Old vs. New

I think it is important when studying history to pause and consider the story... How have things changed? What has stayed the same? Who are the significant figures? etc. In doing so, one is able to notice common threads in an ever changing story. I'd love to give a short lesson, but that would make for an oversized blog post. However, one aspect that remains inevitable in history is change. Musicians in the second half of the nineteenth century had a hard time agreeing on exactly what kinds of change music should be making.



One argument was that music should continue in the same traditions of the past century, glorifying form and employing  a conservative use of tonality. Today, these composers are known as the Late Romantics, and include names such as Brahms and Bruckner. The other voices, known as Post Romantics, included Wagner and Liszt. This group pushed for "the music of the future" which freed itself from formal structure and strict tonality. The different aims of these two school produced two distinct sounds. Below are two examples of music from the second half of the nineteenth century. The fourth movement from Brahms' Symphony No. 4 in E minor is emblematic of the Late Romantics. Wagner's Prelude to Act I of  of his opera Tristan und Isolde represents the ideals of the Post Romantic school. Listen and take note of the differences you hear. What about the Brahms says, "We are holding onto the past!"? What do you hear in the Wagner that announces "the music of the future"?



Without getting into the score and just using my ears, I notice these differences:

• The Brahms remains rooted in tonality while the Wagner floats between different tonal realms. 
• The sense of rhythm is strong in the Brahms. Wagner's Prelude does not have an easy to follow downbeat. 
• The mood of both works are similar, but the Wagner provokes deeper emotions. 
• Maybe its because I know the pieces, but Wagner's work sounds more "futuristic" than Brahms'.

Regardless of difference in taste and ideals, both the Post and Late Romantics knew change was inevitable in their beloved music. While it is hard for me to pick a side in this debate, i found Liszt's words to ring true that, 

"art cannot escape the necessary evolution that belongs to all that Time produces. Its (Art's) life principle, like that of humankind, remains, like the life principle of Nature, inherent in certain forms only for a period of time, and it passes from one to another in a constant process of change and drives people to create new ones to the same extent that they abandon those that have decayed and past their prime"

If they only knew what was about to come.