Post-romanticism
Encyclopedia
Post-romanticism or Postromanticism refers to a range of cultural products and attitudes emerging in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, after the period of Romanticism
.
Herman Melville
and Thomas Carlyle
are post-Romantic writers. Flaubert's Madame Bovary
is a post-Romantic novel. The period of post-romanticism in poetry is defined as the late nineteenth century, and includes the poetry of Tennyson
.
referred to Romantic
composers who would use forms
that were found typically in the Classical
and Baroque
while still retaining aspects of the Romantic era. Among the most well known Post-Romantic composers are Giacomo Puccini and Sergei Rachmaninov. Arthur Berger
describes the mysticism of La Jeune France
as post-Romanticism rather than neo-Romanticism
. Hans Pfitzner
also wrote post-Romantic works such as his opera Palestrina.
Quite unlike Late Romantic composers such as Richard Strauss
and Alexander Scriabin
, the composers of the Post-Romantic created music that would use either or both traditional form and harmony
. Béla Bartók
, for example, "in such Strauss-influenced works as Duke Bluebeard's Castle," may be described as having still used, "dissonance
['such intervals as fourths and sevenths'] for purposes of post-Romantic expression, not simply [always] as an appeal to the primal art of sound" - unlike Arnold Schoenberg
and Strauss himself, who both believed in "a mythology of historical progress in Western music".
Pappas, Sara. Review of Romanticism and Postromanticism. Nineteenth Century French Studies - Volume 36, Number 3 & 4, Spring-Summer 2008, pp. 335-337. University of Nebraska Press, 2008.
Tilby, Michael. Review of Romanticism and Post-Romanticism. French Studies: A Quarterly Review, Volume 62, Number 4, October 2008, pp. 486-487.
Romanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
.
Herman Melville
Herman Melville
Herman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet. He is best known for his novel Moby-Dick and the posthumous novella Billy Budd....
and Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle was a Scottish satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher during the Victorian era.He called economics "the dismal science", wrote articles for the Edinburgh Encyclopedia, and became a controversial social commentator.Coming from a strict Calvinist family, Carlyle was...
are post-Romantic writers. Flaubert's Madame Bovary
Madame Bovary
Madame Bovary is Gustave Flaubert's first published novel and is considered his masterpiece. The story focuses on a doctor's wife, Emma Bovary, who has adulterous affairs and lives beyond her means in order to escape the banalities and emptiness of provincial life...
is a post-Romantic novel. The period of post-romanticism in poetry is defined as the late nineteenth century, and includes the poetry of Tennyson
Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson
Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson, FRS was Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom during much of Queen Victoria's reign and remains one of the most popular poets in the English language....
.
Post-Romanticism in music
Post-romanticism in musicMusic
Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
referred to Romantic
Romantic music
Romantic music or music in the Romantic Period is a musicological and artistic term referring to a particular period, theory, compositional practice, and canon in Western music history, from 1810 to 1900....
composers who would use forms
Musical form
The term musical form refers to the overall structure or plan of a piece of music, and it describes the layout of a composition as divided into sections...
that were found typically in the Classical
Classical music
Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...
and Baroque
Baroque music
Baroque music describes a style of Western Classical music approximately extending from 1600 to 1760. This era follows the Renaissance and was followed in turn by the Classical era...
while still retaining aspects of the Romantic era. Among the most well known Post-Romantic composers are Giacomo Puccini and Sergei Rachmaninov. Arthur Berger
Arthur Berger
Arthur Victor Berger was an American composer who has been described as a New Mannerist.-Biography:Born in New York City, of Jewish descent, Berger studied as an undergraduate at New York University, during which time he joined the Young Composer's Group, as a graduate student under Walter Piston...
describes the mysticism of La Jeune France
La Jeune France
La jeune France was the name of two related French societies in the 1930s and 1940s.- Musical organization :Jeune France was founded in 1936 by André Jolivet along with composers Olivier Messiaen, Jean-Yves Daniel-Lesur, Pierre Schaeffer and Yves Baudrier, who were attempting to re-establish a...
as post-Romanticism rather than neo-Romanticism
Neoromanticism (music)
Neoromanticism in music is a return to the emotional expression associated with nineteenth-century Romanticism. Since the mid-1970s the term has come to be identified with neoconservative postmodernism, especially in Germany, Austria, and the United States, with composers such as Wolfgang Rihm and...
. Hans Pfitzner
Hans Pfitzner
Hans Erich Pfitzner was a German composer and self-described anti-modernist. His best known work is the post-Romantic opera Palestrina, loosely based on the life of the great sixteenth-century composer Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina.-Biography:Pfitzner was born in Moscow, Russia, where his...
also wrote post-Romantic works such as his opera Palestrina.
Quite unlike Late Romantic composers such as Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
and Alexander Scriabin
Alexander Scriabin
Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin was a Russian composer and pianist who initially developed a lyrical and idiosyncratic tonal language inspired by the music of Frédéric Chopin. Quite independent of the innovations of Arnold Schoenberg, Scriabin developed an increasingly atonal musical system,...
, the composers of the Post-Romantic created music that would use either or both traditional form and harmony
Harmony
In music, harmony is the use of simultaneous pitches , or chords. The study of harmony involves chords and their construction and chord progressions and the principles of connection that govern them. Harmony is often said to refer to the "vertical" aspect of music, as distinguished from melodic...
. Béla Bartók
Béla Bartók
Béla Viktor János Bartók was a Hungarian composer and pianist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century and is regarded, along with Liszt, as Hungary's greatest composer...
, for example, "in such Strauss-influenced works as Duke Bluebeard's Castle," may be described as having still used, "dissonance
Dissonance
Dissonance has several meanings, all related to conflict or incongruity:*Consonance and dissonance in music are properties of an interval or chord*Cognitive dissonance is a state of mental conflict...
['such intervals as fourths and sevenths'] for purposes of post-Romantic expression, not simply [always] as an appeal to the primal art of sound" - unlike Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg
Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...
and Strauss himself, who both believed in "a mythology of historical progress in Western music".
Further reading
Burkholder, J. Peter, Donald Jay Grout, and Claude V. Palisca. A History of Western Music: Seventh Edition. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2006.Pappas, Sara. Review of Romanticism and Postromanticism. Nineteenth Century French Studies - Volume 36, Number 3 & 4, Spring-Summer 2008, pp. 335-337. University of Nebraska Press, 2008.
Tilby, Michael. Review of Romanticism and Post-Romanticism. French Studies: A Quarterly Review, Volume 62, Number 4, October 2008, pp. 486-487.