By HRJ
This period is characterized by the fact that music is at the service of the inner world. Its purpose is to transmit emotions.
Anger, anguish, joy, excitement, sadness.
The expression is the most important thing. To accentuate this expression, opposite sensations are often contrasted (a passage full of hope is preceded by one of extreme desolation).
Music that often plunges into excess.
"What does Romanticism oppose?"
Romanticism is opposed to Classicism (1750-1803), where music is at the service of reason and therefore articulated according to principles of harmony and balance.
However, Classicism and Romanticism share the same musical language: tonality, a compositional procedure whose main characteristic is to be structured around melody.
Therefore, it is predominantly melodic music in both cases. The difference is that in Classicism the melody is at the service of reason and in Romanticism it is at the service of the inner world.
The revolution of musical Romanticism is expressive, not idiomatic.
"How do I get started with romantic music?"
Within the Romantic spectrum, Tchaikovsky's music is usually placed at the extreme of unbridled passion and Brahms' music at the extreme of restrained passion.
An interesting approach to romantic music can be to visit these two romantic positions through two symphonies:
Symphony no. 6, Pathetiqueby Tchaikovsky
A symphony about suffering. "I wept a lot while composing it (...) by far the most sincere of my works," declared Tchaikovsky, who died in 1893, the same year he finished writing it. Instead of an extroverted and brilliant culmination (as in the rest of his symphonies), the work slowly fades into silence.
Its construction is a hermetic circle inside which, in the words of E.T.A Hoffmann, "an enigmatic language arises from a distant spirit realm whose wonderful accents echo in our soul, where they awaken us to a higher and more intense life".
"Did any new musical genres emerge during the Romantic period?"
Romantic music always seeks to achieve the greatest expressive freedom. This longing is sometimes imprisoned within the boundaries of classical genres (symphony, concerto, sonata) and ends up giving rise to a new genre: the symphonic poem.
A symphonic poem is a work that starts from an extra-musical program (almost always a literary work). That is to say: there is a discourse prior to the sound, so its nature is narrative. Its form is usually in a single movement whose main characteristic is the freedom in the melodic treatment.
Early beginnings of the symphonic poem as a genre can be identified in the Symphonie fantastique (1830) by Hector Berlioz (1803-1869), which narrates the opium-induced hallucinations of an artist in despair over an ill-fated love affair.
"Was romantic music composed in Mexico?"
The Duranguense Ricardo Castro (1864-1907) is perhaps Mexico's most important romantic composer. He was the first Mexican to write a symphony (known as the Mexicana), a symphonic poem (Oithoma) and a piano concerto.
Along with Felipe Villanueva, Gustavo E. Campa, Juan Hernández Acevedo and Juventino Rosas, he belonged to the generation of the so-called "new Mexican romantics". He studied in France (from 1903 to 1906 on a scholarship granted by Porfirio Díaz) under the guidance of Teresa Carreño (the best Latin American pianist of all times). In Paris he befriended Cécile Chaminade (whose music represents one of the summits of French romanticism) and with the support of Camile Saint-Säens his music was presented in the prestigious Erard and Victor Hugo halls.
