Page 170 - (DK) The Classical Music Book - Big Ideas Simply Explained

168 THE ROMANTIC SYMPHONY

New era, new aesthetics

Classical Romantic

Inspired by the Inspired by nature,
Enlightenment and the poetry, and myth.
Age of Reason.

Emphasis is on
Emphasis is on elegance emotional expression.
and structure.

New styles of melody,
Era of the symphony,
instrumental sonata, harmony, and
and string quartet. rhythm emerge.

Music is largely the Growing audiences
preserve of the court and expand to include the
the wealthy. middle classes.

Leipzig, with Mendelssohn as its score for the symphony, he gave a symphony of the Romantic period.
conductor, and was well recieved each of his movements titles: Full of contrast and surprise, its
by its audience. “Beginning of Spring,” “Evening,” quickly shifting moods keep
“Jolly Playmates,” and “Spring listeners in suspense. Avoiding
A Romantic symphony Replete.” However, by the time the both the musical arguments of
The title of the “Spring” Symphony symphony was published, he had Beethoven and the discursive
was taken from a poem by Adolf removed them. approach of Schubert, Schumann
Böttger that ends with the lines, It is clear from the opening found a way to direct the music’s
“Oh turn and turn and change your brass fanfare, with its intense energy through juxtaposition and
course, In the valley Spring blooms feeling of expectation, that this is repetition, while still conveying
forth,” which inspired the opening subtle emotions. He also avoids
of the symphony. The poem is using traditional key structures
about a melancholy lover whose so that the second subject—or
pain is heightened by the arrival of melodic theme—is in a minor key,
spring, but Schumann claimed that adding a note of melancholy.
a longing for spring in general The symphony’s second
inspired the work. In a letter to the To send light into the movement often seems as if it were
conductor William Taubert in 1843, darkness of men’s hearts— originally written for the piano—
he wrote, “I should like the very first such is the duty of the artist. a criticism frequently leveled at
trumpet call to sound as though Robert Schumann Schumann’s orchestral works—
proceeding from on high and like a but this brings an original, almost
summons to awaken. … It might be improvisatory quality to the piece
possible to feel the world turning that marked a departure from
green; perhaps … a butterfly classical strictures. Meanwhile,
fluttering.” In Schumann’s first in choosing to write the third

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