# Are the Classical and Baroque Eras Emotionally Shallow?



## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Perhaps not theoretically nor mathematically shallow, but are they emotionally shallow since expressing emotion was not the center of motivation for these works?

I think this is why I prefer romanticism up to impressionism most.


----------



## Guest (Jul 15, 2018)

No.

Next question.


----------



## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Baron Scarpia said:


> No.
> 
> Next question.


lol, how very thoughtful!


----------



## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

No, but the music from those eras requires some getting used to. For example Ennio Morricone compsed a lot of really emotional music for movies. Only later, after I got familiar with Bach, did I realize how much he was influenced by Bach and directly used his music to compose his most emotional pieces. The more you listen to the music of those eras, the more you will realize that the music then was diverse and has a lot of emotion.


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Captainnumber36 said:


> Perhaps not theoretically nor mathematically shallow, but are they emotionally shallow since expressing emotion was not the center of motivation for these works?
> 
> I think this is why I prefer romanticism up to impressionism most.


Why do you think that expressing emotion wasn't a central idea in the music? Frescobaldi and those who were influenced by him were keen on writing music which expresses something they called _affetti_, which may or may not be the same as emotions. It seems strange to me to say that, eg, Haydn's F minor variations, or the andante in K 515, aren't about expressing something like emotions, but maybe you've thought about it more than I have.

By contrast a lot of romantic music seems to me emotionally uninteresting, everything by Busoni for example, or all that stuff that Cherkassky and Bolet and Rachmaninov used to play - the Blue Danube, man lebt nur einmal, the flight of the bumblebee etc.


----------



## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

No, it can be emotionally very diverse like Vivaldi's Four Seasons and Mozart's operas, the emotions can change much quicker than Romantic music, which is somewhat more cinematic (which is why Hollywood most often uses Romantic type music).


----------



## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Mandryka said:


> Why do you think that expressing emotion wasn't a central idea in the music? Frescobaldi and those who were influenced by him were keen on writing music which expresses something they called afetti, which may or may not be the same as emotions.


It just feels less vivid to me, and if I'm not mistaken, the motivation was more to be within symphony/sonata form rather than expression. I know Mozart broke a lot of those forms, but still, I feel less moved by these eras when compared to the likes of Mahler and Beethoven, or Ravel and Debussy.


----------



## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Phil loves classical said:


> No, it can be emotionally very diverse like Vivaldi's Four Seasons and Mozart's operas, the emotions can change much quicker than Romantic music, which is somewhat more cinematic (which is why Hollywood most often uses Romantic type music).


These eras just seem to lack depth of personality and imagery which is something I value in Art.


----------



## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Captainnumber36 said:


> These eras just seem to lack depth of personality and imagery which is something I value in Art.


 The Four Seasons and Marriage of Figaro lacking depth of personality and imagery? The Four Seasons is the more impressionistic than any Romantic era music I can think of. Did Schumann or Brahms have more personality than Mozart?


----------



## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

Captainnumber36 said:


> These eras just seem to lack depth of personality and imagery which is something I value in Art.


you have not spend enough time listening to music of those eras. Do you find that this piece by Haydn lacks emotion?


----------



## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Phil loves classical said:


> The Four Seasons and Marriage of Figaro lacking depth of personality and imagery? The Four Seasons is the more impressionistic than any Romantic era music I can think of. Did Schumann or Brahms have more personality than Mozart?


They are both clever and witty, but not deeply expressive and because so, lack depth of individuality and personality. It's almost like pop music today, it's very pleasing to the ear, but tends to be a dime a dozen and formulaic.


----------



## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

There are mechanics to Baroque and Classical music that turn me off whenever I hear them, and I hear them in that Haydn piece. I'm not saying it's good or bad, that is a subjective evaluation and there is no right answer.

I just find these Eras to be too formulaic, mostly, and b/c they relied and focused on certain mechanics and forms, they become redundant and lack individualistic spirit.

I do think they are charming, pleasant and clever, and I even posted about that in the Haydn thread... and I appreciate it, but it isn't my favorite.


----------



## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Captainnumber36 said:


> They are both clever and witty, but not deeply expressive and because so, lack depth of individuality and personality. It's almost like pop music today, it's very pleasing to the ear, but tends to be a dime a dozen and formulaic.


I'm rarely moved by emotion in music, but these are among the few works than move me. These are not formulaic. On other hand I feel a lot of Romantic era music derivative.

Hard to find a decent version of this on YouTube, but this will do


----------



## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

Captainnumber36 said:


> There are mechanics to Baroque and Classical music that turn me off whenever I hear them, and I hear them in that Haydn piece. I'm not saying it's good or bad, that is a subjective evaluation and there is no right answer.
> I just find these Eras to be too formulaic, mostly, and b/c they relied and focused on certain mechanics and forms, they become redundant and lack individualistic spirit.
> I do think they are charming, pleasant and clever, and I even posted about that in the Haydn thread... and I appreciate it, but it isn't my favorite.


I can empathize. The classical era was the most difficult to get into for me too. I had a much easier time getting into Schoenberg than getting into Mozart. Mozart took me over a year of attempts to start liking. The most annoying thing about the classical and baroque eras are the musical clichés (ornaments) and a lot of repetitions, but you can get used to it. You might find this blog post interesant
http://themusicalvoice.net/?p=13


----------



## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Jacck said:


> I can empathize. The classical era was the most difficult to get into for me too. I had a much easier time getting into Schoenberg than getting into Mozart. Mozart took me over a year of attempts to start liking. The most annoying thing about the classical and baroque eras are the musical clichés (ornaments) and a lot of repetitions, but you can get used to it. You might find this blog post interesant
> http://themusicalvoice.net/?p=13


Thanks for understanding, I'll read that later! Mozart was witty and clever, so was Bach, but they just aren't my favorites. I like the drama, I guess I'm a drama queen on the inside, even though I'm a man! haha, but this is the 21st century after all!


----------



## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

Captainnumber36 said:


> Thanks for understanding, I'll read that later! Mozart was witty and clever, so was Bach, but they just aren't my favorites. I like the drama, I guess I'm a drama queen on the inside, even though I'm a man! haha, but this is the 21st century after all!


it depends on your temperament. I find some music oversweet or overemotional to the point that it annoys me. Or some music can be overpersonal. Mahler is so full of himself that it borders on narcissism


----------



## Fredx2098 (Jun 24, 2018)

Not that I don't like the music, but I find music from before and after Baroque and Classical to be much more interesting. Baroque and Classical styles seem creatively limited compared to other styles in my opinion.


----------



## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Fredx2098 said:


> Not that I don't like the music, but I find music from before and after Baroque and Classical to be much more interesting. Baroque and Classical styles seem creatively limited compared to other styles in my opinion.


I agree!!!


----------



## Steve Mc (Jun 14, 2018)

Classical and Baroque composers did not wear their emotions on their sleeves, but there is emotion there. Mozart's Requiem and the 2nd movement of his 23rd Piano Concerto are quite emotional.
Much emotion, especially spiritual, in Bach, too, and not just in his sacred works. The Chaconne is one of the most potent pieces ever written from an emotional standpoint.
And don't get me started on Bach's creativity!


----------



## hiroica (Aug 31, 2015)

Maybe you just prefer the other eras. Personally, I can think more pieces by Bach that can bring me to tears than any other composer


----------



## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

To the OP, no. I find some slow movements from various Mozart piano concertos, for example, to be more poignant than a lot of music from the late romantic period, even when the latter had at disposition quite a lot more musical artifacts to do it. Personally, I think the problem is that some composers got obsessed with an idealized or, to be redundant, romanticized and rather egocentric version of emotions rather than the emotions themselves.


----------



## josquindesprez (Aug 20, 2017)

I got into Baroque music by going back to Renaissance composers and working my way forward. Outside of Bach, none of it had much interest for me, but moving from Monteverdi up to some of the later Baroque composers helped me appreciate a lot of the music from that era more.

I'm not sure what you've heard, but if you like choral music, maybe start with some Monteverdi (Vespers of 1610? or if you want something shorter, maybe just the Lamento della Ninfa), then listen to Buxtehude's Membra Jesu Nostri (just listen to a few of the pieces and see what you think), if you like masses try Biber's Missa Salisburgensis, give a listen to Zelenka's Miserere in c minor (this one might surprise you a bit), and close with Pergolesi's Stabat Mater. If you like any of those pieces, there are probably a lot of recommendations you can get around here for similar works.

For what it's worth, I'd rather listen to the choral music of all of those composers than their instrumental works (other than Biber's Rosary Sonatas), but there's a lot of emotion and range in them, and I personally find most Romantic music to be a bit dull and repetitive by comparison. (I still don't get much out of most Classical era works, but I'm guessing it's more a question of not being exposed to pieces that I'd like rather than an indictment of the era.)


----------



## Eschbeg (Jul 25, 2012)

Captainnumber36 said:


> and if I'm not mistaken, the motivation was more to be within symphony/sonata form rather than expression


The Baroque period took emotional expression more seriously than probably any other era. They had a reason to that later eras were able to take for granted. The notion that music was the language of the emotions--what Baroque composers referred to as Affektenlehre, or "Theory of the Emotions"--is what finally earned music a place among the "fine arts." Prior to that, music was considered a merely functional art, providing secondary support to words in the case of texted music and sonic wallpaper in the case of instrumental music. Once enough people became convinced that instrumental music does actually communicate something, namely emotions, it rose in prestige immensely. That's why instrumental finally became the equal of vocal music in the Baroque period.

As for the idea that pre-Romantic composers were more concerned with "staying within symphony/sonata rather than expression": no composer of the Baroque or Classical felt beholden to the rules of sonata form because those rules were not formulated until the Romantic period. Still less would the notion of form have struck any Baroque or Classical composer as somehow opposed to expression, any more than poets viewed rhyme schemes and metrical patterns as constraints on their creativity. The belief that Baroque and Classical composers were more concerned with form than expression was also, and not coincidentally, invented during the Romantic era, explicitly so that the Romantics could define themselves in opposition to their predecessors. That is, in order for the Romantics to see themselves as rule-breakers, they needed to perceive their predecessors as rule-followers. The rules of form thus helped the Romantics to define themselves.

This perception of pre-Romantic formalism and Romantic freedom became even more ingrained in the twentieth century. When the anti-Romantic movement hit, composers like Stravinsky (with some precedent in late-19th century French composers) inadvertently reinforced the Romantic picture of history by championing the pre-Romantics for their attention to form over emotion. At the same time, and again not coincidentally, the early music movement was gaining momentum, since its main impetus--removing all traces of Romanticism from pre-Romantic music--was the same as Stravinskian neoclassicism.


----------



## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Looking at it from the point of view of the audiences of those time periods, it’s hard to think of the music as being emotionally shallow. Bach’s music was enigmatic of the Baroque period and included considerable Church music. Considering the relatively short life span and everyday challenges to life itself, the Church of that period and the music that went with it presumably gave solace.


----------



## BachIsBest (Feb 17, 2018)

The reality is there have been uncreative derivative composers from every era in music and truly original, interesting musical works from every era in music. To claim, as a blanket statement, that baroque music is creatively limited would to me be ill-conceived. Certainly, there is baroque music that is not that creative, but it's hard to listen to some stuff from the era, like Contrapuntus XIV from Bach's Art of Fugue, and claim there is really anything else like it.


----------



## Fredx2098 (Jun 24, 2018)

BachIsBest said:


> The reality is there have been uncreative derivative composers from every era in music and truly original, interesting musical works from every era in music. To claim, as a blanket statement, that baroque music is creatively limited would to me be ill-conceived. Certainly, there is baroque music that is not that creative, but it's hard to listen to some stuff from the era, like Contrapuntus XIV from Bach's Art of Fugue, and claim there is really anything else like it.


I don't think the music is uncreative, but I think the "rules" and formality ascribed to music in those times limited the creative range at least slightly.


----------



## BabyGiraffe (Feb 24, 2017)

Fredx2098 said:


> I don't think the music is uncreative, but I think the "rules" and formality ascribed to music in those times limited the creative range at least slightly.


The creative genius is a romantic myth. Baroque and Galant composers generally didn't care about originality and what today passes for feelings in music - the 19th century idiom - (today the performance of old music is also pretty bad, because it is known that back then musical lines were often broken and used as a starting point for improvisation). It is funny that some people want to listen to music without understanding the historical context and how it was interpreted back then.

Honestly, most of the old masters (including the golden child of the forum - Mozart) were derivative thieves, if we judge them using the current standards, and this is the only reason for their gigantic creative output. But back then - noone was caring about plagiarism/ the typical motivic/chordal/basso continuo sequences were fair game.


----------



## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

BabyGiraffe said:


> The creative genius is a romantic myth.


How so?



> Baroque and Galant composers generally didn't care about originality and what today passes for feelings in music - the 19th century idiom - (today the performance of old music is also pretty bad, because it is known that back then musical lines were often broken and used as a starting point for improvisation). It is funny that some people want to listen to music without understanding the historical context and how it was interpreted back then.
> 
> *Honestly, most of the old masters (including the golden child of the forum - Mozart) were derivative thieves*, if we judge them using the current standards, and this is the only reason for their gigantic creative output. But back then - noone was caring about plagiarism/ the typical motivic/chordal/basso continuo sequences were fair game.


This is why I do not enjoy much of his music but, of course, there are many exceptions.


----------



## Madiel (Apr 25, 2018)

janxharris said:


> How so?


if that needs to be explained, then you better start from Adam and Eve


----------



## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Madiel said:


> if that needs to be explained, then you better start from Adam and Eve


I would appreciate an explanation.


----------



## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

BabyGiraffe said:


> Honestly, most of the old masters (including the golden child of the forum - Mozart) were derivative thieves, if we judge them using the current standards, and this is the only reason for their gigantic creative output. But back then - noone was caring about plagiarism/ the typical motivic/chordal/basso continuo sequences were fair game.


That they are the ones we esteem is testimony to the fact that, on occasion, they were original.


----------



## premont (May 7, 2015)

Eschbeg said:


> The Baroque period took emotional expression more seriously than probably any other era. They had a reason to that later eras were able to take for granted. The notion that music was the language of the emotions--what Baroque composers referred to as Affektenlehre, or "Theory of the Emotions"--is what finally earned music a place among the "fine arts." Prior to that, music was considered a merely functional art, providing secondary support to words in the case of texted music and sonic wallpaper in the case of instrumental music. Once enough people became convinced that instrumental music does actually communicate something, namely emotions, it rose in prestige immensely. That's why instrumental finally became the equal of vocal music in the Baroque period.
> 
> As for the idea that pre-Romantic composers were more concerned with "staying within symphony/sonata rather than expression": no composer of the Baroque or Classical felt beholden to the rules of sonata form because those rules were not formulated until the Romantic period. Still less would the notion of form have struck any Baroque or Classical composer as somehow opposed to expression, any more than poets viewed rhyme schemes and metrical patterns as constraints on their creativity. The belief that Baroque and Classical composers were more concerned with form than expression was also, and not coincidentally, invented during the Romantic era, explicitly so that the Romantics could define themselves in opposition to their predecessors. That is, in order for the Romantics to see themselves as rule-breakers, they needed to perceive their predecessors as rule-followers. The rules of form thus helped the Romantics to define themselves.
> 
> This perception of pre-Romantic formalism and Romantic freedom became even more ingrained in the twentieth century. When the anti-Romantic movement hit, composers like Stravinsky (with some precedent in late-19th century French composers) inadvertently reinforced the Romantic picture of history by championing the pre-Romantics for their attention to form over emotion. At the same time, and again not coincidentally, the early music movement was gaining momentum, since its main impetus--removing all traces of Romanticism from pre-Romantic music--was the same as Stravinskian neoclassicism.


Great and very informative post. Thank you, Eschbeg, for bringing these things into the right perspective


----------



## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

It could be that the OP just hasn’t heard the music where Affektenlehre ideas are used effectively. But it could also be that the language of affects is just not very accessible to a 21st century audience, that all those ideas about the emotional content of key signatures etc that you get in Affektenlehre are a bit lost on us now. 

The area interests me because recently there have been some recordings of Bach’s keyboard and violin sonatas which claim to be inspired by ideas in Affektenlehre.


----------



## Meyerbeer Smith (Mar 25, 2016)

Have you heard much Gluck or Rameau?


----------



## Iota (Jun 20, 2018)

Eschbeg said:


> The Baroque period took emotional expression more seriously than probably any other era. They had a reason to that later eras were able to take for granted. The notion that music was the language of the emotions--what Baroque composers referred to as Affektenlehre, or "Theory of the Emotions"--is what finally earned music a place among the "fine arts." Prior to that, music was considered a merely functional art, providing secondary support to words in the case of texted music and sonic wallpaper in the case of instrumental music. Once enough people became convinced that instrumental music does actually communicate something, namely emotions, it rose in prestige immensely. That's why instrumental finally became the equal of vocal music in the Baroque period.
> 
> As for the idea that pre-Romantic composers were more concerned with "staying within symphony/sonata rather than expression": no composer of the [Baroque or] Classical felt beholden to the rules of sonata form because those rules were not formulated until the Romantic period. Still less would the notion of form have struck any Baroque or Classical composer as somehow opposed to expression, any more than poets viewed rhyme schemes and metrical patterns as constraints on their creativity. The belief that Baroque and Classical composers were more concerned with form than expression was also, and not coincidentally, invented during the Romantic era, explicitly so that the Romantics could define themselves in opposition to their predecessors. That is, in order for the Romantics to see themselves as rule-breakers, they needed to perceive their predecessors as rule-followers. The rules of form thus helped the Romantics to define themselves.
> 
> This perception of pre-Romantic formalism and Romantic freedom became even more ingrained in the twentieth century. When the anti-Romantic movement hit, composers like Stravinsky (with some precedent in late-19th century French composers) inadvertently reinforced the Romantic picture of history by championing the pre-Romantics for their attention to form over emotion. At the same time, and again not coincidentally, the early music movement was gaining momentum, since its main impetus--removing all traces of Romanticism from pre-Romantic music--was the same as Stravinskian neoclassicism.


Thanks for your (as usual) illuminating post. The idea in the text I've highlighted I've heard throughout my life and more or less accepted I guess, but always had nagging doubts that contemporary composers didn't have at least some kind of template of sonata form's Exposition-Development-Recapit etc in their minds, as one sees music following that general outline arise so often. They may not have been rules, but does their frequent presence not suggest that composers were at least not composing with an eye to their influence?

I have a feeling I may be missing something blindingly obvious, but would nonetheless be very glad to be made aware of it.


----------



## Eschbeg (Jul 25, 2012)

Iota said:


> nagging doubts that contemporary composers didn't have at least some kind of template of sonata form's Exposition-Development-Recapit etc in their minds, as one sees music following that general outline arise so often. They may not have been rules, but does their frequent presence not suggest that composers were at least not composing with an eye to their influence?


If 18th century composers did have a mental template when they wrote sonatas, that template would have been the "rounded binary" form of Baroque dances, since that is ultimately where sonata form comes from. That's why Haydn, Mozart, and many Beethoven sonatas retain the convention of repeating the first and second halves.* Even then, the rounded binary template was primarily a harmonic one; the form was defined as much by the key trajectory of I --> V --> I (or i --> III --> i in the minor key) as it was by thematic material. The return of A-section material in the B-section was a "requirement" of rounded binary form, yes, but it was not called a "recapitulation," and therefore was not intended to be the climactic moment of sonata form, until later.

As far as historians have determined, this seems to have happened around the 1830s. The writings of A. B. Marx are usually cited as the earliest important examples of sonata form being defined as a three-part structure (exposition - development - recap) rather than a two-part struture (I --> V :||: V --> I). So it's not until then that sonatas are perceived as a thematic form in addition to a harmonic one. Not surprisingly, it was Beethoven's sonatas in particular that Marx was talking about. It's a point that's worth repeating: like so many other concepts of classical music that we take as a given today, the expo/develop/recap model is the Beethovenian model (or, more accurately, the post-Beethovenian-retroactively-applied-to-Beethoven model). And it's not a coincidence that the Romantic fascination with "organicism," the use of small musical motives as the basis for larger musical ideas, begins here. Even though the concept of organicism can and has been applied to harmony, it was primarily a melodic phenomenon. (That's why Liszt called it "thematic transformation.") So sonata form is yet another example of how musical concepts invented during the Romantic period served to reinforce Romantic conventions, even though the concepts were claimed to be descriptions of pre-Romantic music.

[* Most performers today consider the repeat signs in a sonata to be optional, and while I can't prove it I suspect this decision is at least partly determined by whether the performer wants to present the sonata as a "mere" display of melodies within a harmonic framework, or as a thematic drama _à la_ Beethoven. And this goes back to what I was saying earlier about the early music movement: "historically informed performance" has less to do with honoring composers' intentions than with honoring the historical categories we inherited from the 19th and 20th centuries. When Malcolm Bilson chooses not to improvise embellishments in a Mozart piece even though every historical account ever uncovered suggests Mozart routinely did so himself, it is because Bilson's main priority is to respect the formal clarity that Romantics and modernists--not Mozart, ironically--made the defining feature of the Classical era.]


----------



## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

I love lots of baroque, classical, romantic, modern and contemporary music. I don't get on so well with early (pre-baroque) music. But I don't think it's shallow or rubbish; I don't think it's cold and sterile; I don't think it is boring and without ideas. It is me that doesn't like it or get it at the moment: it isn't the music. And, although I know some of it is just fun, I am surprised at how many of us hate the music that we just don't like. It is in so many threads - the ones on contemporary and atonal music, and the ones that dis this or that genre - and I wonder how it comes about. I hate some forms of pop music but only because it is shoved down our throats a lot of the time. Otherwise I would just not actually like it, which is a long way from hating it. 

Those who hate whole genres or forms of music: tell us why. Why not just be happy with "it's not for me right now"? What is behind the need to have made "the right decision"?


----------



## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Remember, I said mostly. There are pieces I love from these eras such as Mozart's Symphonies 41 and 40. I also love Bach's Brandenburg Concertos & toccata in fugue.


----------



## Bluecrab (Jun 24, 2014)

BabyGiraffe said:


> ...(including the golden child of the forum - Mozart)


Man, did you hit the nail on the head with that. :tiphat:


----------



## Bluecrab (Jun 24, 2014)

DaveM said:


> Bach's music was *enigmatic* of the Baroque period...


Enigmatic??? Perhaps you meant _emblematic_?


----------



## Bluecrab (Jun 24, 2014)

Steve Mc said:


> The Chaconne is one of the most potent pieces ever written from an emotional standpoint.


I'd agree with that. And I'd add that IMO you could say the same about the aria from the Goldberg Variations, especially when it's played at a relatively slower tempo.


----------



## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

"The creative genius is a romantic myth."

Sorry, but Richard Wagner didn't see it that way with certain composers... but then he was probably looking: _"The most tremendous genius raised Mozart above all masters, in all centuries and in all the arts."_

Not to mention a host of other famous composers who expressed similar views: http://www.spiritsound.com/music/mozartquotes.html

Closer to the truth: "The ability of every individual to appreciate the creative genius is a romantic myth."

But there have been other composers of genius such as Richard Wagner himself, and it's not their problem if the word is not appreciated by those who can't find it anywhere and the tremendous love and inspiration behind it. Mozart was hardly the only example and not everybody listens to him as a sacred cow exclusive of other composers.

Mozart's 4th Symphony written at the age of 9 - superbly done with tremendous style, balance and grace even if one happens not to be a fan of his style. He was already one of the finest composers in Europe - and it's called _the reality of creative genius._


----------



## Iota (Jun 20, 2018)

Eschbeg said:


> If 18th century composers did have a mental template when they wrote sonatas, that template would have been the "rounded binary" form of Baroque dances, since that is ultimately where sonata form comes from. That's why Haydn, Mozart, and many Beethoven sonatas retain the convention of repeating the first and second halves.* Even then, the rounded binary template was primarily a harmonic one; the form was defined as much by the key trajectory of I --> V --> I (or i --> III --> i in the minor key) as it was by thematic material. The return of A-section material in the B-section was a "requirement" of rounded binary form, yes, but it was not called a "recapitulation," and therefore was not intended to be the climactic moment of sonata form, until later.
> 
> As far as historians have determined, this seems to have happened around the 1830s. The writings of A. B. Marx are usually cited as the earliest important examples of sonata form being defined as a three-part structure (exposition - development - recap) rather than a two-part struture (I --> V :||: V --> I). So it's not until then that sonatas are perceived as a thematic form in addition to a harmonic one. Not surprisingly, it was Beethoven's sonatas in particular that Marx was talking about. It's a point that's worth repeating: like so many other concepts of classical music that we take as a given today, the expo/develop/recap model is the Beethovenian model (or, more accurately, the post-Beethovenian-retroactively-applied-to-Beethoven model). And it's not a coincidence that the Romantic fascination with "organicism," the use of small musical motives as the basis for larger musical ideas, begins here. Even though the concept of organicism can and has been applied to harmony, it was primarily a melodic phenomenon. (That's why Liszt called it "thematic transformation.") So sonata form is yet another example of how musical concepts invented during the Romantic period served to reinforce Romantic conventions, even though the concepts were claimed to be descriptions of pre-Romantic music.
> 
> [* Most performers today consider the repeat signs in a sonata to be optional, and while I can't prove it I suspect this decision is at least partly determined by whether the performer wants to present the sonata as a "mere" display of melodies within a harmonic framework, or as a thematic drama _à la_ Beethoven. And this goes back to what I was saying earlier about the early music movement: "historically informed performance" has less to do with honoring composers' intentions than with honoring the historical categories we inherited from the 19th and 20th centuries. When Malcolm Bilson chooses not to improvise embellishments in a Mozart piece even though every historical account ever uncovered suggests Mozart routinely did so himself, it is because Bilson's main priority is to respect the formal clarity that Romantics and modernists--not Mozart, ironically--made the defining feature of the Classical era.]


Thanks very much, that's very interesting and connects up many dots for me. I see the connection between the 'rounded binary form' of baroque dances and sonata form (and was passively kind of aware of it) but your explanation makes it much clearer. I'll look more closely at some examples in the light of your comments. 
It's invigorating to have light shone on the connections one can trace between, for example, a (formally) relatively simple courtly dance and such a distant eventual offspring as a late Beethoven sonata or Mahler symphony!

Also among other ideas in your post was this -

_'So sonata form is yet another example of how musical concepts invented during the Romantic period served to reinforce Romantic conventions, even though the concepts were claimed to be descriptions of pre-Romantic music.'

_ - which I had not considered at all before today, but it makes a great deal of sense now I do.


----------



## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Eschbeg said:


> *The Baroque period took emotional expression more seriously than probably any other era. They had a reason to that later eras were able to take for granted.* The notion that music was the language of the emotions--what Baroque composers referred to as Affektenlehre, or "Theory of the Emotions"--is what finally earned music a place among the "fine arts." Prior to that, music was considered a merely functional art, providing secondary support to words in the case of texted music and sonic wallpaper in the case of instrumental music. Once enough people became convinced that instrumental music does actually communicate something, namely emotions, it rose in prestige immensely. That's why instrumental finally became the equal of vocal music in the Baroque period.
> 
> As for the idea that pre-Romantic composers were more concerned with "staying within symphony/sonata rather than expression": no composer of the Baroque or Classical felt beholden to the rules of sonata form because those rules were not formulated until the Romantic period. Still less would the notion of form have struck any Baroque or Classical composer as somehow opposed to expression, any more than poets viewed rhyme schemes and metrical patterns as constraints on their creativity. The belief that Baroque and Classical composers were more concerned with form than expression was also, and not coincidentally, invented during the Romantic era, explicitly so that the Romantics could define themselves in opposition to their predecessors. That is, in order for the Romantics to see themselves as rule-breakers, they needed to perceive their predecessors as rule-followers. The rules of form thus helped the Romantics to define themselves.
> 
> This perception of pre-Romantic formalism and Romantic freedom became even more ingrained in the twentieth century. When the anti-Romantic movement hit, composers like Stravinsky (with some precedent in late-19th century French composers) inadvertently reinforced the Romantic picture of history by championing the pre-Romantics for their attention to form over emotion. At the same time, and again not coincidentally, the early music movement was gaining momentum, since its main impetus--removing all traces of Romanticism from pre-Romantic music--was the same as Stravinskian neoclassicism.


Excellent post. I would just point out that "expression" as it applies to Baroque composers was a completely different concept than expression in the Romantic Era. Baroque composers were not engaged in expressing themselves, their feelings or their internal states. They approached emotion the way an orator would: What can I do to move the audience to experience a particular affect? (This is why a number of important Baroque treatises on theory and composition borrowed the concepts of classical rhetoric.) In modern terms it was more the evocation of emotion than its expression or, put another way, the expression belonged to the music and was a result of "science" rather than anything to do with the composer's feelings.

Also, I don't think music was accepted as a fine art until the 19thc.


----------



## Highwayman (Jul 16, 2018)

Maybe it is a matter of semantics but the usage of the word "emotionally" here comes wrong to my ears. For instance, the notion of joy is an emotion and there are plenty of pieces belonging to Classical era which are pretty joyful. In this context I would say Haydn`s music is emotionally very profound. 

But I suppose by "emotional" you actually mean sentimental or dramatic. I might agree with you on some level with this terms. Music of the Baroque era and the Classical era especially are sentimentally more shallow than those of the music from the Romantic period. But being more sentimental doesn`t make Romantic era music more emotional than the other two eras` music, since emotions are not countable therefore comparable. I think; if some music makes you exceedingly happy, scared or even disgusted, it is just as emotional as some music makes you sad or affectionated. Every emotion has a time and place for its own. I like listening to some passionate Chopin or Tchaïkovsky at night but I`d rather listen some joyful Mozart or Haydn in the morning. Or some Baroque while studying or resting...

Surely, everyone has their own favourites in music and some emotions might work more than others on you. I would personally vote for 3 B`s coalition over charismatic and authoritarian Mozart. But even though he and other Classical era composers are not my favourites their music offers a lot and it is valuable from many aspects. I must say some 20th century modern music makes me scared and fear is not my favourite emotion but nevertheless feeling something is better than feeling nothing. Most of the contemporary pop/hip hop music makes literally nothing to me and I believe they offer neither emotional nor mathematical value. 

I share some of your feelings but your argument is very hard to validate or invalidate since emotions don`t work like maths...


----------



## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

EdwardBast said:


> Excellent post. I would just point out that "expression" as it applies to Baroque composers was a completely different concept than expression in the Romantic Era. Baroque composers were not engaged in expressing themselves, their feelings or their internal states. They approached emotion the way an orator would: What can I do to move the audience to experience a particular affect? (This is why a number of important Baroque treatises on theory and composition borrowed the concepts of classical rhetoric.) In modern terms it was more the evocation of emotion than its expression or, put another way, the expression belonged to the music and was a result of "science" rather than anything to do with the composer's feelings.
> 
> Also, I don't think music was accepted as a fine art until the 19thc.


I don't disagree with most of what these two posts have stated. The emotion in pre-romantic era music is not as focused on inner-mental states, but that is exactly what I want from my music. I want deeply psychological music where the music becomes more of a reflection of the composer rather than something perhaps, less personal?


----------



## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

I will never deny the talent, creativity, wit, and cleverness of Baroque and Classical composers. It's just not for me! I think the post of the article, "There is no I in Mozart" explains exactly why it is not for me.


----------



## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Captainnumber36 said:


> Perhaps not theoretically nor mathematically shallow, but are they emotionally shallow since expressing emotion was not the center of motivation for these works?
> 
> I think this is why I prefer romanticism up to impressionism most.


As I've just replied to Phil's thread I thought I'd come here. I think part of this issue is that pre-Romanticism not only was music more allied to functional purposes of liturgy or the courts, but that not much music was composed using minor keys. Composers where generally comfortable avoiding mining the emotional depths, which is understandable. For example, the many chamber pieces composed during this time where more or less used to accompany dinner parties of the aristocracy. Today we listen to them on recordings or live in concert as highbrow music, but in those days in terms of function it was meant to accompany people having fun. There's nothing wrong in the way listening has changed, the point is that we can't listen the same way as they did back then.

The emotion found in music of the time came from an approach to music more from a formal point of view, in other words fitting expression into the conventions of the time. Even the pieces which are undoubtedly emotional and come from some tragic experience in the composer's life (eg. Bach's Chaconne for solo violin, which was admired by none other than Brahms) where composed with this emphasis on objective emotion if you like. Same goes with a piece I find really emotional, such as "I know that my redeemer liveth" from Handel's Messiah.

Speaking personally, I'm also more into music from Romanticism onwards, but I do have my favourites of the Baroque and Classical periods (not so much from Renaissance and Early Music).

Again a thread I did years ago which may shed some light on an aspect of this: Use of major & minor keys for symphonies throughout history...

Notice how Tchaikovsky, Bruckner, Mahler and Shostakovich all composed at least half their symphonies in minor keys. I think this is important.


----------



## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Sid James said:


> As I've just replied to Phil's thread I thought I'd come here. I think part of this issue is that pre-Romanticism not only was music more allied to functional purposes of liturgy or the courts, but that not much music was composed using minor keys. Composers where generally comfortable avoiding mining the emotional depths, which is understandable. For example, the many chamber pieces composed during this time where more or less used to accompany dinner parties of the aristocracy. Today we listen to them on recordings or live in concert as highbrow music, but in those days in terms of function it was meant to accompany people having fun. There's nothing wrong in the way listening has changed, the point is that we can't listen the same way as they did back then.
> 
> The emotion found in music of the time came from an approach to music more from a formal point of view, in other words fitting expression into the conventions of the time. Even the pieces which are undoubtedly emotional and come from some tragic experience in the composer's life (eg. Bach's Chaconne for solo violin, which was admired by none other than Brahms) where composed with this emphasis on objective emotion if you like. Same goes with a piece I find really emotional, such as "I know that my redeemer liveth" from Handel's Messiah.
> 
> ...


Bravo! Excellent post and well articulated. I agree 100% with your assertions. Again, I think the article posted on the first page of this thread titled, "There Is No I In Mozart" defines exactly why I stray away from these periods.


----------



## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Post edited and deleted.


----------



## Ziggabea (Apr 5, 2017)

I think they have a tendency to sound dry but then romanticism really raised the bar for instrumental composition.
It seems that classical music became too formal following the Renaissance Era but that may just be my opinion


----------



## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Ziggabea said:


> I think they have a tendency to sound dry but then romanticism really raised the bar for instrumental composition.
> It seems that classical music became too formal following the Renaissance Era but that may just be my opinion


But, there are gems IMO.


----------



## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Captainnumber36 said:


> Bravo! Excellent post and well articulated. I agree 100% with your assertions. Again, I think the article posted on the first page of this thread titled, "There Is No I In Mozart" defines exactly why I stray away from these periods.


Thanks. Having said the above, there where many innovations which came out of the period. There was of course the rise of instrumental music, the composition of the first concertos, operas, ballets and establishment of permanent orchestras (Lully's one at the French court was the first). Its hard to summarise, but Bach did so much for keyboard music alone and Handel innovated with the oratorio. By the time we get to Mozart, Haydn, and early Beethoven, the string quartet and symphony also became substantial and established forms. Subscription concerts emerged. So its not a matter of discounting pre-Romantic eras, just a matter of how they're different. Whether we as individuals enjoy this music or not can be another matter entirely.


----------



## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Sid James said:


> Thanks. Having said the above, there where many innovations which came out of the period. There was of course the rise of instrumental music, the composition of the first concertos, operas, ballets and establishment of permanent orchestras (Lully's one at the French court was the first). Its hard to summarise, but Bach did so much for keyboard music alone and Handel innovated with the oratorio. By the time we get to Mozart, Haydn, and early Beethoven, the string quartet and symphony also became substantial and established forms. Subscription concerts emerged. So its not a matter of discounting pre-Romantic eras, just a matter of how they're different. Whether we as individuals enjoy this music or not can be another matter entirely.


I enjoy some of it, but far less compared to the Romantic/Impressionistic music.


----------



## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Captainnumber36 said:


> I enjoy some of it, but far less compared to the Romantic/Impressionistic music.


That's fair enough.


----------



## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

I love lots of Romantic music but must say that I find it very difficult to get how music lovers can hate or not respond to the Classical. It seems to me to be basic and I'm not sure what our "high" music would be like if it were not for the Classical tendency.


----------



## Fredx2098 (Jun 24, 2018)

Enthusiast said:


> I love lots of Romantic music but must say that I find it very difficult to get how music lovers can hate or not respond to the Classical. It seems to me to be basic and I'm not sure what our "high" music would be like if it were not for the Classical tendency.


I'm not really seeing any hatred of Classical. Personally, I love many Baroque and Classical works, but it's a proportionally small amount compared to post-Classical. I definitely appreciate it, but such formal, orderly sound just doesn't move me as much.


----------



## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

Enthusiast said:


> I love lots of Romantic music but must say that I find it very difficult to get how music lovers can hate or not respond to the Classical. It seems to me to be basic and I'm not sure what our "high" music would be like if it were not for the Classical tendency.


Quite often music of the Classical era sounds, to my ears, as just a sequence of very similar cadences - one knows and anticipates that, sooner or later, that next one is going to come. For me, this is extremely irritating. The pieces where this isn't so obvious are the ones I love.

Obviously, not everyone perceives such music this way.


----------



## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

janxharris said:


> Quite often music of the Classical era sounds, to my ears, as just a sequence of very similar cadences - one knows and anticipates that, sooner or later, that next one is going to come. For me, this is extremely irritating. The pieces where this isn't so obvious are the ones I love.
> 
> Obviously, not everyone perceives such music this way.


I agree, good points. I post this while listening to The Brandenburg Concertos!


----------



## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

EdwardBast said:


> Excellent post. I would just point out that "expression" as it applies to Baroque composers was a completely different concept than expression in the Romantic Era. Baroque composers were not engaged in expressing themselves, their feelings or their internal states. They approached emotion the way an orator would: What can I do to move the audience to experience a particular affect? (This is why a number of important Baroque treatises on theory and composition borrowed the concepts of classical rhetoric.) In modern terms it was more the evocation of emotion than its expression or, put another way, the expression belonged to the music and was a result of "science" rather than anything to do with the composer's feelings.
> 
> Also, I don't think music was accepted as a fine art until the 19thc.


Yet, what is the spoken word if not a form of _expression_? Actually many spiritual traditions maintain the spoken word as being the beginning of existence itself. Is it possible to be expressive without being influenced by one's inner state? I think we should be careful with ideas that seem dismissive of earlier approaches as mere "manipulation" while claiming Romantic music is finally about inner expression. Treatises and books on composition have never been able to adequately explain the compositional process, if they did everyone highly educated would be an incredible composer.

However, interestingly it _is_ in the Romantic era we do see the idea surfacing that music itself was not adequate enough to express an idea - it needed to be propped up by a program. An idea many earlier composers, and indeed many musicians and composers of the time felt was repulsive.

Indeed not everyone composing in the Romantic era felt like it was a golden age of composition, or that it was finally music's emergence as a 'fine art'.

"_Probably the last of those who still belonged to an artistic period more satisfying than the one through which we now suffer...At no time has any art been so mistreated as is now our beloved music. Let us hope that somewhere in obscurity something better is emerging, for otherwise our epoch would go down in the annals of art as a manure pit_"

--Johannes Brahms after hearing news of the death of Ludwig Spohr


----------



## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

edited and deleted.


----------



## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

tdc said:


> Yet, what is the spoken word if not a form of _expression_? Actually many spiritual traditions maintain the spoken word as being the beginning of existence itself. Is it possible to be expressive without being influenced by one's inner state? *I think we should be careful with ideas that seem dismissive of earlier approaches as mere "manipulation" while claiming Romantic music is finally about inner expression.* Treatises and books on composition have never been able to adequately explain the compositional process, if they did everyone highly educated would be an incredible composer.
> 
> However, interestingly it _is_ in the Romantic era we do see the idea surfacing that music itself was not adequate enough to express an idea - it needed to be propped up by a program. An idea many earlier composers, and indeed many musicians and composers of the time felt was repulsive.
> 
> ...


I'm not dismissing early approaches to emotion at all! Quite the contrary. As expressions of grief, Dido's Lament and the slow movement of the Second Brandenburg Concerto, to cite two favorite examples, are, IMO, as powerful as anything composed since. I don't think inner, personal expression of the Romantic kind is in any way superior to that formulated through the rhetorical science of the Doctrine of Affections. I wouldn't use the expression "mere manipulation" because I don't find the calculated effects of Baroque composers in any way inferior to or less effective than the most heartfelt outpourings of the Romantics.


----------



## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Just because the composers of the Baroque and Classical era didn’t wear their hearts on their sleeve doesn’t mean they were devoid of depth and were emotionally shallow. They simply had different artistic goals than those of the Romantic era and the music wasn’t necessarily about what was going on in their personal lives, like with Beethoven and his rage over a lost penny that he wanted the world to know about. Bach or Mozart probably would have seen that as ego and self-preoccupation, which in some instances of course it was. What I like about those earlier epochs is that the music is not full of emotional and fanciful self-indulgence and excess; most everything was paired down to the essentials that took years to develop as a craft. But shallow, no, especially in so many of the religious works they composed so masterfully. Bach’s Goldberg Variations is one of the most incredible transformative journeys in all of music when it finally returns to the original Aria.


----------



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

tdc said:


> *Is it possible to be expressive without being influenced by one's inner state? I think we should be careful with ideas that seem dismissive of earlier approaches as mere "manipulation" while claiming Romantic music is finally about inner expression. *
> 
> However, interestingly it _is_ in the Romantic era we do see the idea surfacing that music itself was not adequate enough to express an idea - it needed to be propped up by a program. An idea many earlier composers, and indeed many musicians and composers of the time felt was repulsive.
> 
> ...


The major difference between a Romantic concept of expression and that of earlier periods is the idea that music could be composed as, or at least should be heard as, a transmission of the feelings of the composer. That idea probably wasn't entirely foreign to music of the Baroque and Classical eras, but basically composers then took a more objective view of what were considered universal categories of emotion - as opposed to purely personal feelings which they would have considered artistically insignificant and uninteresting to their listeners - and tried to portray them by means of certain conventional melodic, harmonic and rhythmic devices ("sighing" apoggiaturas, descending harmonic sequences, chromaticism, sharply dotted rhythms, etc.). All of these devices remained in play in Romantic music, but the larger formal framework of a fugue or sonata that had provided a transcendent, "universalizing" context for affective gestures gave way to, or was at least infused with, a Romantic conception of form as a sort of seismograph of feeling: a sonata movement became a arena for the struggle of hostile forces, a fugue became a device for screwing up the tension to unbearable levels, etc., and new, more improvisatory-sounding forms arose that were supposed to be experienced by the listener as spontaneous outpourings of emotion.

The "personalizing" of musical expression led naturally to the free exploration of forms, harmonies, timbres and other devices as means of expressing shades of feeling (and extramusical ideas and images that stimulated feeling) hitherto unexplored. It was to the most "progressive" manifestations of these tendencies (as practiced by Berlioz, Liszt and Wagner) that Brahms was reacting in the above quote and in his own neo-Classical musical practice. Of course he could never quite reign in his own Romantic ardor, or resist the desire to curl up in an armchair with the score of a Wagner opera on his lap! The audible evidence of his struggle for aesthetic integrity, and his amazing success in marrying his Romantic yin with his Classical yang (though not without the occasional conjugal friction), makes his work an interesting case study and vantage point from which to consider the nature of musical expression.


----------



## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

The Classical era of music has been mentioned but perhaps without touching upon the heart of it:



> In the middle of the 18th century, Europe began to move toward a new style in architecture, literature, and the arts, generally known as Classicism. *This style sought to emulate the ideals of Classical antiquity, especially those of Classical Greece. *
> 
> The remarkable development of ideas in "natural philosophy" had already established itself in the public consciousness. In particular, Newton's physics was taken as a paradigm: structures should be well-founded in axioms and be both well-articulated and orderly. This taste for structural clarity began to affect music, which moved away from the layered polyphony of the Baroque period toward a style known as homophony, in which the melody is played over a subordinate harmony. This move meant that chords became a much more prevalent feature of music, even if they interrupted the melodic smoothness of a single part. As a result, the tonal structure of a piece of music became more audible. [unquote]
> 
> I believe the above considerations are very true and especially the music of Haydn and Mozart reflected the classical ideals related to antiquity, especially the harmonic clarity and overall balance of Mozart that was capable of expressing a perfection of form (but of course Haydn too), a great economy of style that was rooted, again, in the ideals of Ancient Greece, whether the composers followed those ideals from antiquity consciously or unconsciously. These factors greatly motivated the climate of the Classical era, including Classical music, until music started to change during the Romantic era. And yet the influence of classical Greek antiquity is seldom mentioned in the discussion of the Classical era of music. It was vital... and the emotional expression of music was designed to fit within these ideals... That of course changed during the Romantic era when personal self-expression started to dictate the forms it took, or at least transformed them, with the B minor Piano Sonata of Liszt being a good example. The Romantic era seemed much more rooted in Nature than in the Greek ideals of antiquity.


----------



## Schoenberg (Oct 15, 2018)

In music from the Romantic period the composer has clear emotional intent, and you are expected to express the emotions portrayed by the composer.
In music from the baroque period the composer only provides a medium for you, to insert your own emotion into.

There is obviously a lot of overlap in addition, but in general baroque music doesn't provide the emotion for you, you have to give it to the music yourself.


----------



## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Music from Classical and Baroque eras generally have a more steady metre, less starts and stops than Romantic and beyond. Emotion is hard to pin down. If the composer can convey it to the listener, it is there.


----------



## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

It's just my opinion, but I find stuff like Chopin Mazurka Op.67 No.4 in A minor, Nocturne Op.55 No.1 in F minor or Scriabin Preludes Op.11 Nos. 2, 4, 8 perverse, narcissistic, self-indulgent. It is as if they're yelling out, "it's always about me! me! me!" I became tired of Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in E minor Op.64 years ago, I still don't feel like hearing it again. Maybe it's the excessive amount of melancholic melodrama that I find repulsive. They wrote very fine, self-expressive music, and I think much of it feels great upon first time hearing, but not so great the second and third time.


----------



## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

hammeredklavier said:


> It's just my opinion, but I find stuff like Chopin Mazurka Op.67 No.4 in A minor, Nocturne Op.55 No.1 in F minor or Scriabin Preludes Op.11 Nos. 2, 4, 8 perverse, narcissistic, self-indulgent. It is as if they're yelling out, "it's always about me! me! me!" I became tired of Mendelssohn Violin Concerto in E minor Op.64 years ago, I still don't feel like hearing it again. Maybe it's the excessive amount of melancholic melodrama that I find repulsive. They wrote very fine, self-expressive music, and I think much of it feels great upon first time hearing, but not so great the second and third time.


I have the same feelings about Mahler - self-indulgent, narcissistic music


----------



## Clairvoyance Enough (Jul 25, 2014)

Your preferences may be more malleable than you realize, and if you listen to music often enough you'll exhaust your interest in any particular idiom. If I'm not mistaken you've been listening to Mozart and Haydn for at least a couple of years now, maybe more, and for me it takes about that long to have my fill of music I really love and then feel compelled to move on. 

When I first found classical music the romantics struck me as cheesy and melodramatic, and the impressionists as pretty but meandering and boring. It wasn't until I had listened myself sick of Haydn, Mozart, Bach, Handel, and all the rest that I finally started opening up to the following generation. When I finally learned to love the Romantics, Stravinsky struck me as ugly and weird, but then I listened myself sick of the Romantics and the same thing happened. This cycle only continues for me as the years go by.

Annihilate your ears with whatever strikes you right now, and a few years from now your perspective might change. I used to have a sneaking suspicion that classical music actually had gotten better over time, and that artists like Ravel, Rachmaninov, and Wagner were certainly more expressive than artists like Haydn and Mozart. I trusted their reputations too much to actually fall into that mentality, but the germ of that feeling was there. 

Now that I've circled back around to them after a hiatus, I feel like Haydn understood variety of motion and momentum far better than any of the Romantics, even though he's not necessarily the greatest pure melodist; at his best he did with his expositions what Tchaikovsky's ballets do with individual tunes. The romantics may outshine him in certain moments of emotional transcendence, but for me they don't find their way from point A to point B with nearly as much grace. To my ears Wagner, Brahms, Bruckner, Schumann, and Mahler plod like giant, clunky robots compared to something like the Military symphony. And the melodic density that someone like Dvorak occasionally achieved in works like his ninth was often just the standard for Mozart. 

As I write this I notice I'm not necessarily disagreeing that they don't achieve the same type of emotional expressiveness as the romantics, but there may come a time when you flip flop and begin to prefer the type of expressiveness they do achieve.


----------



## Guest (Dec 3, 2018)

Bach's St. Matthew Passion or Mass in B Minor emotionally shallow? Purcell's Dido and Aeneas emotionally shallow? And Beethoven was a classical composer - not emotionally shallow. Haydn's Creation oratorio?


----------



## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

hammeredklavier said:


> It's just my opinion, but I find stuff like Chopin Mazurka Op.67 No.4 in A minor, Nocturne Op.55 No.1 in F minor or Scriabin Preludes Op.11 Nos. 2, 4, 8 perverse, narcissistic, self-indulgent. It is as if they're yelling out, "it's always about me! me! me!"


Chopin and especially Scriabin as a person may have had certain self-centered character traits that aren't particularly admirable, but I don't feel their music is necessarily about themselves. Why you mentioned these specific piano pieces is absolutely puzzling to me. But if that's how these pieces make you feel, that's too bad I guess. The thought never entered my mind that this music is "narcissistic and self-indulgent".


----------



## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

One can only be amazed at the frequent bashing of the Romantics as essentially degrading the 'high standards' of music, whether many of these great composers were intended for everyone to appreciate or not, including Johannes Brahms...The Romantic's worst sin, _other than none of them being Mozart all over again_, is not that they sat in the middle of their own life and experience, but that their music didn't shout out to the self-indulgent, selfish and self-preoccupied listener: "You, you, you."... The expanded self-expression was needed after the restraints of the Classical era began stifling a wider emotional range where the ideas could dictate the form and not always the other way around. It was needed. The world had changed under Napoleon, the aristocracy came under fire, and there was the execution of a king in France. The new era was healthy, liberating, and not a degrading of music or themselves, particularly based on the weakest music examples that their critics could ever possibly find. Rarely any mention of the emotional honesty, sensitivity, intimacy, tenderness and strength of the Romantics-the exuberance of the liberated imagination free to explore and experiment based upon one's own personal experience. Or aren't all eras in music supposed to help round out an individual's personal experience so one doesn't become narrow, an elitist or snob?


----------



## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

_Just because the composers of the Baroque and Classical era didn't wear their hearts on their sleeve doesn't mean they were devoid of depth and were emotionally shallow._

I'd recommend anyone that thinks this, or subscribes to some theory of emotional shallowness, give an ear to any of the following compositions from the Baroque and Classical era:

Henry Purcell's *Music For the Funeral of Queen Mary*, especially as performed by the Jones Brass Ensemble and forces.

J.S. Bach's *St. Matthew Passion*, particularly Part 2 from No. 60 to the end.

Handel's *Messia*h, especially parts 2 and 3, and in particular the closing amen. You can pick any recording or performance.

Haydn's *Nelson mass*.

Mozart's *Don Giovanni*, especially the scene where the Don is cast into Hell.

Mozart's *C minor mass* and/or *Requiem*.

Once you do so you'll learn that, just because music became louder in the 19th and 20th centuries, it did not become more emotionally astute. Generally speaking the forces became greater (more instruments) and some of the music, such as Shostakovich, became more regularly intense. But the emotions and humanity did not increase.


----------

