# Would you have a "Pre-Raphealite" Movement in Music?



## regenmusic (Oct 23, 2014)

I was listening to some Franck on the piano and then moved to some Beethoven
piano sonatas and realized I wanted to listen to some William Byrd because
my spirits just weren't being lifted by the music. Being a student of painting
I am aware of the Pre-Raphealites, a group of painters that wanted to go back
to aesthetic theory before the age of Rapheal. I am wondering about that kind
of thought in music, although of course I wouldn't be severe about it, or even
really follow such an idea rigorously. But in music I would pick someone after
Bach, it seems that the uplifting spirit of music kind of changed in the way that
painting changed after the Renaissance. After the Renaissance you see more large
scale portraits and kind of sombre or just placid landscape work, instead of the
bright canvases that we saw before.

I'm not expecting this to be a huge thread but maybe it would appeal to early music
fans. After one has this realization about the uplifting power of earlier music,
is there a tendency to go back to more moden music? Of course, everyone is
different.

Not sure who after Bach to name the figurehead after, as in the Pre-_______
Siiblinghood. I'm not sure that the Pre-Raphealites were immature about putting
down anyone, they all seem to be pretty socially adjusted folks.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

The Pre-Raphaelites were looking back to the early Italian Renaissance for inspiration. I can't think of a parallel movement in music, although the Romantics of the 19th century were fascinated by the idea of a legendary past superior to the present. Brahms studied Renaissance music and worked with old forms - fugue, motet, passacaglia - while Wagner revived ancient myths and Medieval romances for modern treatment. 19th-century architects built neo-Gothic churches, public structures and houses, the notion of the "Gothic" novel was born, and political philosophers were influenced by (mostly illusory) notions of an idyllic life in pre-industrial society.

Just some thoughts, probably none of them having anything to do with your thread topic! 

:tiphat:


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## regenmusic (Oct 23, 2014)

Thanks for your thoughts. Yes, but it seems Brahms and Wagner have a different feel to their music that isn't that similar
to Baroque and earlier. It seems like a lot of minimalism using the harmonic brightness of earlier music, and some
more recent composers also (Milhaud, Vaughn Williams) often use it. I don't think of Brahms or Wagner as sounding
anything like William Byrd.


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## Figleaf (Jun 10, 2014)

Franck and his followers were interested in Gregorian chant, weren't they? Is this late nineteenth century revival of interest in early music the sort of thing you were interested in? My apologies if I have misunderstood the OP.


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## tortkis (Jul 13, 2013)

I also think minimalism and other movements after modernism have some affinities with early music.

Probably most of composers who pursue microtonality (especially just intonation) are very conscious of ancient music: La Monte Young and Terry Riley (they learned Indian classical music), Michael Harrison, Mamoru Fujieda, and others.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

I would agree that there was no movement as such, but there were a number of composers early in the 20th century who created works that used, and in some ways looked back towards that period. Examples are Respighi, Ravel & Stravinsky.


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## PJaye (May 22, 2015)

I think I’m in that camp, musically speaking. That’s where I feel at home -when I compose for my main instrument anyway; mandolin. Pretty much directly inspired by Bach, Vivaldi, Telemann, Scarlatti, Handel, and similarly historic composers, and farther back with lute composers, and various Medieval music. I guess I’m a musical anachronist, but that’s the way I like it. I think a lot can come from looking to the past and bringing it into the present. To me change happens every time someone composes a new piece. It doesn’t need to rearrange the underlying rules. They’ve worked just fine, and they still do. It’s all up for grabs. I did like the kind of comradery and learning from one another that was around with the Renaissance, and it seems with the Pre-Raphaelite group you spoke of too. It seemed to make for an interesting interchange of ideas and spur things on in new directions.


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## regenmusic (Oct 23, 2014)

I can easily feel more positive with this kind of early harmonic structure, and the music I compose often uses it. I'm not locked in to it at all however and fall into the avant-garde more often than not, but it's a pleasant and exotic avant-garde, much the way that Debussy, Ravel and Satie were composing in an avant-garde way but still writing pleasant music (as were most people before 1910 or so). I tend to use a physiognomic way of judging music, if it feels harmonious somehow with a sixth "body sense" I will tend to like it. Earlier music almost always does that, while 20th Century often doesn't.


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## Bellinilover (Jul 24, 2013)

First I want to say that I too am a very big admirer of Pre-Raphaelite painting. Here's one of my favorites, VERONICA VERONESE by Dante Gabriel Rossetti:









As to your question -- my favorite composers tend to be Romantics (Bellini, Verdi, Beethoven, R. Strauss, Tschaikovsky), though I do love Handel and, to a very slightly lesser extent, Mozart and Bach. I notice that after I've listened to a lot of those composers, Romantic music suddenly sounds HUGE to me. I guess we could do a lot worse than go back to the Baroque era musically, but I would miss Romanticism and its influence. Interesting topic!


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