Page 191 - ESSENTIAL LISTENING TO MUSIC

Just how much the range of expression expanded in Romantic music can be seen in the musical “expression marks” that came into being at this time: espres- sivo (expressively), dolente (sadly), presto furioso (fast and furiously), con forza e passione (with force and passion), misterioso (mysteriously), and maestoso (ma- jestically). Not only do these directives explain to the performer how a passage ought to be played, but they also reveal the intense emotions the composer wished to express.
The Musician as “Artist,” Music as “Art”
With the Romantic era came the idea that the composer was more than a hired employee and music something more than mere entertainment. Bach had been a municipal civil servant, devoted and dutiful, in the town of Leipzig. Haydn and Mozart had served and been treated as domestics in the homes of the great lords of Europe. But Beethoven began to break the chains of submission. He was the first to demand, and receive, the respect and admiration due a great creative spir- it. For the composer Franz Liszt (1811–1886), a great admirer of Beethoven, the duty of the artist was nothing less than “the upbringing of mankind.” Never was the position of the creative musician loftier than in the mid-nineteenth century.
Just as the musician was elevated from servant to artist, so the music he or she produced was transformed from entertainment to art. In 1776, noted critic Charles Burney had described music as “an innocent luxury, unnecessary, in- deed, to our existence.” But to Beethoven, writing in 1812, music was the most important of the arts, the pursuit of which “would raise men to the level of gods.” His symphonies, quartets, and piano sonatas sprang to life, not only to give im- mediate pleasure to listeners, but also to satisfy a deep-seated creative urge within the composer. They became extensions of the artist’s inner personality. Such works might not be understood by the creator’s contemporaries—as was true of the piano sonatas of Beethoven’s late (“deaf”) period, for example—but they would be appreciated by posterity, by future generations of listeners. The idea of “art for art’s sake”—art free of all immediate functional concerns—was born of the Romantic spirit.
The Style of Romantic Music
Why is film music today almost always written in the Romantic style? Why are collections of “classical favorites” or “classical moods” filled mostly with music of the Romantic era, not of the Classical period? Why has The Phantom of the Opera, whose story and music are quintessentially Romantic, been seen by more than 130 million people around the world? In brief, because Romantic music hits an emotional “sweet spot.” We love its long, surging melodies and rich harmonies—rendered all the more powerful when delivered by the large and colorful Romantic orchestra. The sound is lush, often sensuous, yet contains
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