Musical composers are the prime example of how the Romantic era reacted to Neo-classicism. Rather than follow the strict form and structure of the previous Classical period and its religious grip, their music focused on the unregulated and boundless expression of human emotion and the power that man had to describe communicate deeper truths and human feelings – therefore pieces were much more dramatic, vivid, and animated in their attempt to connect passionately with other human souls. Many pieces took exciting and dramatic forms, like Franz Liszt’s famous Hungarian Rhapsody (No. 2). Musicians like Liszt who emphasized spontaneous bursts of rhythm and seductive and provocative methods like harmonic discord and ambiguous meters and tonalities were able to extract emotion from their listeners and take them on an emotional journey. Many Nationalist composers were like Liszt, who aimed to communicate to listeners the story of his homeland, Hungary, and the strong influence he took from the vibrant folk and gypsy music of his youth. This direct human to human connection, undeniably much more potent in the Romantic period, was used to evoke emotion from listeners. While composers like Liszt used inspiration from their homelands to establish a human to human connection, composers like Tchaikovsky used music to express the beauty and profound sadness found in human existence. Tchaikovsky’s compositions personified into ballets like The Nutcracker and Swan Lake each exuded the passionate, deep, yearning, and romanticized sadness that comes along with human existence. Soft, slow, and emotional pieces, combined with the beauty of dance in the ballet, truly showed the magnificence in the human form and the tragic quality found in mortal life and death. Whether Romantic music induced joy, grief, or anger, emotion-injected pieces caused listeners to truly reflect and connect with composers and their music.
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Asher.p4.t6:Romantic Era Synthesis
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I am, usually, quite hard on synthesis essays and was planning to be quite skeptical considering the raw emotions surrounding the Romantic period. But, I must say that this synthesis has been done quite well, albeit in a slightly abridged format. The synthesis wastes no time in stringing out names of both composers and pieces, linking their ideas directly back to the surrounding Romantic period. This style, although just a tad bit forced, shows direct evidence of both research and thought being put into the synthesis to craft a final piece that presents all the necessary information in a brief, easy to understand format. However, although the ideas are easy to read and follow, the syntax that it is written in is near-seamless with a focus on using appropriate diction that makes sense both with the time period being described, and the nature of the synthesis itself. Overall, I must say that this is truly what a Synthesis essay should be, a light piece that shows true thought, written in an accessible yet complex manner, that allows the thoughts described by the Synthesis to be transmitted without fail.
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