Neoromanticism (music)

From Includipedia, the inclusionist encyclopedia

See also: Neo-romanticism

Neoromanticism in music is a trend in modern American and, to a lesser degree, European classical music that became prominent during the second half of the 20th century. Neoromantic music is identified by frequent usage of the extended tonality that flourished during the late Romantic era, as well as a frank expression of emotional sentiment equally evocative of the period.

Currently active US-based composers widely described as neoromantic include John Corigliano, David del Tredici and Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, while European composers of the tradition include Nicholas Maw and James MacMillan of Great Britain. It has also been applied to the later works of Ligeti and Penderecki.

While most neoromantic music is (to a varying degree) tonal and pointedly rejective of serialism and other formalistic procedures associated with post-war modernism, other avant-garde elements (aleatoric, sound-mass composition, tone clusters, atonality, quarter-tones) are sometimes juxtaposed within the same work.

Neoromantic styles often overlap with other compositional approaches. Polystylism and musical quotation from other works are sometimes used, within the same work, often evoking nostalgia. For example, in the first movement of John Corigliano's Symphony No. 1, there is a wistful quotation in the orchestral piano of Ediot' "Tango".

John Coolidge Adams has combined post-romantic styles and orchestration of Ravel, early Stravinsky, and Sibelius, with minimalist processes and textures, and Americana-tinged diatonicism evocative of Aaron Copland.

Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara, in such works as "Cantus Arcticus" (a concerto for recorded birdsong and orchestra) and his Symphony No. 7 ("Angel of Light"), has been described as presenting a new Romanticism.

Sources

Thomson, Virgil. Possibilities, 1:1. Cited in:
- Hoover, Kathleen and Cage, John (1959). Virgil Thompson: His Life and Music, p.250. New York: Thomas Yoseloff.
Albright, Daniel (2004). Modernism and Music: An Anthology of Sources. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-01267-0.