This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1907. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER IV. IN GERMANY. The writing of the present chapter cannot be called an inspiring task. Without Wagner's sovereign contempt for the music of his time, and Tchaikovsky's belief in Germany's complete exhaustion, one may yet be unable to grow enthusiastic over the theme. The productivity during the period with which we are concerned has been enormous. But how about the really valuable outcome of it? In the latter part of the 19th century the question was often asked: What remains if you remove from the living German composers Wagner and Brahms? And then there were ever so many people who, while heartily admitting the greatness of one of the two, were not so sure of the other--not to mention those who were all for the one and would have none whatever of the other. Now, ' this exclusive way of looking at men and things is not only unfair, it is absolutely foolish. The men of genius leave room for the men of talent; and the masters en grand for the masters en miniature. To be sure for some time past Germany has not been abounding in musical genius of the first or even second order. But if there has been a dearth of powerful original creativeness and of strikingly outstanding individuality, there has been also a goodly provision of artistic ability well deserving our respect and gratitude, ability displaying itself not merely in technical skill, but often also in imaginativeness, sensibility, and poetic charm. The great bulk of crudities, futilities, and vacuities need not trouble us: they are not peculiar to any one period. One could classify composers into (1) such as write only absolute music, and are uninfluenced by and even averse to the programmatic tendency; (2) such as write programme music, but only in the classical manner and forms; (3) such as go only ...

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This volume illuminates musical connections between Britain and the continent of Europe, and Britain and its Empire. The seldom-recognized vitality of musical theatre and other kinds of spectacle in Britain itself, and also the flourishing concert life of the period, indicates a means of defining tradition and identity within nineteenth-century British musical culture. The objective of the volume has been to add significantly to the growing literature on these topics. It benefits not only from new archival research, but also from fresh musicological approaches and interdisciplinary methods that recognize the integral role of music within a wider culture, including religious, political and social life. The essays are by scholars from the USA, Britain, and Europe, covering a wide range of experience. Topics range from the reception of Bach, Mozart, and Liszt in England, a musical response to Shakespeare, Italian opera in Dublin, exoticism, gender, black musical identities, British musicians in Canada, and uses of music in various theatrical genres and state ceremony, and in articulating the politics of the Union and Empire.

One of the most difficult challenges a music theoretician faces, be it historically, philosophically or in other aspects, is that of correctly and precisely framing the meaning that music has in a specific moment: deducing the “why” and revealing the secret hidden within. The book Pure and Programme Music in the Romanticism, a rigorous and indispensable study to understand music in the period in which music as an expression of feelings, begins to reach the threshold of the sublime –primarily focusing attention on what pure and programme music represent. Both types of music are instrumental, but the difference between them is that the first one, pure music, exists on its own, and for its own sake, establishing an iron-clad alliance with the form. Programme music is inspired by other forms of artistic expression, especially literature, and is indelibly linked with the content. However, halfway between these two types of music, a new one is born: absolute music. This music is the result from the dialectic established between the pure and programme, exactly in the middle of two opposing philosophies, that of Idealism and that of Materialism. All of this context described in this book is what defines the essence of Romantic music but also what allows us to understand the music of the twentieth century and that of today, because the controversy between pure music and programme music has represented, in the history of western musical thought, the turning point that led to the creation of the Gesamtkunstwerk (Total Work of Art) and the relationship between music and film, for example, as well as other artistic expressions.

Program music was one of the most flexible and contentious novelties of the long nineteenth century, covering a diverse range that included the overtures of Beethoven and Mendelssohn, the literary music of Berlioz and Schumann, Liszt's symphonic poems, the tone poems of Strauss and Sibelius, and compositions by groups of composers in Russia, Bohemia, the United States, and France. In this accessible Introduction, Jonathan Kregor explores program music's ideas and repertoire, discussing both well-known and less familiar pieces by an array of nineteenth- and twentieth-century composers. Setting program music in the context of the intellectual debates of the period, Kregor presents the criticism of writers like A. B. Marx and Hanslick to reveal program music's growth, dissemination, and reception. This comprehensive overview features numerous illustrations and music examples and provides detailed case studies of battle music, Shakespeare settings, and Goethe's Faust.