Incomplete And Utter History Of Classical Music

ISN'T IT ROMANTIC?

O

K, let me take you right to the edge, now. Imagine it's 1849. The next year, 1850, is the year, according to the music books -and you will note I don't include this book in that august number -that music became true ROMANTIC and not just EARLY ROMANTIC. Or, as some like to call it, HIGH Romantic, which I presume means Romantic but they still use incense and Latin. 1850 is the year when we are allowed to think of music as really, fully fledged Romantic. So, in 1849, we're right on the edge. Officially, we're still early Romantic period, but only just. If someone gave us a leg up and we could see over the wall, you'd see the High Romantic garden in all its lush glory. But what was it that tipped everything over the edge, as it were, into fully formed, card-carrying Romanticism? Well, pardy it was a case of things just working themselves through - people will always take a movement to its limit, before someone presses the hooter and it's on to the next big thing. But more importandy, if you take romanticism as being a by-product of music + world events -remember Beethoven: half man, half real-life revolutionary - well, then it becomes clear that revolution is the fuel of the romantics. Ever since Eroica, you haven't been able to have one without the other. So what was the main thing that tipped the early romantics over the edge, into becoming out-and-out high romantics? Well, more than anything, it was the events of last year.