Europe’s “Long

Nineteenth Century”
1789-1914

A Short Narrative
1789: The French Revolution

- Effort to replace authority of the King and the

church. Dissatisfaction with high taxes, national
debt, poverty. “Let them eat cake.”
- Storming of the Bastille (July 1789)
- Declaration of the Rights of Man (August)
- King Louis XVI imprisoned with his Queen,
Marie Antoinette, and young son, Louis XVII
(who died in prison, age 12)
- King and Queen executed 1793
- Church lands confiscated, many members of
the clergy and religious orders were executed
- 1793-94: The “Reign of Terror”
 Chaos and Order in France: 1790s

Lasting achievements despite the political upheaval

- Rationalism and Logic: France was divided into départements of roughly equal size
- The metric system of measurements was developed and adopted.

Musicians in Society

- 1795: National Conservatoire established, later the Paris Conservatoire

- Destruction of aristocratic and religious institutions meant a loss of livelihood and
traditional presenters
- However, a new institution was created: vast public celebrations for the Festival of
Reason, public funerals, honouring victories. La Merseillaise (composed 1792)
1792: The Rise of Napoléon Bonaparte

Marie Antoinette was the daughter of Maria

Theresa, Empress of Austria. Austria and allies tried
to intervene in the French Revolution; the French
raised armies and drove them back.

French armies took the offensive, claiming territory

from German states and Austria. Napoleon
Bonaparte was a junior officer from Corsica. He
maneuvered himself into powerful political
positions: First Consul, 1799; Consul for Life, 1802;
hereditary Emperor, 1804.
Napoleon Bonaparte

- Concordat of 1802: resolved conflicts with the Catholic Church,

including settlements of land claims
- Napoleonic Code of 1804: still forms the basis of French civil
law
- Napoleon’s armies changed the face of Europe: occupied
Vienna twice (1805, 1809), dominated most of Europe by 1812
- Winter 1812: “Russian Campaign” / “Patriotic War of 1812”.
Major defeat, inspires a new push against him from enemy
armies.
- 1814: Allied armies capture Paris. Napoleon finally defeated,
exiled to Elba
- 1815: Napoleon escaped, returned to France, formed another
army. Finally defeated at the Battle of Waterloo (1815) under
allied troops led by Wellington.
1815: Restoration and Reaction

- The Congress of Vienna (Nov. 1814 - June

1815), international gathering of leaders from
France, Britain, Austria, Russia, Prussia, Spain.
Chaired by Klemens von Metternich,
Chancellor of Austria
- Beethoven: “Wellington’s Victory” represents
the British with “God Save the King” and the
French with the tune “Marlborough”
The Viennese Waltz

Sperl Dance Hall, 1807

Apollo Dance Hall, 1808 -

capacity for 6,000 dancers

Dance craze typical of

Biedermeier culture: natural
reaction to repressive
atmosphere of Metternich era:
away from politics, inward to
home and seeking pleasure
Metternich: “The Peace of Humpty Dumpty”

Metternich, Chancellor of Austria 1814-1848:

leader of political reaction to the Napoleonic
years. “The Age of Metternich”

Restored monarchies, paid informers at every

level of society, crushed secret societies.

France: Monarchy restored to Louis XVIII

(brother of Louis XVI, 1815-1824), Charles X
(1824-1830)
Europe after the Congress of Vienna, 1815
France, 1830s

Another revolution: Charles V ousted, Louis

Philippe elected new king (Bourgeois King)

Paris Conservatoire offers the Prix de Rome: a

prize for composition offering a large cash sum and
the opportunity to work and study in Rome for a
year. Berlioz was writing a cantata as the
revolution began, later dedicated the work to the
French people as he was unable to join in the fight.
 German Unification after Napoleon
Before Napoleon, Germany was a territory of
360 different states and principalities
After Napoleon: push for German unity. 36
larger states, with Prussia at the forefront,
form a German Confederation (1828), a
loose-knit and ineffective political body.
1834: Zollverein - a customs union brought
most German states into a single market. This
is a major step towards a united Germany and
to prosperity for the middle classes
Articles of home consumption,
All our thanks are due to you!
You have wrought without presumption
What no intellect could do;
You have made the German nation
Stand united, hand in hand,
More than the Confederation
Ever did for Fatherland
- August Hoffman von Fallersleben,
Author of Deutschland, Deutschland über Alles
(modern German national anthem)
The Zollverein

Red: 1828 Confederation

Blue: Prussia

Grey: Areas included

until 1866

Yellow: Austrian territory

outside the Zollverein
The Industrial Revolution
Radical changes to entire economies: capitalism
and free markets, population explosion, mass
migration throughout Europe, dramatic shift of
population from rural to urban centres, agriculture
for market/profit rather than subsistence. Greatly
expanded middle class.

1770s: invention of steam engines. First used to

pump water out of mines, but later adapted to
other purposes including railway and water
transport. Train travel sweeps across Europe and
North America: faster, safer, cheaper

Instantaneous communication: telegraph (1837),

trans-Atlantic cable (1866), telephone (1876)
 The Price of Change
Skilled craftsmen replaced by machines and unskilled
labourers (division of labour) - great competition for
jobs in times of economic downturn. Tremendous
poverty, income inequality
Children as young as 3 worked in deplorable
conditions
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (1817)
Symbolic tale of science creating slaves out of men,
and also creating monsters that could master and
destroy them
Creeping his gait and cowering, his lip pale,
His respiration quick and audible;
And scarcely could you fancy that a gleam
Could break out from those languid eyes…
-- Can hope look forward to a manhood
raised
On such foundations?
Hope is none for him!
And tens of thousands suffer wrong as deep.
Yet
Economists will tell you that the state
Thrives by the forfeiture--unfeeling thought
And false as monstrous!
William Wordsworth, Excursion (1814)
1840s: More Revolutions

1840s: incomes had been declining for decades. “The Hungry ‘40s”, a
potato blight brought death to millions

1848
Revolutions everywhere. Nearly all failed, but Metternich and his Emperor
retired. New Emperor of Austria, Franz Joseph, ruled until 1914.

Napoleon III elected first President of France. When the constitution

prevented him from being re-elected, he seized power and formed the
Second French Empire in 1851. Ruled until 1870.

Karl Marx writes the Communist Manifesto

The Mid-Century in Music

Major transition: deaths of Mendelssohn (1847),

Chopin (1849)

Schumann incapacitated 1853, Liszt ends concert

touring 1848.

1850s: Brahms emerges as a composer.

Wagner writes seminal texts “Art and Revolution,”

“Art-work of the Future”, “Opera and Drama”, and
begins his opera cycle The Ring of the Nibelungs,
inspired by the political culture of these years.
 Music in Society

Old order and traditional institutions retained viability and prestige: patronage, court
orchestras, established opera companies

Expanding middle classes created new institutions, often nonprofit organizations. Subscription
concert series: London Philharmonic Society (1813), Vienna Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde
(1812), Boston Handel and Haydn Society (1815). Orchestral concerts, chamber music
concerts, recitals by instrumental and vocal soloists

Musicians unionize to take advantage of this model: Philharmonics in Vienna and New York
(1842), Paris Société Nationale de Musique (1871)

Music as commerce and industry: social division between “popular” and “classical” musics
The 1870s

Franco-Prussian War, won by a united German nation over Napoleon

III’s french forces. Alsace-Lorraine ceded to Germany. France forms
the Third Republic.

Italian troops capture Rome and the Papal states, completing a drive
to unification that began in 1859. Vittorio Emmanuele, ruler of
Sardinia becomes Re d’Italia. Verdi is elected to the first Italian
Parliament.
1889: The Emergence of Modernism

A new generation of scientists and artists.

Paris Exhibition: Eiffel Tower, Debussy hears gamelan

orchestra from Java

Chicago: World’s Fair and Columbian Exposition

Mahler: First Symphony; Strauss: Don Juan

Van Gogh, French Impressionists, Symbolists in poetry

1914: World War I
Archduke Franz Ferdinand assassinated in
Sarajevo

Austria and Germany vs.

Anglo-French-Russian Alliance.

A whole generation of young men is wiped

out. “The war to end all wars”

The massive power of modern mechanical

warfare emphasized a dehumanizing failure
to come to terms with the innovations of
scientific and industrial developments.