The Universal Law of Causation explains that all events are a result of previous events. The cause of all events will undoubtedly have an effect and the two are inseparable. Experts exert this understanding onto the psychological characteristics of beings as a way of understanding the impact of decisions. This blog will highlight the events of the Romantic and Contemporary eras to demonstrate the remarkable power of cause and effect.
Romantic (1830–1900)
When the Classical period came to a close in the early 1800s, many impactful events shaped communal philosophies and ways of life. Firstly, William IV ascended to the throne when his brother, King George IV of England, died. Shortly after, an uproar at the Duke of Wellington’s government forced a reform crisis. William IV signed the Great Reform Bill which abolished the harsh consequences of the electoral system. Secondly, the Industrial Revolution spread to many parts of the world, including the United States, prompting a boom in open jobs and a thriving middle class. Finally, the Age of Enlightenment challenged orthodoxy within religion and politics by highlighting the benefits of individualism and utilizing reason to understand the universe. Reason was a new law that governed choices and actions. Over time, the Age of Enlightenment caused a push for introspection and connection with nature. The beginning of the Classical era was a cause of the Iron Age and its end would prompt a revolution into a new season. An era of new discoveries would soon begin.
The Romantic era confronted neoclassicism’s idolization of classical antiquity. People sought change through heightened emotional relevance and were motivated to draw from within for creative expression, while still emphasizing the individual. This new philosophy influenced music in a dramatic way and music would have the ability to be expressed in considerable ways due to the Industrial Revolution.
Instrumentation made great strides during the Romantic era. The boom of the Industrial Revolution allowed instrument builders to improve the volume, range, and intonation of instruments. The creation of the valve apparatus expanded brass instruments’ capabilities substantially. Wilhelm Wieprecht and Johann Moritz invented the basstuba in 1835. The bass tuba gave great depth to orchestral sound while often reinforcing other voices. The natural trumpet, which was used during the Baroque and Classical periods, was limited to playing pitches in the natural harmonic series. Only the most advanced trumpet players could play chromatics through a lipping technique. The natural trumpet evolved into what resembles a modern trumpet with the addition of the valve apparatus which expanded its range and capabilities. The percussion section exchanged the harpsichord for the piano, the saxophone was invented by Adolphe Sax, and German woodwind maker, Theobald Boehm, created the Boehm flute with enhanced tones and registers. An increase in the supply of instrumentation allowed composers to convey emotions in new ways. Additionally, orchestration grew dramatically in size, thus, prompting the need for a conductor to lead rather than a single seated player.
Composers of the Romantic era included Franz Liszt, Frédéric Chopin, Giuseppe Verdi, Richard Wanger, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Johannes Brahms, and Giacomo Puccini, to name a few. Romantic composers embraced chromaticism and pushed the boundaries of traditional classical form which was thought of as restrictive and rigid.
Compositions relished in dramatic texts that focused on nature, exoticism, nationalism, myths, and a hero. Because instrumentation had a growth spurt, orchestration became gigantic with richer and fuller sounds. The governed sonata form lost popularity due to an increased interest in freer-formed compositions. Composers such as Richard Strauss, Jean Sibelius, Antonin Dvorak, and Franz Liszt expressed the vibrancy of creativity through programmatic music which intertwined extra-musical ideas and/or images with instrumental music to illustrate events or a scene.
L'après-midi d'un faune is a symphonic poem composed by Claude Debussy and written by French author Stéphane Mallarmé. It premiered in 1894 and is translated to Afternoon of a Faun. The piece combines symphonic music and the story of a faun who suffers memory loss while interacting with nymphs. Listeners can follow the story as the music progresses. The music in L'après-midi d'un faune exploits various tonalities, embraces dissonance, incorporates the infamous Tristan chord, and shifts tonal balances, while also including structural classical cadences. Its complexity has been dissected countless times and is often a focal point in music academia.
Contemporary (20th Century)
The early 1900s introduced World War I as tensions towards Germany’s growing power climaxed. The domino effect of countries' introduction to the war was in part due to numerous alliances. Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia in 1914 due to the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Germany's alliance with Austria-Hungary positioned them to declare war on Russia and France. Great Britain joined the war soon after in support of France. The United States entered the war in 1917, two years after Germany sank the Lusitania ship carrying over 100 US citizens. A war involving over 30 nations would change the lives of millions.
Expressionism was a literary movement that dominated Germany in the early twentieth century. Its response to the late Romantic era of Impressionism, which originated in France, was centered on the expressions of one’s inner feelings through distortions as opposed to clearly illustrated works of objective reality. Art’s goal was to attract the viewer and listener’s attention to the artist’s emotional feelings about the way of the world.
The Contemporary era pushed the boundaries of classical traditions to new heights while significant changes impacted opera heavily. There was an increased interest in having character lines resemble the human speaking voice. Composers drew from speaking patterns and transformed character parts by incorporating staccati notes and shorter phrases. Long gone were sweeping legato melodies popularized in the Romantic era.
Richard Wager, Benjamin Britten, Igor Stravinsky, and Arnold Schoenberg were leading pioneers of atonality in Western music. In 1857-1859, Wagner composed Tristan und Isolde, famously known for its Tristan chord, a dissonant chord at the beginning of the opera that reappears as a leitmotif. The chord is comprised of the notes F, B, D♯, and G# and contains three augmented intervals in relation to the bass note. When it is played as the first chord in the opera, it is followed by an untraditional dissonant chord and one does not hear a resolution in the traditional sense. Its dissonance and qualities have been dissected by many critics who also state the “Tristan Chord” can be found in the works of Chopin, Beethoven, and Mozart but in different keys. Nonetheless, Wagner’s use of the Tristan Chord is believed by some to be a significant propeller to atonality.
In 1924, Arnold Schoenberg developed the twelve-tone system in favor of traditional key signatures. The twelve-tone system uses the twelve tones within an octave and each tone’s value in relation to the tonic is placed in hierarchies. Once a tone was played, regulations prevented it from playing until the entire rest of the row played. Schoenberg found freedom in his technique which utilized a mathematical system as a means of composing. Ultimately, this diverged from the reliabilities within tonality and challenged the listener in new ways.
Wozzeck is an opera by Austrian composer Alban Berg who was a student of Arnold Schoenberg. In act 1 scene 1, Wozzeck is shaving the Captain while the Captain scorns him for having an illegitimate child. The two bicker back and forth until coming to a calm resolution when the Captain compliments Wozzeck's character. Throughout the opera, Wozzeck has horrid images flash through his head. He is unaware of how to process the horror and confides in a doctor who dismisses his claims. Marie, the mother of his child, is conflicted about her feelings and ultimately chooses to sleep with the Drum Major. Some members of the community learn of her actions and hint them to Wozzeck who later confronts her. The scene moves toward a crowd where Marie and the Drum Major are dancing. Upset, Wozzeck ends up fighting the Drum Major in the barracks. Later on, Wozzeck and Marie are walking near a pond and Wozzeck questions her. Jealous and enraged, Wozzeck stabs and kills her. He returns to the tavern and dances with Margret. When she notices blood on his shirt, he runs to the murder scene to hide the knife. He swims to the deepest pocket of the pond to conceal the weapon but ultimately drowns. The next morning, some children attempt to tell Marie and Wozzeck’s son of Marie's passing. He does not understand and continues to play in the playground.
Wozzeck’s musical components are comprised of leitmotifs, Sprechstimme, atonality, cross rhythms, rhythmic motives, a passacaglia, and more. The majority of the opera utilizes atonality though there are sections where tonal centers are apparent. Leitmotifs were a popular characteristic of early twentieth-century opera. They are short musical phrases usually associated with a character or scene. Berg’s use of leitmotifs offers familiarity and foreshadowing to the listener as they repeat throughout the opera. Wozzeck initially performed well in Europe and eventually made its American debut in 1931. However, in the early 1930s, the Nazis categorized the opera as Entartete Musik, a branding that deemed the music harmful.
Philip Glass is an American composer who has written over twenty operas beginning in the mid-1970s. He drew inspiration from his travels, peers, and masters within the arts. He employed minimalistic elements in his works with repetitive sounds and techniques that are amplified by tonality and swaying arpeggios. His compositions were sometimes constructed with rigid rules resulting in thought-provoking perceptions of time.
The concept of time has been explored by many physicists including Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein. In Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica, he explains his laws of motion and laws of universal gravitation and comments absolute time is constant, independent of space, and is the same for all observers. Contrastingly, Einstein developed the idea that time is relative and is defined based on how observers within relative motion experience time, which will be different depending on the speed of motion.
Glass' Mad Rush is an exquisite piano composition that attempts to illustrate relative time. As you listen to the piece, you may feel and interpret time in numerous ways illustrated through dynamics, oscillating arpeggios, rubato, repetitive melodies, monotonous harmonies, and subdivisions. The piece begins in common time and rather simply, with two measures outlining an F-major triad followed by an A-minor triad in first inversion. In the key of F-Major, the A-minor is the minor three chord which oftentimes is used as a passing chord due to its common tones with the tonic chord. In this example, F-A-C outlines the tonic triad and A-C-E outlines the minor three triad. Both chords contain two of the same notes with the tonic chord being the most stable.
The first two measures contain a pedaled bass note held for two beats. Meanwhile, the eighth notes, which are played by the left hand, give a sense of circular motion. The third measure introduces variations on the first two measures. The eighth notes have been replaced with eighth-note triplets that are now played by the right hand. The persistent triple against duple adds another level of complexity to the composition. The A-minor chord is in second inversion instead of first inversion and finally, measures three and four are repeated. It is here that I begin to feel limitless time.
Financial burdens influenced the music industry as fewer patrons invested in the arts. As a result, orchestration notably shrunk in size with many works scored for the lower tens. This was a critical distinction from compositions in the late Romantic era scored for 100+ instrumentalists. However, as finances become more available to the arts, orchestra sizes grew and currently average 80-100 players.
Conclusion
Music’s alluring relationship to philosophies and political and social events proves influential over music's structure and content. Varying sociopolitical themes throughout time sparked radical ideologies, often as a response to previous themes. Music’s complex evolution illustrates the journey of many generations and how they coped and responded to the world. Though the origins of the Universal Law of Causation are unknown, the concept has been explored and defined throughout the ages in various ways. Nonetheless, the relationship between one event and its predecessor is magnetic and can be seen throughout the four eras in opera. As a result, music has the ability to resonate shared or personal inner thoughts in subjective or objective ways and be the connective tissue between beings and interpretation.
SOURCES
Romanticism: An Art Movement That Emphasized Emotion and Turned to the Sublime
Everything You Wanted to Know About the Tristan Chord but Were Afraid to Ask
An Analysis of the Compositional Devices in Wozzek by Alban Berg
Lyrical Tension, Collective Voices: Masculinity in Alban Berg's Wozzeck
CHAPTER 12: INTO THE 20TH CENTURY ART MUSIC OF THE 20TH CENTURY
Memory and Tonality in Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune
That’s so informative!