Thematic Transformation: New Work Methods of the Classical Composers in the Use of the Motive

Vivaldi’s ground-breaking change in perception regarding the motive had a profound impact on the compositional methods of the Classic-period composers, Josef Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Ludwig van Beethoven. All three began to use a basic motivic idea as the basis for entire movements in their symphonic works, string quartets, and concerti. Haydn’s music tends, of the three, to have the greatest clarity of texture but, at the same time, to be the most angular. The awkward moments in Haydn’s music may be excused, however, when one understands that he was the pioneer of the sonata form. As he composed, he not only grappled with the quality of thematic material and its development but also with fitting those materials into sonata form.

Mozart showed himself to be equally at home using the motive as the musical kernel or at composing long, lyrical melodies sometimes found in later Romantic music. The dichotomy has its origins in his history and employment possibilities. Mozart, unlike Haydn and Beethoven, did not focus his energies exclusively upon instrumental music. Mozart also composed opera largely modeled on Italian models. The traditions of beautiful aria melodies still ran deep in Italian opera, and the traits are found in the ‘singing’ quality of many of the melodies that Mozart composed.

Although he composed a single opera, Beethoven intensely focused his energies upon the genres of instrumental music. His efforts were channeled to create pieces of great emotional content and contrast, but also to exploring the boundaries of the tonal system of his time. The later works juxtapose more violently not only thematic ideas, dynamics, tempi, and even meter, but also key areas that neither occurred together regularly in the music of his time but also in the music of the next fifty years!

Thematic Transformation in Mozart’s Music
The three composers discovered that Vivaldi’s construction of thematic materials from a motive suited their musical aims exceptionally well. For one, the motive could evolve or “transform” as the music unfolded, permitting great developmental strides without the sacrifice of the identity or unifying character of the original motive. Below is the principal theme of the first movement of Mozart’s Symphony No.40 in G Minor (K.550). The motive is found as the first three notes.

Principal theme of Symphony no. 40

As the movement unfolds, the basic motive is “transformed” or modified by the omission of the last note (the tenth note of the previous example):

Transformation by omission of the last note of the theme

Later, the theme is further transformed by inversion:

Transformation by inversion

Thematic Transformation in Beethoven and Unification of Multi-movement Works: Symphony No.5 in C Minor, First Movement

The thematic transformation found in this late work of Mozart only anticipates the extensive treatment applied to the motive by Beethoven. In an example of the kind of thinking that puts him in a class apart and in a role the formal bridge to the Romantic period, Beethoven not only uses the motive as the material of the first movement of Symphony No.5 in C Minor, but as the bases for all the movements of the work! The initial kernel, often described as “Fate knocking at the door,” is given below as the first four notes. The second four-note set is a sequence, and the presentation of a motivic idea and its immdediate sequence, exemplified here, later become an almost standard feature of the expositions of subsequent movements:


Nuclear motive of the first movement, the "Fate Theme" (first four notes)

Beethoven immediately uses his four-note motive as the basis for the melody. The repetition of an idea at different pitch levels is called sequence:


Fate motive used in sequence to create first extended melody

Beethoven expands the motive at the end of this first melody. The resulting figure is known as the “Horn Call” and is appropriately presented by the French horns:


Fate motive expanded into "Horn Call"

As he presents the second theme, the Fate motive does not remain silent but now serves inverted in the role of accompaniment. Moreover, this second, lyrical theme is not devoid of the influence of the Fate motive or the Horn Call in its construction. The final notes of the Horn Call are disguised in the new, lyrical theme as the second, fifth, and last notes of the melody. The basic intervals of the Fate motive are also found as the second, fourth, and sixth notes.


Second, lyrical theme supported in lower voice by "Fate" motive

The triumphant melody that follows later does not seem to bear melodic or intervallic similitude to any of the previous motives. It does feature from the second to the fifth note (first note of the third measure; the tie connecting the first two notes is not counted), however, the same rhythm, albeit much quicker, as the Fate motive. From the third measure, the melody is distinctly heard in four-note patterns that echo the rhythm of the Fate motive.

Moreover, the interval of the third descending, the principal interval of the Fate motive abounds as a structural feature. It is found between the first and sixth notes, the second and fourth notes, the first notes of the third and fifth measures, the first notes of the fifth and sixth measures, and as the last two notes in measures 5-7 The An altered Fate motive is also clear in measures 5-7. Here the first two notes of each measure, if changed to the same note as the third one, would yield the original Fate motive. The relationship of the theme to the original motive is not apparent without scrutiny on paper, but it does resonate in the listener at a subconsicous level.


Triumphant theme with opening Fate-motive rhythm and descending third intervals derived from it

Beethoven further transforms his motives in the opening of the development, which opens with the Horn Call. The idea of the descending third interval is used to create the accompaniment, and the basic Fate motive is given in the soprano in inversion and missing the first note and then in an uninverted form, still missing the the first note, in the last six notes of the example.


Opening of Development: Horn Call, descending third intervals, and shortened Fate motive

Within seconds, Beethoven introduces the Horn Call again, building the subsequent section upon the first and second of the three notes he initially added to the Fate motive to create the Horn Call. By the last four measures, he has inverted the interval of the ascending second to a descending second given between the upper and lower instruments of the orchestra. For example, the highest notes in the fourth and third last measures are B flat and A flat, but the second note, A flat, is given a full octave higher. The section is one in which the direction of the music, and even the music itself, seems to be in a state of suspension. It is a section of suspense, as well, and serves very nicely to add to effect of forward drive in the section that follows.


Motive spun from first and second long notes of Horn Call

Beethoven again uses the Horn Call to open the coda:


Opening of coda

In a fashion typical of his forward-looking approach, he introduces a rising new thematic idea. The idea is not new, however, but yet another idea derived from earlier motivic and thematic materials. The new theme consists of four-note groups that are sequenced in each instance one pitch higher. The are each bounded by a third, and the contour is not dissimilar to the three notes Beethoven added to the Fate motive to make the Horn Call, when regarded inverted and in retrograde (backward and upside down). A similar contour is also found between the second and fifth notes of the lyrical theme above.


New coda theme


Thematic Transformation and Unification Carried from the First Movement into the Second, Third and Fourth Movements of Symphony No.5 in C Minor

The second movement of the symphony also derives its thematic ideas from the basic Fate kernel. The movement is a theme-and-variation form and again, thinking beyond the constraints of tradition, Beethoven imbues the movement with two themes! The first features the sequencing seen earlier in lyric theme of the coda to the first movement, where we now recognize it was given as a preview of themes to follow. The basic kernel is found in the first, second, and last note of the first full measure and the first note of the second. It is the Fate motive again, but with the interval at the end expanded to a fifth as in the first statement of the Horn Call in the first movement. The second, third, fourth, and fifth notes of the first full measure also give the lyric coda theme in retrograde (backward)!

First theme of second movement

The second theme is more obvious. The Fate kernel is found as the first full measure and the first note of the second. Here the motive is inverted and the third note is moved upward one note. Again, the sequencing of the lyric coda theme, and the first theme of the movement is evident. Moreover, if one moves the first note of the first full measure up to the C note (up two notes), the motive is the same as the coda theme!

Second theme of second movement

The principal notes of the first theme are evident in Variation A1 and in Variation A2:

Variation A1



Variation A2

The third movement, the Scherzo or “joke,” begins with a theme that derives its contour less from the Fate motive and more from the accompaniment found supporting the Horn Call in the first measures of the development in the first movement. The accompaniment here anticipates the first notes and contours of both themes of the second movement. The first notes of each contain the same intervals, and the theme of the third movement simply continues the expansion by thirds. The short-short-short-long Fate motive rhythm is found in the second and third measures.

First theme of the third movement

The second theme strongly echoes the Fate kernel, not in its intervallic structure but in its rhythm. Upon hearing, the reference to the first notes of the work is too strong to miss and creates a direct, unifying link to the beginning of the symphony..

Second theme of the third movement

The fugue subject of the second section of the third movement apparently owes the least to the basic motive. The opening of the subject derives from the last three notes of the Horn Call found as the first, third and fifth notes of the first full measure. The rhythmic organization of the same measure into two groups of three rhythmically resembles the Fate motive stated twice but each time denied its last note. The remaining music of the line resemble the melodic contours of the passaggi (runs) found in the variations in the second movement. The final measures hark back to the accompaniment of the Horn Call in the development of the first movement.

Fugue theme of the third movement

Yet another striking progressive element is found between the third and fourth movements. Instead of bringing the third movement to a close, Beethoven connects the two with a dark, low, mysterious filament in the tympani and sustained low strings. Over this static background Beethoven reaffirms his commitment to motivic construction by sequencing a fragment of the scherzo theme, the first theme of the third movement, at ever higher pitch levels.

The first theme of the final movement draws from the outline of the chord, that is, stacked third intervals. Here the scope of the initial descending third interval is inverted and expanded outward to form a complete tonic chord. Moreover, the sense of triumph and fulfillment is enhanced by the tonal motion from the partially stated tonic minor chord in the first four notes of the work to the statement of a complete major tonic triad as the first theme of the final movement.

The rhythm of the first three notes of this theme replicate the rhythm of the first three notes of the Fate motive, but at a far slower pace. Another modified version of the Fate rhythm is given in the dotted figures of the fourth and fifth measures. The rhythm here is created by omitting the second note of the Fate motive. Notice the familiar countour of the melodies of the third measure and ending measures of the example. We have seen it in the Triumphant theme and the coda theme of the first movement as well as echoed in figures throughout all the movements. Of interest is also a special feature, unrelated to earlier motives, found in the first four measures. The theme is a palandrome. A paladrome is a word or musical idea that is the same backward as forward. Examples include the word "racecar" or the name "Otto."

First theme of the fourth movement

Like the first three notes of the first theme of this movement, the “bridge” or transition theme also outlines the tonic triad. The first three notes of the transition are an inverted contour form of the last three notes of the Horn Call. The modified Fate rhythm is present in the dotted figures. Here then, Beethoven has taken an idea derived from the first part of the Fate motive and Horn Call, a contour derived from the last three notes of the Horn Call, and reversed them in order!

The strong motion from the first beat of one measure to the first beat of the next is also reminiscent of the Fate rhythm. The relationship becomes apparent if one sings the rhythm but adds the missing b=middle beat. The two dotted half notes and the tied whole note, when viewed in retrograde, are also a variant of the three notes Beethoven added to the Fate motive to form the Horn Call! Here he is thinking on a very advanced level, and again has created an abstract (but not literal) palandrone!

The theme, which fills the first three measures, is sequenced immediately, drawing a strong relationship to the sequencing found in the Fate motive and both themes of the second movement.

"Bridge" or transition theme of the fourth movement

The second theme is given in triplets, another variant of the Fate motive rhythm, yet the rhythm is also present at another level. A modified form of the Fate rhythm is found given in the relationship of quarter notes that end each triplet. The two phrases are seperated by the dotted half note. In the first phrase, the first note of the Fate motive rhythm is missing; the complete rhythm is present in the second phrase. Moreover, the descending intervallic that finishes each phrase is reminiscent of both the initial Fate motive and the Horn Call.

Second theme of the fourth movement

The intervallic boundaries of the final theme are derivative from the Fate motive but expanded from the interval of a third to the interval of a fourth. The last three notes of the new theme in the second measure are clearly one final reference to the Fate motive rhythm. They are clearly more powerful because they are heard as more final. If one sings the second measure and the first note of the third, he will hear that the theme is not only finished, but the very question presented in the first three notes of the symphony, the Fate motive, is resolved. The Fate motive was dark and imposing because it was given in the minor key and propelled forward by a very aggresive rhythm. Here the tension has lightened by the use of the major key, and the opening rhythmic motive has a final, convincing closing resolution. As in the preceding movements, the motive is immediately sequenced.

The movement unfolds from the theme, and this sense of conclusion or resolution pervades it. The sense of resloution comes from the music's "pastoral" but noble quality. Throughout, we sense that all is well in the world, and that the world is a wonderful, gentle, happy place. For Beethoven, this musical depiction is the embodiment of the implementation of the Rights of Man and the triumph of man's innate goodness, all foretold as destiny by the very first statement of the Fate motive at the beginning of the work.

Closing theme of the fourth movement

Some of Beethoven’s thematic transformations are readily apparent. Others are more abstract. The process by which Beethoven could fashion four different, independent movements from materials derived from a single motive, hence relating them as a larger whole, is testimony to a musical intelligence advanced beyond his time. Few composers and music critics actually understood his late works until more than thirty years after his death! This analysis of the thematic material of Symphony No.5 in C Minor only scratches the surface of Beethoven’s genius but does give a small indication of how he earned his place among the greatest of Western composers

Beethoven as the Bridge to Romanticism in Music

The duration of the Classic era, which was short relative to the preceding style periods, reflected the pace of the Intellectual Revolution. The musical traits of the three principal Classic composers differed significantly in accordance with their musical experiences, musical goals, and personalities. Haydn focused on making the sonata a viable form and hence his music is more subdued and restrained. Mozart had extensive experience composing Italian opera. His melodies give evidence of this experience in their richly lyrical characteristics.

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) was, however, a composer of a highly passionate disposition. Although Beethoven had severe shortcomings in his social skills, he fervently believed in mankind. His thought informed by the Enlightenment and inflamed by contemporary revolutionary events, he sought to embrace and enlist other men in the promise of human fulfillment that these events seemed to offer. He was an early supporter of Napoleon, but was disaffected and alienated when Napoleon sought to have himself crowned Emperor. Beethoven was so appalled by Napoleon’s bid for absolute power, that he tore the original title of his third symphony, “Napoleon,” from the first page and renamed the work “Eroica,” or “Heroic.”

Ludwig van Beethoven

Despite his disillusionment, Beethoven did not digress from his convictions regarding the dignity, potential freedom, and rights of man. The seeds of German Romantic idealism, as noted a more powerful and cohesive train of thought than in other regions of Europe, were taking shape around him as he came to artistic maturity. Beethoven’s familiarity with the writings and convictions of Schiller and Goethe were evident; Beethoven used a text by Schiller in the choral last movement of his most overt symphonic and romantic achievement, Symphony No.9 in D Minor.

Beethoven regarded himself as a classicist, yet in his music he enriched the elements of the classical tradition with his urgent idealism. Beethoven imbued the music with the passion of Romantic idealism by the use of sharp and dramatic contrast. These contrasts pervade nearly all aspects of his mature music including the character of themes within a work, dynamics, key areas, tempi, orchestral color, and even meter. Beethoven’s classicism is also evident in his work method. He sought that every musical component should be in balance and have meaning. He worked slowly and carefully, and labored over the development of themes, the ways in which they could be developed, and even their suitability for development, comes to the modern scholar in his work books.

Despite the almost violent contrasts and character of the late string quartets, written after his deafness became total and around the same time as the ninth symphony, the classicist is nonetheless evident in the working-out of the motivic materials. The late string quartets and piano music were among Beethoven’s most significant, radical, and progressive works. They were not appreciated or embraced for at least thirty years after his death. When confronted by a critic who did not like or understand one of the late string quartets, Beethoven responded to the critic that it was not important since the music was ‘not for you.’

Beyond his immeasurable importance as a composer, Beethoven was also the first composer to be financially independent, that is, to support himself by the sale and performance of his music. As such, he was the first to break with the long tradition of church or royal sponsorship. His works were recognized at first hearing for their importance, power, and beauty. The symphonic works were absorbed directly and immediately into the orchestral repertory, where they have remained in popular usage to this day. The circumstance of immediate acceptance across the spectrum of listener, from the common man to the connoisseur, permitted Beethoven to reach and inflame a broad audience with his passionate ideals and to set the stage for the Romantic composers who would follow.

The Industrial Revolution: the Widening Gap Among the Classes

In the first half of the nineteenth century, the technological and philosophical advances of the Enlightenment came to fruition in Europe in very different ways than the early philosophes could have foreseen. Technological advances, once believed to be the means to achieve a society in which all members benefited materially and lived in environments in which they could cultivate human virtue, instead led to the creation of three distinct classes and a collision of two basic premises of the Enlightenment.

Enlightenment economics, first propounded by Adam Smith and characterized by a laissez-faire role of government, benefited the middle class and permitted an expansion of its numbers. The emerging middle class, eager to profit, pushed for changes in government and inadvertently prompted changes in the social order that set the stage for nearly seventy years of bloodshed, beginning with the first French Revolution of 1789 and its subsequent Reign of Terror, to the Napoleonic Wars and the revolts across Europe in 1848. To put the human toll into perspective, Napoleon lost nearly 900,000 men in his Russian campaign alone. This estimate represents on a small total of those killed in the period. Wholesale slaughter became such common feature of European life that Napoleon's staggering losses did not present an immediate threat to his power nor diminished his ability to raise an army.

Liberalism
The economic policies prescribed by Smith called for the complete freedom of the merchant and producer of goods to exploit all resources, free of tariffs, in order to meet the demands of the market place. The government, long suspected of corruption, would be limited, in Smith's economics, to a well-defined role. It would undertake, on behalf of industry, tasks that posed danger or expense too great for industry to absorb. Hence the government would assume such responsibilities as furnishing armies, opening new trade routes and protecting old ones, acquiring new resource regions, and building and maintaining roads.

The unbridled quest for profit, called liberalism, led to the further separation of the three classes: the landed aristocracy, the group that held power by virtue of land ownership and long bloodlines; the bourgeoisie or the newly expanding middle class; and the laborer, who did not own land and hence could not represent himself, even by vote, in government.

The liberals, in their expanding class and desire to have government that favored market-place economics, threatened the power of the old order of the aristocracy. At the same time, liberalism ran headlong into opposition with another fundamental tenet of the Enlightenment, basic human rights. Enlightenment economics portrayed the world as a vast storehouse of raw materials to be exploited, but liberal economists drew no distinction in defining raw materials between a vein of coal and the labor force. The treatment of the worker is furnished in below in the description of his working and living conditions.

Wart's Steam Engine

The Dispossessed Working Class
Liberal economics changed the geography of Europe through population migration. The Industrial Revolution began in Britain in the late eighteenth century, considerably earlier than on the continent. By 1830, the continental producers had caught up. The mills, located in the cities, attracted increasing numbers of workers. At the same time, the population of Europe continued to grow rapidly. By mid-century, half the British population lived in cities. On the continent, about one fourth of the population had migrated to urban centers.

The exploding population put vast strains for basic services on the physical resources of the cities. Housing, water, sewers, fuel, food, and lighting were in short supply. Slums of indescribable squalor become a principal urban characteristic. Disease ravaged the population and crime, the only alternative for the unemployed, became a way of life for many unfortunates.

Honore Daumier, The Third-Class Carriage, c1862

Two types of urban worker emerged. One was the laborer who worked in the new industries and learned the skills necessary to run its new machinery. The mill worker had no legislation to protect him. He worked long hours for little pay and watched his children forced into the same work before his eyes. Unemployment was a constant specter; boredom and, in some cases danger, a constant companion at the job.

The second was the urban artisan. He represented the older craftsman, usually producing very fine handmade goods and working in a small shop that employed ten or fewer workers. He was represented by the guild, an institution that dated from the Middle Ages. Despite a finer product, this type of worker was the harder hit economically. He could not keep up with the production rates that accompanied the new technology, and he could not afford to charge less.

Classical economists did not foresee an improvement to the lot of the worker. In his Essay on Population (1798), Thomas Malthus (1766-1834) drew a pessimistic picture. In his view, the population would ultimately outstrip the food supply. Disaster could be averted only by late marriage, chastity, and contraception. Moreover, if wages were raised, the worker would have more children. The children would consume these wages and more food.

In the Principles of Political Economy (1817), David Ricardo (1772-1823) drew an even darker picture by taking the train of thought one step further to formulate a cycle he called the Iron Law of Wages. If wages were raised, the worker would have more children, and the additional wages would not be spent on consumer goods, but on feeding the children. As the children entered the work force, the additional number of workers would drive down wages. With the drop in wages, the worker would have fewer children, thus causing the wages to rise once more and the process to start anew. The concept reinforced the employers desire to justify keeping wages low since, in economic theory, the birthrate of the worker would always assure the minimum level necessary for him to reproduce but not flourish. Ricardo's theory, however, did not take into account that some working families did regulate their own birthrates and hence lived at a higher standard.

Louis Nain (1595-1648), Peasant Family in an Interior (1642).

Principal Intellectual Trends: Romantic Idealism and Nationalism
Romantic Idealism and Nationalism were two related and conservative reactions to Enlightenment thought and the horrors of the French Revolution and Napoleon’s invasions. Romantic idealism was the most important force in the period from 1800-1830.

It was at once a backlash against the cold intellectualism and reason of the Enlightenment and a re-embrace of spiritual values displaced by scientific truth. The movement revered intuitive knowledge that could not be proven by science. It revered nature anew and elevated the common folk to heroes. It eschewed Classical formalism, preferring raw or strong emotion to balance and elegance.

In Britain and France, Romantic idealism wavered between mystic irrationalism and the gallant defense of liberty and social reform. Romantic idealism saw its most cohesive development in Germany, where several fundamental tenets crystallized.

First, Romantic idealism recognized the validity of intuitive or instinctual knowledge beyond that acquired through the reasoned, empirical, scientific, deductive methods of the Enlightenment. Romantic idealism also sought to imbue the universe, described in enlightened terms an infinite, impartial, mechanism (“watch-work”) set in cold and eternal motion, with a spiritual component. To this end, Romantic idealists began to view nature and its functioning in terms of its beauty, majesty, power, truth, and capability to support life and give succor. In brief, Romantic idealists saw goodness in the physical universe, not only in what stood realized before them, but also in a divine plan unfolding, through evolution, for the benefit of all elements of the universe, especially including man. Romantic idealism the means to positive community with a higher entity, whatever it be, gutted from Medieval concepts of God by the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment.

In a second critical Nationalist tenet of Romantic idealism, the individual had no significance except as a participant in a social group. The seeds of the idea of the state as the guarantor of individual rights were sown first in the theories of the Enlightenment philosophe, Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778). Rousseau believed that no individual citizen was more important than the state. The survival of the state guaranteed the survival, rights, and liberty of the individual citizen. Hence the first obligation of the citizen was to ensure the survival of the state. His role was to subjugate his own interests to those of the larger whole. He had no rights or freedoms beyond the jurisdiction of the organized society of which he was part.

Moreover, the Romantic idealists believed that society and the state were social organisms and the products of natural evolution, not the artificial creations of man for his own convenience. Society could not be created, as in Enlightened thought, by social contract. These constructs of society became a prominent feature of the theories of several later German Romantic idealist philosophers.

Napoleon’s invasions brought to the fore a question urgent for the citizen and crucial to nationalism: to which social group does citizen prefer to participate, his own or that of a foreign culture imposed from without?

Four Important Romantic Idealist Philosophers
Emmanuel Kant (1724-1804) derived his beliefs in the natural rights of man and separation of powers as necessary to protect man’s rights from Enlightenment thought. Other beliefs, presented in his Critique of Pure Reason (1781), differ significantly from rationalism of the eighteenth century.

Kant divided the universe into two distinct realms: phenomena and noumena. The realm of phenomena embraced physical nature that was knowable and understandable by empirical study and reason. The realm of noumena was the higher, spiritual reality. Here the rational cannot be applied to prove that God exists, that humans exercise free will, or that the human soul is immortal. For example, the beliefs are long held in Western culture that virtue and happiness are linked or that moral laws govern the universe. The assertions are outside the jurisdiction of scientific provability, but linger as feelings to strong to dismiss as mere illusions. In brief, faith, intuition, and deep conviction are just as valid as instruments of knowing in the higher realm as observation and reason are in the realm of the physical natural world.

Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762-1814) developed a philosophy in which the world of the mind or spirit was the only true world. In his view, the individual realizes his true nature only by bringing himself into true harmony with the universal purpose. He can know nothing of reality by observation or reason, but must follow his intuition to discover the guidance from the supreme ego or universal intelligence. The philosophy basically represents a spiritual pantheism with a universal spirit directing all life and all activity toward a final goal of sublime perfection. Fichte’s emphasis upon intuitive spiritual truth allays it to the “otherworldly” aspect of Christian spirituality prior to the Scientific Revolution.

Fichte had secondary importance as a political philosopher. In response to Napoleon’s invasions, he was one of the earliest to proclaim an ideal of collective nationalism and call for a united and powerful Germany to assume leadership of the civilized world.

Georg Wilhelm Hegel (1770-1831) was the most important of the Romantic idealist philosophers. Like his earlier contemporaries, Hegel retained the idea that a profound intelligence or God guided the realization of the universe. The universe as he described it was in a state of perpetual flux but also in a state of perpetual evolution. Every institution or social or political organism grows to maturity, fulfills its purpose, and then is supplanted by a new one. The most valuable aspects of the original are never wholly destroyed, however, and these elements fuse with the incoming to make a new organism that combines the best elements of each. Hegel’s concept of fusion was taken over by Marx as a central idea to the realization of the perfect Communist state.

Because each fusion resulted in evolution, Hegel did not view the process as mechanistic but as one guided by universal reason or God. Evolution was, then, the unfolding of God’s plan in history. As Marx would maintain later, Hegel saw the ultimate goal of evolution as a perfect realization in which the interests of the citizen and the interests of the state would be perfectly blended. Like Rousseau, Hegel maintained that true individual liberty consists comes only when the individual gives himself over to political society. The citizen has no rights that the state is obligated to respect because the citizen, without the state, would be little more than an animal.

Georg Wilhelm Hegel

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) contributed an unexpected ramification of Romantic idealism. In his concept, universal force directed all growth and movement. Force was for him, however, will, the blind, unconscious craving or drive of individuals and species to survive. Since the drive is present in all animate forms, their societies must always be characterized by basic facts of survival. The strong must always devour the weak. Selfishness, pain, and misery are inseparable aspects of life. The only possible means for man to attain happiness is for him to deny life in the manner of the Oriental ascetic.

Romantic Idealism in Literature and Other Arts
The impact of Romantic idealism upon literature was most pronounced in Germany and Great Britain beginning in the late eighteenth century. Romantic idealism evolved most extensively in Germany, and two writers emerged as important literary figures, Friedrich Schiller (1579-1805) and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832). Both were formed by the period of Sturm und Drang (“Storm and Stress”) in which they grew up. German Sturm und Drang writers denounced established societal conventions and restraints as well as foreign cultural influences. Foreign influences were not only odious because they imposed a behavior and value system, but also because the restraints they imposed were not even native.

Schiller’s works reflected many of these ideals and his themes frequently depicted idealized acts of heroism in the context of the struggle for freedom. William Tell uses the Swiss struggle against Austrian domination as a backdrop.

Goethe was among the most important and influential of all German Romantic writers. His most significant literary achievement, Faust, was published in two parts. The first part was published in 1790, and the second part did not follow until 1831. Goethe used Faust to express the fundamental facets of his philosophy.

Each part focuses on the role that the individual must take to reach fulfillment. The first part advocates the jettison of the individual of the conventions and restraints that bind him. The first part also reflects the positive aspects of the spirit of rebellion that characterized the time period. The second part waxes more philosophical, driving the point that freedom from convention is not enough, but that each person must undertake an unending quest for fulfillment through unlimited experience.

In France, later Romantic urges tended to surface as works that glorified liberty and social reform or as mystic irrationalism. Two principal French writers were Georges Sand (1804-1876, nee Aurore Dupin) and Victor Hugo (1802-1885). Sand, Chopin’s confidante, campaigned for love unencumbered by conventions such as marriage. Hugo elevated the peasant or common man to the status of hero. His themes often involved the redemption of the soul purified by heroism or suffering and were strong indictments of social cruelty. Hugo’s works were often set against idyllic rural backgrounds. By the mid- to late nineteenth century, the mystic component of Romanticism became evident in a strong interest in literature in medieval stories and myths and in architecture in the Gothic revival.

Romantic writers were limited by their disdain of reason and science. Their disdain did not prevent them from identifying the ills and shortcomings of society but did prevent them from offering any permanent solutions or relief. Moreover the unbridled, exaggerated, excessive emotionalism of their works made them targets of sharp criticism and mockery even when their points or causes were laudable.

French Romanticism had to overcome special circumstances not found elsewhere in Europe. For one, the tradition of classical formalism in the seventeenth century had been central at the court of Louis XIV, where the art, architecture, and music strongly imitated classical forms. All three media were marked by certain traits that included decorative function, strong affectation, artificiality, subordination of content to form, and mechanization.

Classical formalism continued into the nineteenth century with the rise of Napoleon. In his evocation of the power (and legitimacy) of the ancients, Napoleon adopted ancient symbols and the ancient names for various offices including “emperor.” Moreover, he desired that Paris reflect ancient power and glory and, to that end, set about filling Paris with buildings modeled after classical ones. Not unexpectedly, classical painting simply continued under Napoleon. After Napoleon’s final exile, French painters did not return to the style of the Revolution or that of the years of his rule. Instead painters such as Delacroix distorted the classical formal tenets with intense, lurid scenes glorifying the struggle for freedom, social injustice, or dramatic moments from Medieval history or myth.

Other Political, Economic, and Social Forces and Ideas
Other issues augmented the melange of competing class influences. France experimented radically, at great cost in human life, with the kind of government that would best serve. Democratic government, republican government, and even different types of monarchy, such as that under Napoleon, were each established and replaced by bloodshed. Other powers also exerted influence.

Worker revolts were not uncommon, and the working class was often drawn into conflict by the other classes. The Catholic Church, the continued existence of which was questionable for a time in France, represented a traditional power. Rising sentiments of Nationalism redefined or defended territorial borders.

Utopian Socialism
Utopian Socialism, an ideal in wealth-sharing in which the well-being and rights of the worker were guaranteed, sprang from Enlightenment seeds but never came to fruition. Utopian socialists were more interested in social justice than in realizing the models of economic theorists or developing national prosperity. Utopian thinkers envisioned a cooperative society in which each member would contribute at his level of capability his labor or expertise and receive in return an equal share of the rewards.

In socialist utopian society, all men would live in peace and harmony. The social stratification and the outmoded customs and traditions of the older orders, especially those of the market-driven economy, would be eliminated, hence removing the ills of those orders. Since the ownership to the means of production and the profits would be equally shared, the enslavement of the weak by the strong, crime, and greed would no longer have reason to exist.

Among the most successful of social experiments were those conducted by Robert Owen (1771-1858). Owen was the co-proprietor of a large cotton mill in Scotland. Owen believed that the profit system made it impossible for the worker to buy the very goods he produced. Moreover, the profit system produced crises, avoidable under socialism, that were detrimental to the worker. The crises included overproduction and unemployment.

To demonstrate his vision, Owen built houses for his workers, reduced the length of the work day from fourteen to ten hours, introduced more humane working environments, established schools for worker children, and furnished opportunities and facilities for worker recreation. His experiment was highly successful (and profitable) but should be regarded more as a paternalist society than as a true socialist cooperative. Other cooperative experiments followed shortly in geographic areas as remote as Indiana, and failed after very brief tenures.

Communism
Karl Marx (1818-1883) was the genius spark behind a more radical, and profoundly influential, form of socialism, communism. The term ‘communist’ denoted a more extreme concept than that propounded by the utopian socialist, and was a term applied later. Marx viewed "communism" as the as the highest form of socialism, the state to which to aspire. In 1848, Marx co-authored a pamphlet with Friedrich Engels (1820-1895) explaining his concept. The pamphlet was called The Communist Manifesto. The Communist Manifesto, drew little attention at the time of its publication, though many scholars regard it as the ‘birth cry of modern socialism.’

Karl Marx

Engels became Marx’s lifetime friend and financial underwriter. Despite having earned a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Jena in 1841, Marx’s radical views and subsequent political troubles assigned him to a life-long struggle against poverty. From 1848 onward, Marx spent most of his years in London.

Marx outlined his radical theories in Das Kapital (1867). Two additional volumes were published posthumously. Marx’s theories were indebted, at least as starting construct, to the ideas of Hegel and the socialist Louis Blanc (1811-1882). For the economic plight of the worker, Marx drew upon the theories of Ricardo (see above).

In Marx’s economic view, all political, social, and intellectual advances resulted from changes of advances in the underlying economic environment, particularly changes in the means of producing and exchanging goods. Every new economic system is characterized by distinct patterns of production and exchange. The methods evolve to an apogee of efficiency and then develop internal problems that lead to decline. Concurrently, the foundations of new systems that will supplant the older ones evolve. The new system retains the most viable and valuable components of the older one.

Marx’s understanding of economic history was defined in the light of class struggle. In the terms of free economy, the struggle existed between the capitalist and the worker, whom Marx called the proletariat. The capitalist owned the means to production and made his profit from exploiting the labor of the proletariat. The proletariat furnished the labor but was received only a wage for his labor. The wage was invariably adequate for subsistence and the re-population of the class.

Marx called the difference between the value of the product of the proletariat's labor and what the proletariat received for his labor, surplus value. Surplus value took three forms, profits, interest, and rents. Surplus value, which generates capital, is the product of the worker and not the capitalist. Hence the appropriation of the surplus amounts to robbery and the economic system that holds the proletariat, slavery.

Marx foresaw an intermediate socialist revolution in which the proletariat would seize the reins of the capitalist system and replace it with a socialist one. Here the proletariat class, the vast majority, would act on behalf of itself, the vast majority, and so not become an oppressor class. The state would own and operate all means of production, distribution, and exchange. The worker would receive payment commensurate to work performed.

The socialist revolution would in time give way to Marx’s ideal of the perfect society, or communism. The society would be classless. No private ownership would exist. Men would subsist solely by working, each at his ability, and would receive from the general wealth a sum proportionate to his needs. The state would disappear, replaced by the voluntary associations needed to manage production needs and assure the provision of social necessities.

Romanticism in Art

Romanticism and Art
Three types of content became manifest in painting, beginning in the Roccoco and extending into the middle of the nineteenth century, reflected the intellectual and political upheavals sparked by the Enlightenment, itself the philosphical offshoot of the Scientific Revolution.

In the Roccoco, an isolation of the wealthy, aristocratic class from the lower class is evident in the art created for the consumption of the former. It is characterized by an "otherworldly" quality, a fantasy world portraying not only the physical trappings of the aristocracy, but also reflecting a creeping decadence in the often sensual character. The focus upon the tangible and the covertly erotic stands almost as a denial of events threatening from the real world.

The paintings of Antoine Watteau record a shift in style and in French Society. After the death of Lousi XIV, many members of the aristocracy moved back to Paris from Versailles and environs. The city houses did not permit extensive decorative development to the exteriors. New, smaller accomodations required decorative art to be reduced in its scale and to be intended for indoor display. Emphasis was placed upon intimacy, elegance, and delicacy.

Like most of his paintings, "A Pilgimmage to Cythara," the isle of love, portrays the aristocracy in a park-like setting. The link to the love of the beauty of nature would remain as a component of later Romantic thought. Dramatic depth comes in the moment of sadness that fleets across the otherwise happy scene--it is the moment of departure. Also inherent in the painting is the interweaving of real life, fantasy, and theatre. The elements combine to create both an ephemeral heaven on earth, rather than in the afterlife. The style also conveys a special world of elegance, grace, privilege, and beauty that exists in the collective aristocratic imagination and that does not admit any of the ugliness of life, including the poor.

Antoine Watteau, "A Pilgimmage to Cythara" (1717)

Jean-Honore Fragonard's paintings bespeak a sensuality and playfulness characteristic of aristocratic decorative art. Like Watteau's "Pilgimmage," Fragonard develops his atmospheric effects. Unlike Watteau's work, the atmosphere of "The Bathers" breathes a delicious sensual abandon. Fragonard's work fell from favor as the Revolution approached.

Jean-Honore Fragonard, "The Bathers" (c1765)

Thomas Gainsborough made his living as the premier portrait painter of English society. Not surprising to learn after viewing "Robert Andrew and His Wife," Gainsborough began as a landscape painter. His scene contains a certain charm to modern eyes and differs significantly compared to the previous French examples.

The reasons for the differences among the works lies in the entanglement of politics and religion. The English temperament of the time was profoundly formed by the violent end of their monarchy and the prevalant religious climate of Puritanism. Nonetheless, the scene is one of quiet wealth and security and, like the French paintings, is tied to the beauty and bounty of nature. Although Gainesborough does not depict an orgy of warm or sensual emotion, the immense well-being of the couple, seated in their perfect, beautiful world, cannot be missed.

Thomas Gainsborough, "Robert Andrews and His Wife" (1748-50)

Revolutionary images, or at least images that dramatically championed the rights of man or condemned injustices against him, began to appear in France around the time of the Revolution and continued to be produced into the mid-nineteenth century. They were intended to inflame spirits. Many of the paintings were inspired by actual events.

Eugene Delacroix chose the female figure as the ideal embodiment of freedom, liberty, decency, and human rights in two important paintings. In one of these paintings, "Liberty Leading the People (1830)" (see Supplemental Lectures icon), the female is the symbol of hope and inspriation. In the second, "Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi," she is soon to be a maytr. Delacroix had great sympathy for the Greeks in their war with the Turks, and one of his earliest important works depicts a Greek family waiting in Turkish capitivity to be starved to death or executed outright.

Eugene Delacroix, "Greece on the Ruins of Missolonghi" (1826)

Other painters depicted atrocities committed by government or the private sector against humanity, invariably protrayed as the peasantry or as members of a defenseless working class. Francisco Goya's "The Third of May, 1808," recorded the wholesale slaughter of villagers by Napeoleon's troops, dashing Spanish hopes that the French would bring social reform.

Francisco Goya, "The Third of May, 1808" (1814-15)

Theodore Gericault chose to marry the busy Renaissance-Baroque group scene, with its careful, classical, and dramatic rendering of muscular and beautiful human forms, with content of unimaginable horror. The survivors of the shipwreck of the French government ship Medusa, afloat on a makeship raft, were allegedly forced to resort to cannibalism. Gericault heightens the impact of the scene by capturing the instant the seaman make contact with the rescue ship, the Argus.

His studies of anatomy and its dramatic posibilities, in both Renaissance and Baroque art and in the morgue, allowed him to imbue the painting with immeasurable force. There are many levels of meaning here. Each person tells his story but, taken as a whole, a primary theme is the heroism of man against the elements and his triumph over it.

On a darker note, the hunger that drove men to desperate measures will almost instantly be replaced by shame and self-loathing once aboard the Argus. A greater culprit, however, in bringing the sailors to this test is the corporate ship-owner, the monarchy restored after Napoleon.

Theodore Gericault, "The Raft of the Medusa" (1818-19)

The art of French painters such as Delacroix, Gericault, Jean-Auguste Ingres, and many of their contemporaries contain strong calssical elements and so seem to link, at least formally, this art to an earlier age. Postures and body details echo those of ancient Greek Hellenist statuary or the dramatic scenes depicted in Renaissance and Baroque art. Gericault" "raft" uses the well-proven Baroque pyramid structure to organize the figures.

French Romanticism had to overcome special circumstances not found elsewhere in Europe. For one, the tradition of "classical formalism" in the seventeenth century had been central at the court of Louis XIV, where the art, architecture, and music strongly imitated classical forms. All three media were marked by certain traits that included decorative function, strong affectation, artificiality, subordination of content to form, and mechanization.

This classical formalism continued into the nineteenth century with the rise of Napoleon. In his evocation of the power (and legitimacy) of the ancients, Napoleon adopted ancient symbols and the ancient names for various offices including “emperor.” Moreover, he desired that Paris reflect ancient power and glory and, to that end, set about filling Paris with buildings modeled after classical ones. Not unexpectedly, the academy and classical painting simply continued under Napoleon.

After Napoleon’s final exile, French painters did not return to the style of the Revolution or that of the years of his rule. Instead Delacroix and Gericault distorted the classical formal tenets with intense, lurid scenes glorifying the struggle for freedom, social injustice, or dramatic moments from Medieval history or myth.

Jacques-Louis David served as the official painter to Napolean. The neo-classic style in which he painted was considered by 1800 to adhere too rigidly to classical tenets, though this fact would have been a reason for Napoleon to embrace him. Although considered revolutionary at the end of the eighteenth century, the neo-classic style may be regarded as yet another manifestation of the long-standing classic traditions of the French court. David's application of the style was, however, revolutionary, and he used his art work as a means to participate in the Revolution. He survived both Robespierre and imprisonment. After his release, he became an enthusiastic Bonapartist, ultimately painting important works for Napoleon.

Jacques-Louis David, "Portrait of Madame Recamier" (1800)

Later painters such as Jean-Auguste Ingres, retained the classical formalism but slipped into mannerist renderings. In Ingres "Odalisque," the pose, subject matter, and formal aspects are clearly classical and reminiscent of David's protrait, yet the dimensions of the figure are not correct. The upper and lower portions of the figure, dividing at the bottom of the rib cage, are not in the same scale!

Jean-Auguste Ingres, "Odalisque" (1814)

Other elements also shape French art after Napoleon. A strong social undercurrent, a hunger for the exotic, is evident in some paintings by Delacroix and in the paintings of his contmeporary, Ingres. The fascination for the new and unusual became established as a trend that would play a significant part in art and art music in the second half of the nineteenth century.

This interest in the exotic was fueled to a significant degree by the artifacts brought back to Europe by early archeological expeditions to Egypt and the Near East. A second point to remember is that French colonial holdings were largely in Africa and portions of the the Near East. Both Delacroix and Ingres painted exotice subjects. Delacroix's interest in the Orient surfaced in his paintings depicting the matyrdoom of Greece. Delacroix was not very complimentary to the environment that sparked the painting. He wrote in a letter that "here fame is a word without meaning: everything turns to a sweet laziness and it cannot be said that this is not the most desirable condition in the world."

Eugene Delacroix, "The Women of Algiers" (1834)

Ingres' painting, "The Turkish Bath," was conceived in a similar vein. Ingres was Delacroix's rival throughout their careerss, and both painters had some fascination for exotic, here Muslim African, scenes and customs. The "Turkish Bath" was finished late in Ingres' life. Work on it spanned nearly thirty-five years, and he considered it his consummate masterpiece. It was originally intended for Prince Napoleon, but his wife considered it too immoral and blocked its purchase.


Jean-Auguste Ingres, "The Turkish Bath" (1863)

A Later Break with the Academy: Realism
Little did Gustave Courbet (1819-77) know that his straightforward, pragmatic, and eminently practical assessment of contemporary art would result in an upheaval that would pave the way for new styles. To Courbet, the Romantic style of painting obscured the realities of his time. Romantic painting reflected the revolutionary spirit as it tranferred to the rights of man. Its emphasis on excessively emotive content, especially human triumph in the face of adversity, its imaginative but contrived exotic scenes, and its academic neo-Baroque and neoclassical ordering were simply out of step. He said, "I cannot paint an angel because I have never seen one."

Courbet chose instead to paint from direct experience. Although described today as "realism," his style and approach could more accurately be described as "naturalism." Courbet's scenes did not lack heroism or pathos, indeed his style still showed clear links to the underlying philosophy of Romanticism, but instead he portrayed, without grandiose inflation, the heroism of everyman. In "The Stonebreakers," it slowly dawns on the viewer that both workers are unsuited to punishing labor of this sort: the boy is too young, the man is too old. The figures are sympathetic, yet they to not appeal to the viewer for symapthy. In one stroke, Courbet captures not the grandiose gesture of the superhuman, but the quiet heroism of the common man.

Gustave Courbet, "The Stone Breakers" (1849)

Francois Millet (1814-75) worked along similar lines without attaining the same honesty. Both painters shared rural backgrounds, and Millet settled in the village of Barbizon near Paris to concentrate upon painting landscapres and rural scenes. Millet's assessment of the worker is more stylized and hence more in line with the Romantic tradition. "The Gleaners" captures the nature of the work and the relationship of man to the earth. The softened atmosphere, idealized renderings of the workers, and their careful composition do not convey the true hardship and places the painting in the Romantic school. Millet portrays the "hero of the soil" without conveying his reality.

Francois Millet, "The Gleaners" (1848)

The work methods of Camille Corot (1796-1875) differed sigmificantly from his contemporaries. Corot worked quickly, producing his canvases on site within a few hours of work. He sought to capture the "truth of the moment," although his instinct for architectural clarity, evident in all his works, bespeaks the stylistic influence of Poussin and other neoclassic representatives. The Romantic spirit is also evident in imaginative and idealized rendering of the landscape, especially in the conveyance of "freshness," harmony of man and nature, and immense well-being. In brief, the landscape of the Romantic painter is turned to a different meaning. As in Courbet and Millet, the supernatural, heroic figures in mortal strife are supplanted by less grandisose but a no less extraordinary subject, the ordinary man glimpsed in the context of a moment of his life.

Camille Corot, "Souvenir of Montefontaine" (1864)

The Evolution of Classic Period Forms in the Romantic Era

The Rise of ABA Form
The shift in ideals and purpose from the Classic to the Romantic period creates such sharp contrast because the two periods stand so close to each other in time. The earlier historical stylistic periods lasted roughly 150 years. The tenets of the Classic style emerged in full definition in the music of Haydn by about 1780, but the earliest stirrings of Romanticism became evident in Beethoven’s Symphony No.3 in the first decade of the nineteenth century. Classicism, then, ran its course in roughly a mere thirty years. The compressed time frame reflected the fast pace of change in society and science, and in this respect the Classic period can be regarded as one of the earliest periods of modern history.

As our study of music has clearly shown, each subsequent style has its immediate technical basis in the style that precedes it. But we have also seen intellectuals break with the traditions of the immediate past and draw upon significantly older models, particularly those of ancient Greece, for inspiration and guidance. Much of Renaissance music, especially pervasive imitation, developed carefully from techniques nascent in the late Middle Ages. At the same time, Humanism drove new developments. In the conservative vein, madrigal took pervasive imitation to its most expressive and technically advanced state. The radical thought of the Florentine Camerata led to recitativo, the polar opposite to the strictly-regulated texture of pervasive imitation.

The Classic period may be regarded as a second Renaissance. By early eighteenth century, the time of Bach, several new winds were blowing across Europe. For one, scientific strides both eroded the authority (and believability) of the Church and led to new was of living. The Industrial Revolution would blossom later in the century, and its impact would mean tools for increased production, greater population density in cities with the best and worst of what crowding means, and radical shifts in the class-structure of society. The Classic period was at once the twilight of the monarch and the rise of the citizen.

The Supplemental Lecture on painting tells the story. The aristocracy had become less and less connected to the lower classes it was supposed to rule, withdrawing into a world of eroticism and comfort. At the same time, the ordinary man, inflamed by ideals of the Rights of Man, a concept not so different from ancient Greek concepts of citizenship, finally began to strike back against his poverty and oppression. The Church, which historically would have served as the control rod, had lost so much of its influence that it was powerless to affect, guide, or stop any developments

In the Classic period, then, we find two new developments. First, the aristocracy wanted music for entertainment. The heavy polyphonic texture and serious nature of much of Baroque music could not fulfill the new need. Homophonic texture, found first in the frottola, served beautifully to create a music that would be tuneful and easy to apprehend. Second, a shift in patronage occurred in the Classic Period. As the monies and influence of the aristocracy diminished, the general public assumed more of the financial burden of underwriting new works through subscription concerts, that is, concerts supported by ticket sales. Subscription financing had a huge impact on the nature of new music, and the composer had to consider the impact of the tastes and desires of a less-educated patron when composing his music. The result was that music composed for the educated aristocracy, in particular the string quartet and piano sonata, was generally more sophisticated than the symphony composed for the general public. The social upheavals of the day also became evident, and it was inevitable that composers such as Beethoven would follow the lead of painters such as Delacroix in elevating the common man. The fiery music of Beethoven and the self-centered music of the Romantic composers to follow is the precise result of contemporary political developments and later, partially the result of nascent science disciplines such as Freud’s psychology.

Musical Classicism, itself, is the resurrection or reapplication of the tenets of ancient Greece (and embodied by Apollo). The music of Haydn, Mozart, and early Beethoven consciously strove for the greatest clarity, balance, form, elegance, and restraint. The classic sonata allegro was a template into which one could plug the parts. The listener knew what to expect upon hearing, and he wasn’t disappointed. Beethoven was a bridge to Romanticism rather than Romanticism’s first great composer because his love of mankind drove him to imbue his music with passion. Beethoven never relinquished the Classical mantle, never obscured Classical forms or tenets in his music, and regarded himself as a Classicist to his dying day.

Romantic music, however, does not find its power in Classicism, but in the dramatic contrasts pioneered by Beethoven. An expression, often repeated by music historians, and which a great deal of truth is that all composers subsequent to Beethoven composed in his shadow. Beethoven always spun out his motives to their fullest and most logical conclusions, and did so in protracted works. The Romantic composers had no interest in this type of long-range logic. As a result, Romantic works tend to concentrate or focus upon a single element that might be found in the music of Beethoven, and use that element as the focus of smaller, less extensive pieces. In brief, the process of technical development was no longer central to composition.

Romanticism gains its power from varying radically and violently from common templates. A similar effect is created in modern movies when the director deviates from standard story formulae in order to surprise and shock the viewer. For example, the viewer is stunned when the headline actor is killed off in the story ten minutes into the movie. Not surprisingly, Romantic music delights in twisting the techniques and forms inherited from the Classic Period composers. A similar process is seen in the contrast between Classic and Hellenistic Greek Statuary. Proportion losses its importance to dramatic impact.

The motive continues to be paramount in importance as a building block in a considerable portion of the music, but it is often utilized in new ways such as the idée fixe or the leitmotiv. The sonata allegro remains as a vestige, but undergoes significant modification. Whereas the Classic composers based their sonatas on two themes, Romantic composers more often introduced many themes into their expositions. Sometimes introductory material was so developed that the listener could easily mistake it for thematic material. The manifold themes introduced in the exposition are often not explored in the development section. Even the main themes are often ignored, and the overall form of a movement becomes essentially a parade of new ideas. New themes are also sometimes introduced in the development, stated, and then abandoned. Good examples are Chopin’s “Polonaise in A Flat” and Tchaikovsky’s sonata. You’ll be hard pressed to identify the main themes. Inherent in the introduction of unrelated themes is great variety, surprise, and contrast, but it makes sense to the listener only because he holds the sonata allegro scheme in his subconscious as the basic format.

The minuet and trio form, derived from the late Baroque ordering of dance I-dance II-dance I, also had a strong impact on the forms of the Romantic composer. Another ABA model was the da capo aria. Romantic music, especially the miniature, evolved steadily toward a new form ABA. In a sense, the dance I-dance II-dance I and the overall plan of the sonata allegro reflect each other. If one omits the coda, the form that is left is ABA. ABA form became one of the mainstays of Romantic instrumental music and has survived into our time. Like Lacoon and His Sons in the essay on ancient Greek statuary, the vestiges of Classic balance, though grossly obscured, supply the basic elements essential to coherence.

Romantic music also developed other forms, in particular, ones that put narrative at the fore. These pieces, such as any of the lieder of Schubert, the character miniatures of Schumann, the Symphonie Fantasique of Berlioz, the tone poems of Lizst and others, and the operas of Wagner all remain coherent as the result of a story-line imposed from outside the music and demonstrated by through-composed music. The concept and its resultant form are, however, not new. We have already encountered the idea in the madrigal.

Toward the Modern: An Upheaval in Art

The Beginnings of Modern Art: New Shapes and the Dawn of an Era of "-isms"
A strong contention that emerged at the end of the nineteenth century involved the role of art. A new notion began to formulate and gain support among the more progressive artists. The new idea had several components. For one, the scene depicted on canvas did not have to be plausible but rather had its own internal logic or "natural laws" that supercede those of reality. The artist was free to combine whatever elements he desired to make his meaning. The tenets would later be summarized in the doctrine of "Art for Art's Sake."

The single, most profound consequence from the point of view of creative methodology, one which would have a myriad of ramifications, was the artist's loyalty to "pure painting." Here focus shifted from the representation that resulted on the canvas as a whole to the brush strokes and color patches themselves. The nature and shape of the individual stroke, the color of each patch, and the rhythms and contrasts the patches created became the artist's primary tool of realization and his primary concern.

In this advance, modern artists broke free of a tradition that had begun over four hundred years earlier. The tradition of the painting as a "window" came with perspective, the creation of the illusion of depth and proportion. Perspective appeared first in crude form in the paintings of Giotto, was developed technically in the Renaissance, and was accepted until the late nineteenth century as the only means to painterly organization. In the hands of progressive artists the canvas would cease to be a window and become a flat surface.

The shift from the illusion of depth to one of the flat canvas may be seen by comparing Corot's "Souvenir of Montefountaine" (the last painting in the Supplemental Lecture "Romanticism in Music and Art") and Claude Monet's "The River" (below). Most subsequent modern art examples feature the two dimensional quality as a primary style characteristic.

A second characteristic that sets modern art apart from the academically motivated art of the Romantic painter is the lack of supercharged emotionalism. To the intellectuals of the time, the new art seemed devoid of meaning. Meaning came only with the understanding that meaning was carried by the medium, not the images portrayed. As in music, the art world had had its fill of the oppresive and overwrought traditions of Romanticism.

Impressionism
True to the new thinking, Impressionists painters sought to capture a fleeting slice of life, glimpsed as in reality without full comprehension and remembered through the filter of personality. No one can see and apprehend every aspect of any single frame of view at any instant.

Claude Monet (1840-1926) concentrated on the effects of color and light. For Monet, nature offered the greatest opportunity of imagery, supplying an endless source of interplay between reflection and reality. Monet was true to his subject throughout his life, and his explorations in the 1890s caused him to paint the same scene repeatedly but under different atmospheric conditions.

Claude Monet, "The River" (1868)

Auguste Renoir (1841-1919) also concerned himself with the effects of light and imagery, but chose to capture scenes of urban life. His paintings excude human warmth and so are irresitable. Here we glimpse a scene from a pleasant afternoon in the park. Other painters such as Degas drew his material from the world of the theatre.


August Renoir, "The Swing" (1876)

Post-ImpressionismCezanne and Seurat
By the late 1870s, Impressionism had gained wide acceptance among artists and the viewing public. In its acceptance, it was no longer a pioneering movement. Subsequent artists who sought to find the means to exceed the limitations of Impressionism have become known as "Post-Impressionists." The Post-Impressionist were not anti-Impressionism, and their efforts represent simultaneously the final deveopmental stage of Impressionism and the critical transitional stage to later styles.

Paul Cezanne (1839-1906) is the most important of the Post-Impressionists and is generally regarded as the "Father of Modern Art." As a young painter, he was a great admirer of Delacroix, an artist for whom he never lost enthusiasm, but he also immediately grasped the significance of Impressionist methods. Cezanne embraced the new tenets of brushstroke and color patch, color rhythm, two-dimensional canvas surface, as well as the concept of content as a glimpse of life or "picture of a picture."

Cezanne approached his art with one, single, revolutionary, conceptual difference from the Impressionists. This single idea was both monumental and profound, and would free all subsequent artists from the restraints of the current school. Whereas the Impressionists painted their "impresssion," that is, their subjective, reality, Cezanne sought to objectify the world he saw and painted it.

Cezanne wished to reduce the scene before him to its essence, hence freeing his art from the intrusion of the tidy mind, wherin that which is known prompts "adjustments" to conform to the normative, or untidy emotions. The Impressionist was affected by each change in point of view or atmospheric condition. Each change in conditions then required a new painting. Cezanne wished to penetrate the ever-changing kaleidoscope of color and effect and capture the scene in its underlying, unchanging, objective, truth.

Unlike the Impressionist, whose primary interest was the interplay of light and color and hence could find suitable subject matter in any scene, Cezanne chose subjects that would offer him the opportunity to impose on the overall canvas the structure of lines and color patterns. In addition, he chose subjects that would permit him throughout the process of his realization to retain the vitality of the original.

Paul Cezanne, "La Montaigne Saint Victoire" (1904)

Georges Seurat (1859-91) believed, like Cezanne, that art must be based on a system in order to make it "solid and durable." His career and reputation are based on precious few paintings. The paintings are very much the opposite of Impressionist art; they contain and element of deliberate timeless stability. His work method consisted initially of tiny, deliberate brushstrokes that made those of Cezanne look dynamic and figural. By the end of his career, exemplified in "The Parade," he had switched from tiny brushstrokes to dots of color. He intended that the dots merge in the viewer's eye and produce intermediary tints more luminous than those that could be obtained using larger color patches. The process has become known as Pointillism, Divisionism, or Neo-Impressionism.

Georges Seurat, "La Parade" (1887-88)

The end result of Cezanne and Seurat's efforts was to push back boundaries and limitations of Impressionism. Curiously, they achieved this end (and break-through) by manipulating the free and subjective style of Impressionism into a style at once more objective classically-regulated.

Expressionism
Around the same time that Cezanne and Seurat struggled to redefine the parameters of Impressionist painting, another group of artists took an altogether different tack. Vincent van Gogh (1853-90) and his compatriots embraced the new technical methods but sought the means to the new methods to express emotion. Van Gogh's came to painting only within the last ten years of his life; his early interests were literature and religion. Dissatisfied with the shortcomings and values of contemporary industrial society, he worked for a time as a lay preacher among impoverished coal miners. His lack of formal training in art, evident in the clumsiness of realization, only adds to his expressive power.

Vincent van Gogh, "Starry Night"

Aside from the collective works of van Gogh, "The Scream" of Norwegian Edvard Munch (1863-1944) stands as one of the best known examples of Expressionism. His stark style is reminiscent of Toulose Lautrc, Gaugin (see below), and van Gogh. Painted after his immigration in 1889 to Paris, "The Scream" conveys its terror without giving its source, and engages the viewer through empathy.

Edvard Munch "The Cry" (1895)

Primitivism
Like van Gogh, dissatisfaction with the values of industrial society played a critical role in the life and art of Paul Gaugin (1848-1903). Gauguin was a propserous Parisian stoke broker and art collecter. At age thirty-five, he abandoned his business and his family to rediscover a world of feelings obscured by modern society and religion. In his search for a simpler and purer life, he moved first to live among the peasants of Brittany and shortly thereafter to Tahiti.

Gauguin sought a style of expression that did not reflect contemporary Western civilization, which he felt was not inline with human reality. To this end, he turned to pre-Renaissance art for elements of style and Tahitian culture for values of lifestyle. His art shows license of contmemporary art, but the black outlines of the figures, the bold color areas, and the static quality of much of his art is as much the influence of Medieval folk art and the stain-glass window.

Gauguin ultimately came to believe that the regeneration of Western art and even civilation would come from the "Primitives," the "Noble Savage" concept of the Enlightenment that gained great currency among the Romantics. Here man lived in nature and innocence. Gauguin encouraged his collegues in the art world to seek regeneration by shunning the Greek tradition.

Paul Gaugin, "The Call" (1902)

Henri Rousseau (1844-1910) was a retired customs inspector discovered by Pablo Picasso and his friends. Rousseau did not begin to paint until middle age and did not have any formal training in art. He can be described as a folk artist of genius: he conveys with simple directness the innocence that Gaguin had believed so essential to existence and had gone to such lengths to find.

Henri Rousseau, "The Dream" (1910)