# Romanticism explored



## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

First, the Romantics were overthrowing the old, established order, in which the world and its social order was strictly and rigidly defined. 

The old hierarchy was religious: everything in creation had its place in the order, and was more or less unchangeable. With the Enlightenment, science began to be more important than religion; and science was becoming seen (via Darminism) as a process of becoming, not static being.

Kings were deposed, democracy came in, and "everyman" became empowered. Beethoven celebrates this in his life and work; this is how how differs greatly from Haydn and Mozart, who were still under the influence of the established order. Beethoven proclaims this loudly in his Ninth, which transcends mere Christianity (of the old order) and touts a new "inclusive" everyman spirituality.

Classicism is concerned with "being," as an unchanging state. 
Romanticism is concerned with "becoming."

'Being' is a result of tradition, while 'becoming' is a process that can begin anywhere, and become anything.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Despite Beethoven being painted as a revolutionary he owed much to the music before him, going way back to Palestrina. Certainly to Mozart and Haydn, who in their later works prefigured much of his innovations. I also think that he was just as hidebound by his times - politically speaking - as those before. You look at how the plot of _Fidelio_ - obviously about the French Revolution of 1789 - had to be changed in terms of being set in an indefinite time in Spain of all places to evade the censors. This trend would continue throughout the 19th century, for example Verdi set his operas like _Aida_ and _Nabucco_ in historical periods in the past, but they where nothing if not metaphors for the struggle for independence and unification in the Italy of his own present time.

This all speaks to the Enlightenment having effects more on paper than in reality. Sure, quite nice constitutions where adpoted, parliaments built and so on, but during the 19th century Europe remained under the grip of the ancien regime. All it did was take on a new image, it just reinivented itself. Old wine in new casks, basically. 1848 was the year of revolutions across Europe (and failed revolutions at that), but there where other flashpoints. Italy and Germany where eventually unified - by bloody struggle, I might add, not by philosophies on paper - but remained monarchies and retained remnants of the feudal system of before.

I am not denying the changes which occured during that time of course, not only in music but outside it. A lot happened in the 19th century, one thing was the rise of the bourgeoise, and you had composers like Brahms and Dvorak for example publishing their music with the backing of big publishing firms. So in effect they where the first generation to totally rid themselves of aristocratic patronage. Again, Haydn and Mozart had late in their careers began doing public concerts, but it goes even back before that with Handel's performances of The Messiah. As the history of Western music goes on, it moves away from church and aristocracy and into the mainstream, to the emerging middle classes - many of them intellectuals and merchants. What occured in the 19th century was pivotal to this process.

Overall though I am sceptical of calling any composer to be a liberator, or any era to totally revolutionise music. I see music, as many other things, as developing and building upon itself. You look at how composers like Palestrina and Corelli have remained influential since their own time, even beyond choral and string music. You look at Haydn who is now considered to be one of the most important innovators in the history of Western classical music, whereas in the 19th century (right up until the mid 20th century) he was forever compared unfavourably to Beethoven, who he ironically taught.

So that's the way it is, and this kind of Messiah building really got going in the 19th century and remained strong into the 20th. So you raise up Beethoven and downgrade Haydn. You raise Scriabin and downgrade Rachmaninov. You raise Webern and downgrade Schoenberg. You raise Schoenberg and downgrade Sibelius. On it goes. I thought of doing a thread on this whole thing in classical music of reinventing the wheel to serve various agendas (but won't due to the current oversupply of similarly themed threads).

Its the way history was seen, probably still is seen, by many people in classical music. You compare it to non-Western music and they're totally different. Things like gamelan, flamenco, or music of various tribal cultures is seen differently. Its a tradition with its own conventions, but its a living and constantly developing one. That's the way things where seen in classical up to some point in time before it became increasingly fragmented into various opposing cliques, and in some ways ossified. Some put the date somewhere in the 20th century, some in the 19th.

I think that the move towards writing everything down and removing any element of real improvisation was a part of that, and Beethoven's writing down cadenzas got the ball rolling there (but I think Mozart did it with his late piano concertos too?). So improv kind of went dormant in the 19th century then got going again in the early 20th, not only with jazz influencing classical but also things like folk and the emergence of Neo-Classicism as a reaction to the strictures of Romanticism.

ANyway, I'll leave you with the lyrics of a classic song _That's LIfe_ - sung by Frank Sinatra and also James Brown! - to give you a metaphor on how one generation's radical Messiah can turn into another generation's conservative old fogey (or vice versa) -

_That's life (that's life), that's what all the people say
You're ridin' high in April, shot down in May
But I know I'm gonna change that tune
When I'm back on top, back on top in June

I said that's life (that's life), and as funny as it may seem
Some people get their kicks stompin' on a dream
But I don't let it, let it get me down
'cause this fine old world, it keeps spinnin' around

I've been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet, a pawn and a king
I've been up and down and over and out and I know one thing
Each time I find myself flat on my face
I pick myself up and get back in the race
.........._


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## GGluek (Dec 11, 2011)

I don't necessarily agree with Million's thesis, but it's an interesting one.

Nor do I necessarily agree with Sid's blanket dismissal of it.

As Frank Sinatra also sang: "Everybody's got the right to be wrong (at least once)."


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

GGluek said:


> I don't necessarily agree with Million's thesis, but it's an interesting one.
> 
> Nor do I necessarily agree with Sid's blanket dismissal of it.
> 
> As Frank Sinatra also sang: "Everybody's got the right to be wrong (at least once)."


I didn't aim to do a blanket dismissal, and I did validate some aspects of what millions said but just put a somewhat different slant on the whole thing. I don't believe democracy came to Europe in the 19th century, that's for sure. Perhaps there where winds of change, very strong winds of it, blowing then. But it didn't come until well into the 20th century. We got various dictatorships, two world wars - which some historians now view more like one extended war rather than two separate ones - and also the Cold War, where virtually half of Europe was behind the Iron Curtain in the so-called 'People's Democracies.'

Speaking to that, if a philosophy did - or was to - make any real impact it was Marxism, forged in the cauldron of those revolutions in the 19th century. Marx had to leave the continent and settle in the UK, for reasons somewhat similar to Wagner's long period of exile after 1848. I think Marx's ideas did have some impact in the 19th century, but it was really in the next century that his economic theories where made into some kind of reality (and I won't comment on what I think of that, I'm just adding this to what I said before, you know I can't fit everything into a post!).

I also don't deny that Beethoven was a game changer, and so too Wagner at the other end of the 19th century. However, what I argued is that I don't agree with million's thesis - or what I read it to be - that there was this dilineation between the 18th and 19th centuries. If there is, it's not easy to make, because Beethoven built upon the past, and that is not irreconcilable with him also being a revolutionary. Its just a different way to look at it, a more contextualised way.

Sure, some periods in history are unique unto themselves. However, as the saying goes, history tends to repeat itself. With change in Europe being cosmetic rather than real, the problems encountered in the wake of the French Revolution - I mean the Terror and also Napoleon turning from liberator to dictator - cast its shadow over the 19th century. The situation then, with superficial change politically - although granted, real economic, technological and social changes did occur - led to what we got in the 20th century. Its the ancien regime, or remnants of it, that led to World War I. They where shaken but still still standing, albeit tottering after that war, giving rise to the likes of Mussolini and Hitler. In Russia, although Tsarism was swept aside by Bolshevism, the apparatus that developed with the Soviet system did retain many elements of the old Tsarist system. In all of these cases, the 'unfinished business' of the 18th century spilled over into the 20th century via the 19th.

In a way its not hard to understand what Marx was getting at. He believed that democracy was a bourgeois construct, and in the 19th century that's what it basically was. So he posited his alternate views, and no wonder with all the disillusionment and oppression of the intervening years, his ideology became for many the 'liberation ideology' of the 20th century, replacing what was left of the Enlightenment.

But of course theory and reality are very often different, and at odds. If I can slightly extent my discussion until the present, in many ways the world is still affected by all that which went before. You look at China, where capitalism has replaced their version of Marxism, but they are not moving towards any kind of democracy. Sound familiar? Its a bit like Europe in the 19th century, with a lot of industrialisation and economic development and resulting social impacts, but little political change at the top. That's a strong parallel but unfortunately the lessons of history are not always looked at as being important in the 'here and now.'

Other things - basically the more opportunistic aspects of human nature, rather than the idealistic - intervene. So our own point in history has that same clash of ideologies, even though it seems that everywhere you go the economic imperative is the most important. There are other things underlying the superficial aspects of growth and development, that's my main point, the clash between the real and superficial.

So in some ways the liberation type ideology is what I'm questioning the most. It can be a Beethoven, or a Napoleon, or anything like that. Its that whole idea of liberation I'm questioning, why do we need a liberator when all we do is end up in bondage anyway? Then the process is inevitably repeated. That's my line of reasoning.

BTW, if you are reading millions I welcome your thoughts and I will take time to respond as best I could. Its an interesting topic and I hope to add, not detract, from your discussion.


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## Guest (Mar 27, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> science was becoming seen (via Darminism) as a process of becoming, not static being.


Romanticism is a late 18th century phenomenon, which was widely considered over by mid-19th century, splintering into various narrower isms.

Darwin published his work in 1859, long after Romanticism had run its course. It's hard to see how Darwin could have had any effect at all on a movement that was well underway before he was even born, much less a published author.


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## GGluek (Dec 11, 2011)

Just a quick response I think Million is guilty of over-generalization and sweeping statements that purport to explain a movement that had numerous facets that were influenced by and came out of the society it served. To my mind "too"sweeping.

As far as Marxism goes, I have no quarrel with the continued validity of economic Marxism (ie, Capitalism has a lot of inherent problems that may or may not be correctable), but social Marxism (dialectic materialism, class struggle, Socialism. Communism, Leninism, Maoism) has so far been a dead end and I don't anticipate a revival anytime soon -- and I really don't see any positive influence it has had on any of the arts.

Cheers


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

some guy said:


> Darwin published his work in 1859, long after Romanticism had run its course. It's hard to see how Darwin could have had any effect at all on a movement that was well underway before he was even born, much less a published author.


I see Romanticism as being the result of The Enlightenment, so there you see, it all fits in. Science was elevated (remember Galileo?) and gradually gained more status. Still, the tenets and laws of science would seem to be at odds with the poetic approach of Romanticism, but Darwin changed all that (echoes of Galileo vs. religion) when he showed that "gradual process" was, indeed a scientifically valid idea. Thus, science came into harmony with Romanticism, and were undermining the previous age of tradition (i.e. the Church & religion).

Religion and creationism made things rigid; things were created to be what they were, unchanging, according to a static purpose. Romanticism gave us spontaneous "becoming." Men could change, heros were not distant things; everyman could be heroic.

The "unchanging" nature of Classicism was being questioned; tradition exemplifies this "things as they are" state.


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## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

In a symbolic system, there is a possibility of meaning and understanding. In a system that tries to break out from the symbolic, there is a possibility of approaching truth, subjective or objective. So, we cannot have our cake and eat it too, at least in a specific point in time. But, if history is dialectic, we can at least be dancing (move - stop - move - stop...) towards the right direction, provided that we always remember the past. A "perfect classicism" would mean a blotted out reality, an imaginary kingdom where all is well, and a "perfect romanticism"... well, look what happened to Tristan and Isolde


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Xaltotun said:


> In a symbolic system, there is a possibility of meaning and understanding. In a system that tries to break out from the symbolic, there is a possibility of approaching truth, subjective or objective. So, we cannot have our cake and eat it too, at least in a specific point in time. But, if history is dialectic, we can at least be dancing (move - stop - move - stop...) towards the right direction, provided that we always remember the past. A "perfect classicism" would mean a blotted out reality, an imaginary kingdom where all is well, and a "perfect romanticism"... well, look what happened to Tristan and Isolde


True, the notions of Romanticism and Classicism seem to ebb and flow, according to history. This Romanticism, which I think lasted longer thn someguy is saying it did, well into Tchaikovsky and Mahler, is mainly a result of the Enlightenment, and the rise of science along with the demise of religion's total grasp on everything. That's another point to someguy, I'm looking at the whole mega-trend of thought from the Enlightenment, so Darwin is indicative of this way of thinking in science (and religion is still fighting it to this day).
After all, I did say:


> The old hierarchy was religious: everything in creation had its place in the order, and was more or less unchangeable. With the Enlightenment, science began to be more important than religion; and science was becoming seen (via Darminism) as a process of becoming, not static being.


I *did *mention Darwin in the general context of the Enlightenment.

To GGlueck, who thinks I'm too general: music tends to fall behind historical movements, so I define Romantic music in the context of the general direction the Enlightenment took us.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Sid James said:


> Despite Beethoven being painted as a revolutionary he owed much to the music before him, going way back to Palestrina. Certainly to Mozart and Haydn, who in their later works prefigured much of his innovations.


Musically, I do not dispute that, but I'm defining and exploring what Romanticism is, and the specifics behind it.



Sid James said:


> You look at how composers like Palestrina and Corelli have remained influential since their own time, even beyond choral and string music. You look at Haydn who is now considered to be one of the most important innovators in the history of Western classical music, whereas in the 19th century (right up until the mid 20th century) he was forever compared unfavourably to Beethoven, who he ironically taught.


Well, Beethoven was trying to communicate with the common man; that was his audience, not a court of royals. If common men have turned Beethoven into a hero, there is good reason for this, and this might not have even happened in the days of kings.



Sid James said:


> So that's the way it is, and this kind of Messiah building really got going in the 19th century and remained strong into the 20th. So you raise up Beethoven and downgrade Haydn. You raise Scriabin and downgrade Rachmaninov. You raise Webern and downgrade Schoenberg. You raise Schoenberg and downgrade Sibelius. On it goes. I thought of doing a thread on this whole thing in classical music of reinventing the wheel to serve various agendas (but won't due to the current oversupply of similarly themed threads).


Well,"Messiah-building" or composer/heroes certainly could not have existed in the Church era to the degree Beethoven or Wagner did in later times. This is Romanticism. The Church sold Bach's chorales as scrap paper!

The notion of 'the genius' is certainly a product of the Enlightenment and Romanticism. The notion that a man, by his own innate talents and abilities (look at Mahler), not his social standing or title, could attain artistic power...

I'm defining and exploring Romanticism, which is a lot more credible for discussion than a listener who simply says, _"I hear emotion in Bach, so he was just as Romantic as Mahler!"

_Please, give me a break! By defining Romanticism in its social context, we can see that Bach was operating under a completely different set of circumstances, and those factors change the whole meaning of his music and how we can best approach it. I think there are inherent things about music (its ability to evoke emotion, and its non-narrative nature) which allow it to more easily escape this, but painting certainly shows the differences, as does literature.

I don't think music should be exempt from critical scrutiny just because it does not literally embody an ideology the way literature or painting can. If I am going to approach Bach's* B minor Mass,* I'm certainly not going to see it the same way I see Chopin or Beethoven. Musically, Bach is the tops, but still, this is art. nWe need to be thinking about the context of works of art if we are to be able to speak credibly about them.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Xaltotun said:


> In a symbolic system, there is a possibility of meaning and understanding. In a system that tries to break out from the symbolic, there is a possibility of approaching truth, subjective or objective. So, we cannot have our cake and eat it too, at least in a specific point in time. But, if history is dialectic, we can at least be dancing (move - stop - move - stop...) towards the right direction, provided that we always remember the past. A "perfect classicism" would mean a blotted out reality, an imaginary kingdom where all is well, and a "perfect romanticism"... well, look what happened to Tristan and Isolde


Then you should be eternally grateful for Romanticism's elevation of the individual, so that _your_ art can at least strive to achieve a balance. Otherwise, it's done under the auspices of The State or The Church's ideological purposes, and you can hope it transcends those boundaries as art, so you can pretend it's yours to appreciate. That is, if it remains within those prescribed boundaries. I'll take the artistic freedom of Romanticism any day!


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## mtmailey (Oct 21, 2011)

ROMANTIC music is way better because it is more creative also there is not standards that must be kept.I like the classical era music but romantic era music is much longer has more new instruments to give the music a very different sound.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Sid, you sound pessimistic. I refer you The Beatles'_ Revolution:_ You tell me it's the institution, well, you know, you'd better free your mind instead.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

millionrainbows said:


> ...We need to be thinking about the context of works of art if we are to be able to speak credibly about them.


I agree with that and thanks for your detailed response. I probably erred on the wrong side of restraint when publishing those two posts. I should have at least edited them, but your sentence crystallises what I said. I am not against a more formal anaylsis of the creative arts, far from it. However, the context is vital to look at these things in more detail. Its another thing that adds to the mix.

All I can add is that yes, there was a big move towards secularism in the 19th century. But of course it didn't kill of religious, or more broadly, spiritual content in the arts. Perhaps Liszt embodies this the most, that pull between the sacred and profane which wasn't new either, but in his music he looks at those things quite deeply (eg. Faust Symphony, Totentanz - big time obsession with mortality and death, and this inspired by a fresco of the Last Judegement he saw in Italy - Funerailles, La Lugubre Gondola, and so on). Its that sense of the macabre that goes through a lot of his music. Berlioz has similar strands, I suppose others like Schubert as well (Death and the Maiden?). I'd also add to this Wagner's pull between sex and death in the Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde especially.

On the more spiritual side, in the old sense of piety and a firm belief, you've got Bruckner's cathedrals in sound, his symphonies. You've also got the 'Cathedral Scene' which I think is the fourth movement of Schumann's Symphony #3, "Rhenish" which images a ceremony in Cologne Cathedral (I think the enthronement of a bishop or some such?). It sounds remarkably like Bruckner.

But I take your point, these are not literal homages to God like in Bach's B minor mass. These are works for the concert hall, and even things like Cherubini's and Verdi's Requiems, to look at two contrasting works from opposite ends of the century, where written for public occassions for political figures (state burials, basically). So in a way the state takes over where the church leaves off. This is quite clear.

You also have things like Mendelssohn's and Elgar's oratorios which continue these biblical stories, or stories derived from there. Its interesting how you get people who are clearly agnostic or even non believers composing music (and Elgar, a Catholic, part of the religious minority in England).

That wasn't the case in previous times, Bach, Handel, Haydn too where believers. With Beethoven, I get this sense of ambivalence (in Missa Solemnis), and then with Bruckner, funnily enough I feel that in his Mass in E minor, the ending is kind of questioning. But even with them, there is some sort of inevitable 'happy ending' in their symphonies but the cracks begin to appear with Tchaikovsky and Mahler. You got doubt there, angst, darkness. Tchaikovsky said that the Pathetique was in some ways about fate, God and it was meant to be a profound statement, but of course its all an enigma.

Romanticism for me does put man - the composer - in the center. However there is also concerns with nature, and through that some sort of spiritual element. So yes, its not the same as before, but there are also links to what went before. That's how I see it, and I don't think that one era entirely cancels out the next. I think that view is contradictory, because one era turns its back on the next which inevitably turns its back on the former by going back to aspects of what was rejected in the first place. You look at how Neo-Classicism came back, so too Neo-Romanticism. So there are things that are central to classical music of all eras, but there are also things that make them different.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Sid James said:


> All I can add is that yes, there was a big move towards secularism in the 19th century. But of course it didn't kill of religious, or more broadly, spiritual content in the arts. Perhaps Liszt embodies this the most, that pull between the sacred and profane which wasn't new either, but in his music he looks at those things quite deeply (eg. Faust Symphony, Totentanz - big time obsession with mortality and death, and this inspired by a fresco of the Last Judegement he saw in Italy - Funerailles, La Lugubre Gondola, and so on). Its that sense of the macabre that goes through a lot of his music. Berlioz has similar strands, I suppose others like Schubert as well (Death and the Maiden?). I'd also add to this Wagner's pull between sex and death in the Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde especially.


Sid, thanks for your thoughtful and detailed response. I see your fears about 'secular humanism' emerging. I don't see the move towards science, logic, and the elevation of Man as being in opposition to the 'sacred', except as it opposes specific dogma of the Church, which I see as more of a power-struggle issue.

As far as Liszt's use of religious themes, he was always using the dramatic as a youthful performer, wanting to 'blow people away' with his pyrotechnics. I see his uses of religious imagery (Mephistopholes, Hell, etc.) as more of the same. This focus on these religious themes as more secularized drama shows how the old literal dogma or myth was being questioned, and seen as bizarre, to produce fear, or as license by the Church fathers as reinforcing power, rather than being sincerely or singularly religious. Thus, the reduction of Church power, along with Martin Luther's reforms and the translation and printing of the Bible for everyone to read is actually an improvement, don't you think?


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Sid James said:


> But I take your point, these are not literal homages to God like in Bach's B minor mass. These are works for the concert hall, and even things like Cherubini's and Verdi's Requiems, to look at two contrasting works from opposite ends of the century, where written for public occassions for political figures (state burials, basically). So in a way the state takes over where the church leaves off. This is quite clear.


And doesn't this reflect a simple change of power? Now, the universal quality of 'the sacred' is allowed to bloom, which is the birthright of all Humanity, rather than being controlled and defined completely by religious institutions and dogma.



Sid James said:


> That wasn't the case in previous times, Bach, Handel, Haydn too where believers. With Beethoven, I get this sense of ambivalence (in Missa Solemnis), and then with Bruckner, funnily enough I feel that in his Mass in E minor, the ending is kind of questioning.


But with the Ninth, isn't this Beethoven's recognition of the universal in Man, with the invitation to celebrate this universal bonding of brotherhood? As far as being a 'true believer,' I don't think belief has as much to do with enhancing an experience of the sacred as it does with adhering to an ideology. And any ideology which puts itself in front of Man's primary sacred and spiritual awareness, is a 'false God.'



Sid James said:


> Romanticism for me does put man - the composer - in the center. However there is also concerns with nature, and through that some sort of spiritual element.


I agree with that. I think this focus on the experience of the sacred, through solitude in natural settings, is much healthier than readings and rituals in Latin. I don't think Romanticism, or 'secular Humanism,' needs to be seen as negating the sacred. Nor do I see the old Church, or any form of religion, as having exclusive domain over the sacred; and this seems to be the assumption which keeps cropping up, and impairs communication.



Sid James said:


> So yes, its not the same as before, but there are also links to what went before.


Of course! The sacred is a universal given; a quality inherent in all people, of which religion is only a tool to implement and nurture. This is a much healthier perspective on things.



Sid James said:


> That's how I see it, and I don't think that one era entirely cancels out the next. I think that view is contradictory, because one era turns its back on the next which inevitably turns its back on the former by going back to aspects of what was rejected in the first place.


I suppose I'm emphasizing the darker aspects of religion and power, which gave us the dark ages and the Inquisition, as being oppressive. The Enlightenment and Romanticism were big steps forward, and personally, I think that 'putting Man first' is preferable to religious fundamentalism in creating a healthy psychology in Man. I have no qualms about that earlier era being cancelled out.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

I also see the older order of Christianity's power and perspective to be somewhat of a burden to a composer such as Mahler, who wanted to reflect the Western tradition of sacred works, and had to 'work around' it, as he did in the Eighth Symphony. He was redefining it, though, as Beethoven was in the Ninth.

Let's admit it: The era of the Christian Church being the dominant power structure is *over and done with.* Now, it's time to redefine 'the sacred' and be more inclusive and Humanist, because the world is much smaller than it used to be.

Romanticism a threat to the Christian paradigm? That's very inflexible. There should be no questions about this.


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## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

millionrainbows said:


> Then you should be eternally grateful for Romanticism's elevation of the individual, so that _your_ art can at least strive to achieve a balance. Otherwise, it's done under the auspices of The State or The Church's ideological purposes, and you can hope it transcends those boundaries as art, so you can pretend it's yours to appreciate. That is, if it remains within those prescribed boundaries. I'll take the artistic freedom of Romanticism any day!


I hope I don't have to choose between Truth and Meaning, both are needed of course, even if they repel one another. Of course Romanticism (and Truth) is needed, I'm an obvious Romantic myself. The State and the Church are also not the only systems of Meaning, language and human communication (even communicating via music) are others. An idea that is being communicated needs a tradition that gives it structure if it aspires to reach the larger public.

Another thought: isn't this actually done in modern times so that we have artistic freedom coupled with professional criticism? Absolute truth-seeking coupled with powers of language strong enough to explain it all to the average Joe. It's not a bad system, it just needs as competent critics as there are artists. People don't always understand this fact.


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