Talk:Romantic music

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 16 August 2021 and 14 December 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Ktom88. Peer reviewers: Kcarr51.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 08:20, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Lifted from the Classical period article

The section "Transition to the Romantic era 1790-1820" is lifted word for word from the Classical period (music) article. It's place here is invalid as it refers specifically to the transition from Baroque to Classical and mentions the Classical period composers. Although Beethoven crosses over from Classical to Romantic, this section does not. Promontoriumispromontorium (talk) 11:53, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Composers

That this section should contain only a feminist critique of the relative lack of female composers in this period, completely ignores the actual significant composers of the period. Any "Composers" section of a "Romantic Music" article that neglects Mendelssohn, Chopin, Liszt, Schumann, Verdi, Offenbach and Berlioz, is an incomplete section. Andysurtees (talk) 02:22, 27 October 2015 (UTC)

Created a seperate section for influential composers. I also removed some of the lesser known composers so that it is not so saturated. Ktom88 (talk) 16:38, 9 November 2021 (UTC)

20th century section

This section appears hopelessly OR and NNPOV. It seems to be extending the idea of 'romantic music' to 'anything thst has a tune' and renders the concept of 'romantic music' as a musicological idea almost worthless. Should be deleted.--Smerus (talk) 16:29, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

(Belatedly). I agree. --Kleinzach 10:57, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

from Reza

• "Music is a thing with no definition...its the state of being happy in time."

One may agree. Dictionaries ones buy, borrow, read, write, believe, cite, and more look, like most of the roster, music has a definition by words. One can agree music is a thing. It may appear aerial. One may also agree it is definable. One may agree it is yet to occur, like or unlike The Great American Novel, or scaling Mt. Olympus. One may ask if one is happy, is it in time, and is it music? Is it a state? Is music a continuation when it is occuring? Is it possible to be happy only with it? Is happiness from music? Is it only from music?Is time continual and music the only happiness during the continuation of time? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.204.128.45 (talk) 22:38, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Social History?

We need more on the social history of classical music during the Romantic period. Big names and style aren't even half the story. Someone with knowledge should at least add info on economics, institutions, and audience. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.108.85.80 (talk) 04:43, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

I disagree. I agree that a social history is important, but I think that should be a separate article.Bansai618 (talk) 02:24, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Date war

We seem to have a date war going on! Can both editors explain the reasons for their dates here? Thanks. --Kleinzach 23:21, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

I think there are more than two editors involved. I have been attempting to maintain Antandrus's position (in his edit of 5 September 2009) that the content of the article is not consistent with the date-change persistently being made since at least early last summer by Labrynthis9856. For the moment, I have decided that what is required is an authority, to settle this question once and for all. This article is already burdened with a huge amount of unverified claims, amounting to original research. The least we can do is find a proper source for the most basic definition of the boundaries of an historical period.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 00:23, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes, this is a problematic article. Perhaps Labrynthis9856 can explain her(?) point of view? --Kleinzach 00:36, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Can someone verify the dates of 1814-1910? As said by Dalhaus, "Any historian interested in establishing connections will naturally gravitate toward the emergence and crystallization of the new rather than the demise and disintegration of the old, which always follows after a certain time lag.” This would probably make the end date of 1910 problematic since new style(s) were already forming at this point.Klangfarben (talk) 18:35, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

I gave up worrying about this article overmuch, in favour of fixing the larger section on music in the Romanticism article. I am afraid I have allowed that project, too, to lapse, but what I was working on there is directly pertinent here. Dahlhaus is one of the key figures in a revisionist trend amongst music historians, beginning around 1970, which is questioning the periodization of Romanticism in music. The New Musicology in America has also questioned the dislocation of Romanticism in music from that of the other arts, with sufficient success that the result is now a fundamental disagreement about whether to continue to refer to the period after about 1850 as "late Romantic", or something else. Dahlhaus has proposed several alternatives (for various segments of musical life in that period), but so far none of these has gained an authoritative position. Previously, Friedrich Blume had taken the opposite tack, contending that the Romantic era should not be regarded as distinct from the Classical Period, and also should be extended up to the period of the Second World War. Dahlhaus was largely reacting against Blume, I suspect. Although this ongoing debate has not produced a new consensus, it has at least resulted in a drastic revision to the article in the New Grove, which no longer regards Alfred Einstein's view (the 1814 to 1910 demarcation) as the single acceptable one, and discusses at some length the problems with treating the second half of the 19th century in music as essentially congruent with the first half.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 23:04, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

Beginning section

"More appropriately, romanticism describes the expansion of formal structures within a composition, making the pieces more passionate and expressive."

This sentence, and indeed most of the section, really bothers me. The words "more appropriately" seem like padding (I can't see what they mean), and the sentence is highly debatable at best: it's hard to see how the structure of romanticism is directly linked to greater expressivity when compared to (say) Bach before it, or greater passion than Stravinsky after it. I'm insufficiently expert to rewrite this, but I think it needs dealing with. Xgretsch (talk) 18:14, 21 December 2009 (UTC) by the rated r super star egde —Preceding unsigned comment added by 168.216.118.222 (talk) 11:42, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Additional citations

Why and where does this article need additional citations for verification? What references does it need and how should they be added? Hyacinth (talk) 04:39, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Misleading

Why and where does this article contain misleading content? How does it need to be cleaned up? Hyacinth (talk) 04:40, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for prompting me, Hyacinth. At least some of the tags on OR and CN material was mine, and dates back as much as a year. I have removed it all, and the applicable banners as well.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 17:07, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

Organization of the periods within the Romantic Era

Are these appropriate dates in which the Romantic period may be divided?

• Transition from the Classical to the Romantic (and Romantic occurrences of the Classical era, i.e. Sturm and Drang)

• Early Romantic 1820s-1840s

• Middle Romantic 1840s-1860s

• Late Romantic 1860s-1880s

• 1880s- transition to 20th century music

How would divide the era so that a history section may be created in an organized manner? Harpsichord246 (talk) 06:55, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Opinions about the most natural divisions of the 19th century, as well as what to call such divisions, are divided. However, 1848 is often regarded as some sort of watershed. German historians tend to regard this (or some nearby year) as the end of the Romantic period, and the beginning of Post-romanticism, while English and American historians generally treat the latter half of the 19th century as "late Romantic". Some historians, however, label the post-1880 period as "Neo-Romantic", while still others regard this as the early stage of Modernism, with an emphasis on historicist attitudes in composers such as Brahms and Reger. What this article badly needs is some proper referencing, which should be used to support such sub-period divisions as well as assertions made about this or that feature of the music.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 16:20, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

It would be best to label portion of the Romantic era starting in 1840 as "Late-Romantic" since it is a generally accepted classification, especially in the U.S. and U.K.. On the issue of citations, it is difficult to find specific sources on the Romantic era especially on the internet. This is probably why this article has been neglected more than the other Classical music articles. — Harpsichord246 (talk) 23:31, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

I find it hard to believe that sources on the Romantic era are difficult to find, whether on the Internet or elsewhere. Although it is not one of my areas of specialization, I have several respectable books lying about the house, and can access thousands of others in my local library. A quick search on GoogleBooks for the keywords "Romantic Music" produces 2,240,000 hits, amongst which there surely must be four or five suitable for this purpose. I also cannot agree that this article is much more neglected than the ones on, for example, Baroque music or 20th-century classical music. I must emphasize that choosing arbitrary dates and making up our own descriptors, even if we believe that these dates and terms are "generally accepted", is nothing but Original Research and, as such, is unacceptable on Wikipedia.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 00:28, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

I did not intend for it to sound like their is no information on the era but what I meant by that statement was that their are no concise and simple explanations (such as what you would see on a Wikipedia page.) You are right though, yet it seems that the plethora of information on the Romantic era (or any other era) does not seem to find its way on the articles, making me come to the conclusion that these articles are all somewhat neglected. Because I myself have more understanding of the Baroque and Classical, my attention has been focused more in that direction (most recently in the input of most of the pictures on those articles). — Harpsichord246 (talk) 03:54, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Yes, of course. There would be no need for Wikipedia if concise and simple explanations were already available. You are quite right to say these article have all been neglected, but the neglect involves not only skimming through history too summarily, but also writing whole sections from half-remembered undergraduate introductory courses, instead of using the "plethora" of available sources to develop a more accurate account. I have noticed your welcome addition of illustrations to the article on Baroque music, and I am sure you have in turn noticed that I have been marking sections there that lack sources. I hope that we may be joined by other editors in improving this situation, while at the same time enlarging and improving those sections.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 04:20, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

I agree that we must write informative sections and thoroughly cite our sources. Lets get to work and perhaps these articles shall be promoted to Good or even Featured statuses in the future. — Harpsichord246 (talk) 04:48, 28 March 2012 (UTC)

Constant referencing style needed

This article has a clutter of different referencing styles. It should all be organized into one. Any thoughts? Harpsichord246 (talk) 06:57, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Fixed. Changed nonconforming formats to the first-established one, per WP:CITEVAR.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 17:12, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Hmm, it seems that the discussion on the Talk:Baroque music page has spilled over here. Would you concede to a different referencing style if I was able to convince you? Take a look at this paragraph copied directly from this page:

The Romantic movement was an artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe and strengthened in reaction to the Industrial Revolution (Encyclopædia Britannica n.d.). In part, it was a revolt against social and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment and a reaction against the scientific rationalization of nature (Casey 2008). It was embodied most strongly in the visual arts, music, and literature, but had a major impact on historiography (Levin 1967,[page needed]), education, (Gutek 1987, ch. 12 on Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi{Pn|date=September 2012}}) and natural history (Nichols 2005,[page needed]).

Now look at this:

The Romantic movement was an artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe and strengthened in reaction to the Industrial Revolution. In part, it was a revolt against social and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment and a reaction against the scientific rationalization of nature. It was embodied most strongly in the visual arts, music, and literature, but had a major impact on historiography, education, and natural history.

Discarding all previous biases, do you not think the second is easier to read? Now, I understand WP:CITEVAR and I understand that opinions don't drive the direction of the referencing style, but I am just proposing a change to the current style (which has not been fully established), in the direction which I have previously explained. Is that reasonable? Harpsichord246 (talk) 23:21, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Your method of presentation is impeccable, and you are being perfectly reasonable, but I happen to disagree with you about which style is easier to read (especially but not only in Edit mode), and see no reason to change the established format. There is, by the way, a typographical error that needs correcting, in the "page needed" template after Pestalozzi—which is also missing the double closing brackets for the wikilink—and two requests for such pages seem for be merely enclosed in brackets, instead of in the customary template.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 23:54, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Since we are divided, let's maintain the current system and wait for another editor on this page to comment. I fear, however, that this may take a long time to happen. Harpsichord246 (talk) 00:37, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

I feel like the second style (with the superscript) is much easier to read if for no other reason than that is how the majority of articles are cited on WP. Also with all of the "page needed", it really clutters up the paragraphs. Magikid (talk) 23:33, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

Could you go back over your logic for a moment? How does a majority practice make something easier to read? The majority of people are right-handed. Does that make right-handed people easier to deal with than left-handed people? About the "page needed" clutter, I could not agree more, but those marks have nothing whatever to do with citation style, as you seem to imply. The way to make them go away is to replace them with the relevant page citations.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 23:57, 3 December 2015 (UTC)

References

Nationalism

I don't think we have enough material in this article about the influence of nationalism on the Romantic period. There's only one bullet point in the Traits section and I don't think that does nationalism justice. I'd like to add material about nationalist composers like Smetana, Strauss, and Sibelius, among others, but I'm not sure where to put this. Under "Non-musical influences", perhaps?

Megakacktus (talk) 16:22, 19 May 2013 (UTC)

There is of course a separate article dedicated to Musical nationalism, and though it is not limited to the Romantic period, it does overwhelmingly concentrate on it. It still would be a good idea to add something about it here (it is an important aspect of 19th-century European music), but rather than putting it under something else, why not give it its own section? One thing puzzles me, though: why do you think Strauss (I presume you mean Richard) exhibits traits of nationalism?—Jerome Kohl (talk) 00:20, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

I actually meant Johann Strauss, and was referring to his glorification of Austria through his waltzes (Blue Danube Waltz, Vienna Waltz, etc.). I'd be thrilled to write a nationalism section, though. Megakacktus (talk) 19:46, 20 May 2013 (UTC)

Oh. Well, I've never heard Strauss waltzes referred to as instances of nationalism, but if you have got sources for this, there is no reason you shouldn't include it. I for one look forward to reading your contribution.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 01:18, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

Strass waltzes have become associated particularly with Vienna and Austria (especially given the popularity of the New Year's Day concert), so I can see why people might think of them as nationalist music - but I don't especially associate them with the inclusion of folk music from different countries that I think of as one of the defining characteristics of musical nationalism (I'm especially thinking of Dvorak for Czech music and Grieg for Norwegian here). -- PaulHammond (talk) 13:47, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

Music?

Did I miss it, or does this article not tell anything at all about the actual music of the Romantic period? --Dan Wylie-Sears 2 (talk) 23:54, 24 May 2013 (UTC)

No, you are absolutely correct although, to be fair, the article doesn't say much about anything. It is very, very short considering the subject. In fact, the article Romanticism actually says more about Romantic music than this article does, I think.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 01:22, 25 May 2013 (UTC)

You didn't miss anything. There was nothing there to miss. Worse still, what it did say about romanticism as an artistic-cum-political outlook was hopelessly redundant, seriously in need of Mr. Ockham's razor. In literature, it could comprise everything from the works of Anne Radcliffe to Poe to Fyodor Sologub to the fantastic fiction of H. P. Lovecraft.Euonyman (talk) 22:05, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

This is still a terrible article. I'm no expert by any means there are obvious composers that could be mentioned, along with a mention of what distinguishes Romantic music from that preceding it. This is a massive era in the history of music!Harshmustard (talk) 17:23, 21 March 2015 (UTC)

I'm puzzled by the reliance on Hoffmann, rather than Gretry. Common sense suggests that if Hoffmann himself is writing about something which he believes was already in existence - no-one claims that Beethoven's Fifth was the fist "romantic" composition - then the chances are that so was Gretry, since even Beethoven himself was in many ways influenced profoundly by the composers of the French Revolution working in his early twenties. The conceptual problem here is the identification of allegedly "classical" feeling with "classical" sonata form, a form itself not properly described until the early 1820s, and demonstrably in existence sixty years earlier - i.e., almost contemporary with such early romantic writers as James MacPherson. Can Hoffmann really have meant what he is claimed to have said here? He was himself a musician as well as a major "romantic" writerDelahays (talk) 13:06, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

What is the article about?

I am a musicologist and find it odd that "Romantic Music" is referred to as a genre in the opening section. Most of us think of "romantic" as a "style" of music, not a "category of composition" (e.g. symphony, concerto) as "genre" implies. Furthermore, it's true that "romanticism" first flourished in the early 1800s, but later (after 1850 or so) it existed side-by-side with several other -isms (nationalism, realism, etc.). In it's present form, this article is more of a summary of "nineteenth-century music" rather than "romantic" music -- the latter might refer to works written as early as the 1790s and to those written well into the twentieth century. Someone should decide if this particular article is about a time period or a style.

...And then what????

Normally each type says says something like this in the lede paragraph:
"The Classical period falls between the Baroque and the Romantic periods. Classical music has a lighter, clearer texture than Baroque music and is less complex."

What comes after Romantic music? If nothing, that should be noted. I'm guessing the answer is just too complex.
--2602:306:CFCE:1EE0:F5D1:256B:CA2D:F58 (talk) 23:51, 5 March 2020 (UTC) Jest Saying

Well, yes, the answer is very complex, even if an arbitrary end date is drawn (say, October 12, 1914, at 10:47am). This is made much more complicated, however, by the disagreement amongst music historians about when (and if) the Romantic period ended. This aspect is not covered at all well in this article, at least not yet, and you will notice that (despite the fairly definite time-frame given in the lede paragraph) the body of the article does not actually fix an end-point, in the way it does for the beginning of the movement.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 00:30, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

"Influential composers of the early Romantic era include..."

Honestly, isn't this list (in the lead) just a tad indiscriminate? It makes it seem as though everybody and their mother were influential composers of the Romantic era. With so many names on a list, the concept of "influential" rapidly loses its significance. Plus, having a high volume of links in one place (with no attempt at categorization [e.g. "nationalist music", "Italian opera", "New German School", etc.]) goes against one of the principles of WP:OVERLINK, namely, that links should not be competing with each other for readers' attention. Toccata quarta (talk) 03:08, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

Oh, I don't know. Without any stated criteria for what constitutes "influential", I think the list could easily be increased a hundred-fold, especially if you include composers who were not particularly influential in their lifetimes, but have attracted attention in the past couple of decades, thereby influencing today's composers without having had the slightest influence on their contemporaries. You have to take the broader view, don't you? Otherwise, you would be forced to demand reliable sources, and we can't be having that, can we? (Please observe the intended irony, not to mention sarcasm.)—Jerome Kohl (talk)

Actually it's a short list- the Romantic period was quite the boom in terms of the sheer number of composers that wrote music surviving into the modern era as compared to the Classical period and the Baroque period. 98.178.191.34 (talk) 16:51, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

extremely short

The article is extremely short and superficial for such a huge topic.--2603:8000:8900:6E00:585E:75E8:233B:A27C (talk) 21:11, 25 July 2022 (UTC)

"Fix it yourself instead of just talking about it" – Aza24 (talk) 00:24, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

Lack of any citations at all in a large portion of the article.

In the entire section, History > High Romantic, there is not a single source cited in this large section of the article, and a fair number of claims made in it are questionable, such as "Franz Liszt, who came from the German minority in Hungary, was on the one hand a swarmed piano virtuoso, but on the other hand also laid the foundation for the progressive "New German School" with his harmoniously bold symphonic poems." Caeruleo (talk) 04:29, 31 July 2024 (UTC)