Incomplete And Utter History Of Classical Music

BLACK AND WHITE RAGE

lsewhere, one of the chief phenomena that would advance the Romantic manifesto, as it were, was the further rise of the pianist-composers. Chopin himself, as well as Schumann, Mendelssohn, Liszt, were the real big movers and shakers of this part of the romantic era, and not surprisingly, really, considering that Beethoven's nine-fold legacy left many composers in absolute fear of taking on the symphony, for want of appearing inadequate. Berlioz, of course, was too loopy to care, but the rest were more than a little daunted.

As he couldn't play an instrument to any great level, Berlioz, then, became the standard bearer for the romantic orchestra. So, if Chopin was, say, Billy Joel (gentle, thoughtful stuff for piano), and Liszt was Elton John (rather camp, over the top stuff for piano), then Berlioz is like James Last - a mad, orchestra man, with big hair. It is true, of course, that other people composed for the orchestra around this time, but, because he took it on in such a different way, Berlioz brought it to another level, before anyone else. His orchestral works were both highly individual and EPIC - the perfect recipe for moving any art form into its next phase.

Finally, into all this, add the ever-present ingredient of better technical resources. Instruments became so markedly different too. New trumpets, with keys, were now becoming more and more common, whereas previously the trumpet played would have several different 'crooks' - a crook was a piece of the trumpet tubing that could be removed. If you put a crook of a different length back in, you were effectively changing the length of the trumpet tubing, and, thus, the notes it could play. This was all eventually replaced by keys. Similar things happened with the clarinet, with more keys added to increase its versatility. The orchestra could make almost a completely different sound from the one available to, say, Mozart, only thirty-odd years ago. Thirty-odd years ago - amazing, isn't it? It seems like another world. Pianos, too, were just beyond comparison. The advent of the iron-stringed piano made dynamics so much more pronounceable -so, not only did the Romantic pianist-composers want to go somewhere different, they also had the means to get there. What more could you want?