Social Change Affected The Music Of The Romantic Era

How Social Change Influenced the Music of the Romantic Era Following the classical era, the romantic era brought a new life to music. Emotion-filled. Riveting. Romantic music was able to portray the beauty and melancholy of life. Romantic composers like Frédéric Chopin, Franz Schubert, Felix Mendelssohn, etc., were able to provoke an emotional response from the listener. Differing from the classical predecessor, the romantic era focused on the human emotion. With this change in style, the question becomes, how did this happen? New ideas - specifically the Enlightenment -, mixed with modernization, and liberalization, saw a break from traditional ways. From this break, composers were able to think freely, and thus compose freely. The freedom
Locke, “…the revolution of feeling and thought which came at the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries and which has been called ‘the romantic movement’” convey the impetus for the romantic movement - feeling and thought. The thought portion ties back to the Enlightenment era, where an attitude of disestablishmentarianism emerged. Seen in the infamous words of Voltaire, “écrasez l'infâme” - crush the infamous thing (referring to the church) - this attitude is seen. Attack against institution. Common with many Enlightened thinkers, a push away from institution was necessary for progress to occur. Immanuel Kant, strongly worded against the institution of government, believed government prevented man from breaking from his immaturity to develop an enlightened thought. Both Kant and Voltaire had significant impacts on traditionally held values. Consequentially, breaking from these traditions, affected music as
“Whatever the piece, its origin, or its significance, it is national music if it represents, serves, and satisfies the nation…” Composers - mainly Eastern European - soon conveyed this identity. Notably the Czech composer, Bedřich Smetana. In his symphonic suite, Má Vlast - or My Homeland - Smetana beautifies his country, the Austrian Empire. Vltava, one of the movements of Má Vlast, depicts the vast river of Vltava in enchanting harmonies. Seen in the 1882 review of Má Vlast, this nationalist identity is seen. “And even if foreigners may now and then be amazed by the magical sounds of these masterly symphonic poems, Smetana’s Má Vlast is written for the Czechs, and Czechs will never cease to gratefully commemorate Smetana, who devoted all of his greatest powers to the celebration of his country.” This spreading nationalism influenced many Romantic composers. Antonín Dvořák, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Frédéric Chopin - to list more known composers. With composers filled with a new sense of nationalist pride, music changed from an individual-based emotion, to a collective-based emotion. This nationalist emotion resulted in bombastic, passionate music. Quite literally bombastic, Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture ends with cannons firings to represent Russia, his homeland. A new level of music scarcely seen before, nationalism elevated the music of the Romantic period. In essence, the nationalism that stemmed