia wished to distance itself from: being seen as sympathetic to Nazism, fascism, or communism; involvement in a period seen as a decadent; anti-modern music attitudes that might be taken up by students; the sheer difficulty of the music for a school that was not top-tier.

For now, I've decided that I've unconsciously picked up the orchestra sound and epic quality of Hollywood films and other productions over the years, so that when encountering "late romantic/post-romantic/impressionist" music it's like "coming home" to a type of music that I absorbed a long time ago.


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## NovAntiqua (7 mo ago)

A post-romantic work composed in the 20th of XXth century!
Marcel Tyberg (1893-1944): String Sextet with Double Bass from CD "Musica&Regime 3"


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Roger Knox said:


> For now, I've decided that I've unconsciously picked up the orchestra sound and epic quality of Hollywood films and other productions over the years, so that when encountering "late romantic/post-romantic/impressionist" music it's like "coming home" to a type of music that I absorbed a long time ago.


That may hit the nail on the head. But the late/post Romantic aesthetic is an essential part of much Schoenberg and Berg. I find myself feeling that this is its true direction but not, perhaps, a way to experience "coming home".


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## Roger Knox (Jul 19, 2017)

Enthusiast said:


> But the late/post Romantic aesthetic is an essential part of much Schoenberg and Berg. I find myself feeling that this is its true direction but not, perhaps, a way to experience "coming home".


What I meant in post #6 by "home" was simply _my young years_ when I'd heard "Hollywood film music, musicals, TV specials, and so on" without knowing that one of the original sources of that music was late-romantic German/Austrian style. (It was first represented in 1930's Hollywood by Korngold, Steiner, and Waxman.) I don't mean that "home" was a direction forward; rather for me it is a "missing link" from the past that I find important. I agree that one of the directions that music took -- through expressionism -- was to Schoenberg and Berg, and over the years that music has interested me greatly as a composer, analyst, and performer. But we are so used to the notion of intractable conflict between traditionalists and modernists that I find it hard to explain my interest in both. In fact, there were tremendous battles _in the early 20th century_ between the factions and I certainly understand why. As for nowadays, I think there are many other things more important than re-hashing those issues.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

I would not extend this to all of most of the music 1850-1950 or even 1880-1930 but the "typical" late romantic/impressionist music is usually not a favorite of mine. I like the so-called impressionists most when they least fit their label and are more "classicist" (? for lack of a better term).

I don't think that is because I don't like film music (don't really have a strong opinion on it) but because I generally prefer "clarity" and the classical/early romantic orchestral sound without heavy brass (or only in small doses).

This was even worse when I was a beginner when I liked Tchaikovsky, Brahms and Dvorak but found Wagner, Debussy a "wall/cloud of sound". Nowadays I also like Bruckner and Mahler (and of course also some of the other late romantics) but I have a fondness for the classical/early romantic orchestral sound and as I wrote in another thread, I deplore that there are so few good orchestral works/symphonies from the 1820-40s because I prefer the sound of Weber ouvertures or Mendelssohn symphonies to the "typical" 1870s-1900s sound that often tends to be either too "brassy" or to "big"/impressionist sound cloud for my taste.


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