What is Romanticism?

My music fits squarely within the movement known as Romanticism. Musical Romanticism is customarily associated with the nineteenth century and fell into some disrepute during the middle decades of the twentieth.  But Romanticism reflects a powerful, irrepressible human drive, and in the music of recent decades, it has begun to flourish again.  As a composer I take pride in having taken part early in that renaissance.

Traditionally, Romanticism has been associated with emotional expression and sentimentality, but that is a superficial interpretation. More fundamentally, Romanticism–whether in art, literature, or music–gives primacy to the human individual as a being of volition, having values and desires and striving for goals, with emotions only a secondary consequence.  (It may not be immediately obvious how such a metaphysical view can be projected in a medium such as music, which is not representational in the sense that visual art and literature are, but we can leave that for future posts.)  Generally, Romantic art and music emphasize freedom and imagination in contrast to the arbitrary rules, conventions, and formulaic patterns of Classicism.

In my view, the musical correlate to Romantic realism in art and literature is tonal Romanticism, exemplified in my own compositions.  At its best, tonal Romanticism is life-affirming:  it reflects the view that human beings are capable of attaining joy and fulfillment in this world. That is the ideal for which I strive in my own works.  Although my compositions embrace a gamut of moods, ranging from sorrow to jubilation to playfulness to serenity, their ultimate message is the possibility and the rightness of happiness in human life.

In future posts to this blog, I will chronicle the past struggles of Romantic composers (myself included) against the musical establishment, and the resurgence of life-affirming Romantic music in our own time.

The final prelude of my Nine Preludes for Piano Solo concludes with a grand celebration of our capacity for joy.