Music Aesthetics and Philosophy June 2015

The “War of the Romantics”:

An Aesthetical Overview of Early
and Late Romantic Music

Alberto Ferro

The task to address Romantic music as a single artistic movement fails at its very start,
since within it are comprised many expressions which reflect very different, at times rather
opposite views of what romantic art is or should be.
We could easily name without much disagreement “War of the Romantics” the debate that
involved eminent figures in the arts, philosophy and literature, which took place in Europe
throughout the nineteenth century. A war based on the variety of notions that each view
proposes. I will explain more in details a few of the most important positions emerged from the
debate.
If we consider the beginning of nineteenth century as a transitory moment between the so
called Classical period and the new Romantic age, Ludwig van Beethoven represents certainly an
historical reference, both from an aesthetical and creative point of view.
For the entire duration of the century, Beethoven was regarded as the model to imitate by a
large portion of romantics, whether they were conservative intellectuals or open-minded and
innovative artists such as Robert Schumann. The reasons of this deep respect for the German
composer are to be found in his ability to shape modern romantic ideals into a severe
compositional structure, producing a determinant impact on what will later be called “absolute
music”. Especially in his late works (the last Sonatas and String Quartets, the Diabelli
Variations) Beethoven brought the musical language to a structural limit: through his ability to
open preconceived forms, his works suggest that music can grow freely from the inherent
potential of a chosen material. By doing so he shows that musical development could deeply
interact with the expectations of the listener, without necessarily relate to any shared (classical)
idea of rhetoric or connecting to any extra-musical material. The artistic value of those late
works also depends on the impressive creativity of the composer: that creativity, which for the
romantics is the engine and force of musical expression, becomes one of the major principles for
the new age of artists, first of all Schumann.
However, especially in the first part of the century, the term romantic is mostly used with
derogative connotations, identifying a generations of composers who either refuse the classical
lesson in its entirety or composers whose works are extensively affected by unnecessary
virtuosity or by a general lightness in content. Nevertheless it is possible to identify a current of
artists, the neo-romantics, who tended to see in Schumann an aesthetical and musical guide and
in Beethoven an artistic model. They highly respected the music of the past, and aimed to
express the modernity of their times without refusing any previous style: Bach and Beethoven
were certainly two important references both from an aesthetical and technical point of view.
But if we look more closely at some of these composers’ names we are able to find themes
that are at times common and at times opposite among them, describing anyway different
features of the same romantic style. If we think of the late Beethoven, the music brings up both a
personal tragedy and an existential drama which ultimately relates to humanity. In Schumann
and in most of the romantics the universality of the subjects is given away in favor of a more
interior and private perspective; after Beethoven music loses the purpose of expressing the
absolute (at least until Wagner) and acquires a role of consolation in society. The tragedies as
well as the joys expressed by Schumann, Schubert, Chopin or Liszt are first of all personal,
related to the deep intimacy of those artists (then universal). Only Wagner later in the century
proposes once again a view of music (and art) that aims at the absolute: the path he choses
however begins on the personal tragedies of his romantic characters, the psychological conflicts,
the impulses and deepest feelings that universally govern them, and by reflection all human
beings.
The relationship with the past is another interesting theme: if Schumann or Mendelssohn
are examples of composers who elaborated materials and techniques from the past, in particular
some musical forms and the counterpoint, their contemporaries Schubert, Chopin or even Liszt
and Paganini tended to lean on the invention of new techniques and timbers, new forms (for
example Capriccio, Scherzo, Notturno, Symphonic Poem). Their fascination for the past was
mostly related to an imaginery unspecified past which is lost (medieval, recent, personal) or in
relation to historic, artistic or literary subjects. The use of folk material also has for the romantics
the power of reconnecting the listener to a world of universally accepted values and feelings
which, however lost, still retains a capital meaning for the modern man (Schubert’s Dances, or
Chopin’s Mazurkas).
The connection with deep feelings and impulses is a typically romantic theme, but
composers have developed it in the most different ways. Chopin for example is normally called
as the one who best made his ‘feelings’ speak: a more close look at his music and aesthetics will
show that by accurately representing his interior battles he went one step closer to establishing
the idea of a world of uncontrolled events (the unconscious) which governs our lives. This lack
of control and understanding originates in the romantics many important themes for their musical
aesthetics: the theme of anguish for death (for example Schubert, in The Death and the Maiden,
or in many Lieder); the theme of tragic fate (Chopin’s Ballades, Sonatas or Scherzos, or Brahms
late piano music); the theme of double personality and madness (Eusebius and Florestan, as well
as in many small pieces for piano by Schumann) also related to the contrast between the playful
and the dramatic (often recurrent in Schumann too); the lack of physical limits, connected to the
duality between good and evil, which gives room to a few devil-inspired compositions (by
Paganini and Liszt), which will later open the doors to extremely religious subjects on one side
(Liszt) and esoteric ones on the other (Skriabin); the theme of trascendant (unconscious) purity,
brought up by Wagner in opposition to the corruption of conscious desires and rational
calculation.
In this variety of perspectives another debate raised, discussing whether music should have
an intelligible subject or not. The historical moment is appropriate, if we think that during this
period and through themes that belong specifically to the romantics, intellectuals start wondering
about the intrinsec meaning of music: what is, if there is one, the relation between a string
quartet and the material which inspired it? Is the music supposed to represent something? If it
does not, does it still have a meaning? Edward Hanslick replies to these questions by establishing
the principles of modern musical aesthetics. His view is radical and extremely accurate, even
though many of his statements could hardly refer to composers or compositions of the twentieth
century.1
The debate resolves in favor of what Hanslick calls the “musically beautiful”, which is a
quality that belongs to musical works that cannot be interpreted through any non-musical source.
Therefore all the music that he refers to could be put on a line where at the two extremes we find

1
In particular his definition of beauty.
the Absolute Music, that has no relation with any extramusical material, meaning or creative
procedures, and on the other we see Programmatic Music, which is born, built on, grows, and is
entirely dependant on extramusical material. Of course, between these two extremes there are all
those compositions that are partially in both categories. He points the attention to those themes
and images that romantic music uses as a source of inspiration as well as interpretative key: by
creating music whose purpose is to represent such themes, images, feelings as they are perceived
we will inevitably lower the power of music itself. By considering music as a language
comparable in its structure to other languages (the spoken language at first) we will miss to
acknowledge the musical event for what it is: it can certainly enhance an extramusical message
(a poem for example) but it has the possibility to stand on its own, and any other use will be a
detriment for music itself, at least in Hanslick perspective.
A good example of the difference between Absolute and Programmatic would be a late
Beethoven quartet and Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique. The former grows only on musical
elements; any reference to visual art or literature, as much appropriate as they can be, will not
add or detract neither value or meaning to the composition itself, since Beethoven wrote it to be
independent. Even the extramusical material that may have provided inspiration to the composer,
however similar, pertinent or evidently represented in the actual music could not give any more
explanation than the music itself. To listen to Berlioz’s Symphonie on the other side, it is
necessary to be acquainted with the literary source that the piece is composed on: the musical
events are cronologically ordered as in the narration, and elements of the story are accurately
represented musically. Other interesting examples are Liszt’s Annes de Pelerinage, where the
composer declares the source of inspiration and the music attempts to depict until a certain point
extramusical elements: on the other side we could argue that this music could be appreciated
without any literary or visual direction. The composer’s ability was to create music that could
stand on its own, but with a strong extramusical source of both inspiration and interpretative key:
it is absolute music that has strong programmatic elements. The last example will be the piano
Preludes by Debussy, which however inspired by a specific image, place, event or extramusical
source, they offer a title only at the end of the score, suggesting that any interpretation of the
piece would be correct. Each of these work is with no doubt an example of absolute music, but
the composer wanted to provide a very precise image for each one: his extramusical suggestion
should not deceive the listener from the specific (musical) beauty of each Prelude.
 In the comparison between Absolute and Programmatic music Wagner stands in a
particular position. While through his aesthetic he draws an ideal work of art that connect music,
poetry and drama in a single event (whose purpose is to guide humanity to its redemption), the
musical material is strongly dependent on extramusical sources: each leitmotive relates to a
character, feeling, object or situation, and the thematic development is lost in favor of the
dramatic development. Nevertheless music in his operas has an extremely important task, which
only music could take and which without it the whole art-work won’t stand: through its power to
connect the listener to a very deep level Wagner uses the music to speak directly at that level.
Even if Programmatic, it seems that for Wagner music does not have any role of lower
importance than the poetry or the drama, but a role of cooperation for a common purpose. In
Wagner’s perspective art must be the path towards intellectual revolution, and music is a
necessary part of it: in this sense we could say that he wrote programmatic music for absolute art.