I'm not a musician but I read some book of Music.
It is difficult to have a definition of "Romanticism" as
concept
Charles Rosen in
his Book "The Classical Style". Hydn, Mozart and Beethoven" said that
the Romantic style begun from Bach (pag 442) and from the
recovery of Baroque movement ( pag 460) in a more relaxed
form respect to Classical style. (ed Feltrinelli Italy
)1982
In my "Encyclopedia of Music and
Musician"(UTET Italy) Goethe said that restlessness and melancholy were the propelling
forces of Romantism.
Romanticism is a mysterious inspiration; thanks
to this ispiration the musician could be able to
express the feelings that to flow from the infinite
through the creative power without brilliants effects.
In this sense I think that Glenn Gould was a
Romantic.
Best
Valeria Massari
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, May 31, 2002 6:47 PM
Subject: romantic, adj. (a.) (b.) (c.)
...
I think this very
interesting discussion is going to drift toward the unintentionally fuzzy and
perpetually unresolved until somebody comes up with a good, solid, functional
definition of "romantic."
Some of us are talking
about the body of classical music called Romantic. Some of us are talking
about personality traits often labelled "romantic."
In Gould, perhaps we
have a brilliant musician whose personality was decidedly romantic, but who
was primarily attracted to an un-Romantic or pre-Romantic repertoire. If
there's a connection between the two definitions, perhaps he was most
comfortable with Bach as an antidote to the romantic aspects of his
personality he was powerless to control.
As for his personality,
anybody who chooses to take That Train to Hudson Bay to wander through an
edge-of-the-world town infested with polar bears ... let me say from personal
experience ... we're talking Personality Romantic big-time; That Train was
lousy with fellow travellers, all raised in decidely un-romantic cultures and
times, who had purposely given carte blanche to the Romantic in their souls.
Anybody who can
choose between the tropics, the temperate zone and the Arctic, and who finds
himself lured into the Arctic, to a place that promises a chance to be
devoured by the world's largest land carnivore ... well, that's where Mary
Shelley's "Frankenstein" concludes, in the Earth's most forbidding, austere,
bleak -- and romantic -- landscape.
Bob / Elmer
P.S. Polar Bear Season in Churchill
Ontario Canada is the cusp of September / October -- think very seriously
about booking NOW for the Winnipeg-Churchill "Polar Bear
Express."