Beethoven's Fifth Symphony: Music Analysis

The romantic movement swept across Europe during the nineteenth century. Poets, artists, and musicians at this time encompassed romanticism’s characteristics into their works. These documents will help to gain a better understanding of the characteristics through analysis and explanation. Romanticism is significant due to its characteristics of emotional exuberance, unrestrained imagination, and spontaneity in both artistic and personal life.

Emotion, it is derived from an individual’s soul or inner-self. Emotions and the imagination are reactions to what we interact with in the world. They can be negative or positive and still have important parts in people’s lives. The focus is on the individual’s sentiment and idealistic views with an insufficient reality. Romanticism is a movement of artistic, literary, musical and intellectual views of emotions over logic. In the 1800s, a period loyal to emotion rather than logic started in America and still sparks today.

The evolution of music can be viewed as a linear timeline of key, innovative composers who have far-reaching influences upon the musical continuum and perhaps epitomises the societal views which are relevant to their time period through their canonical pieces. As a result, in order to conduct a case study into any piece of music one must first realise said piece in regards to the concurrent political climate.

In Beethoven’s Symphony 5 and his Symphony 9, movement IV are both composed with very simple notes, which are then taken to complex levels which make them what they are today. With that said, this makes it very similar to Franz Joseph Haydn’s Symphony No. 94, the “Surprise” Symphony. The similarities include the complex use of simple notes turned into long, creative pieces of music for both the composer's’ works. However, the differences are not to noticeable, but pretty significant once analyzed thoroughly. For example, the theme for Haydn’s the “Surprise” Symphony are played shortly and the total of four variations, make up the rest of symphony. Whereas in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5, the symphony begins and ends with the same theme, and the variations (also a total of four) are just there to fill in the gap.

Music has been around since the beginning of time. People use it for entertainment, expression, and a form of art. When thinking about classical music (and music in general) the one person that comes to mind is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. This paper will go into depth of the cultural significance and meaning of one of Mozart’s most famous pieces, Eine Kleine Nachtmusik. Mozart’s music was considered to be commercial theatrical and a form of cinematic exploitation, bringing different elements to music that the people have never heard before in the classical era.

During the early and mid-19th Century, a literature type known as Romanticism evolved in Europe, creating many works of poetry and literature that are still in use presently. Through Romanticism, poets wanted to shed the light on the beauties or the darknesses of human nature and humans themselves with different characteristics that define Romanticism. ¨Dr. Heideggar´s Experiment¨ by Nathaniel Hawthorne and a short story, Nature, by Ralph Waldo Emerson both present the Romantic Characteristic of preferring youthful innocence over educated sophistication. Both pieces advocate a preference for youth, but ¨Dr. Heideggar´s Experiment¨- a dark romantic literary piece- uses greed and corruption to show that if given a chance to relive a past, the same corrupt mistakes will be made, corrupting innocence

Another composer who played an important role in the development of the Symphony is no other than Joseph Haydn, the ‘Father of Symphony’. One of his works, Symphony no. 92 in G Major, Hob I:92, composed in 1789, will be reviewed. “Oxford” Symphony was commissioned by Count d’Ogny for the Loge Olympique Concerts in Paris. It is known as “Oxford” because Haydn presented this symphony at the Sheldonian Theater at Oxford University in July 1791, where he was awarded a honorary doctorate degree. This symphony displays Haydn’s mature style of composition, presenting his capability to utilize thematic development, counterpoint and a mixture of distinctive moods. This work calls for flute, pairs of oboes, bassoons, horns in G and trumpets in C, timpani, and strings.

The first movement, Allegro ma non troppo, is very fiery and powerful. After an initial flourish of piano solo, the violin brings forth the main theme, a romantic, almost heroic melody. As the theme is developed fast passages create a sense of urgent drama. The middle movement is very unique because of its title Improvisation: Andante cantabile. The tranquil violin passages give the impression of improvisational material. This movement begins with a beautiful love song until a turbulent middle sections rudely interrupts its dream-like reverie. The finale, Andante-Allegro, begins with a quiet, introspective introduction in the piano alone which then leads into an exuberant Allegro. At the Allegro, the violin breaks forth with ascending, slashing passages from its lowest to its highest register, creating a sense of drama and importance. However, then comes a playfulness that sneaks into the music almost without notice. And then after a rush of virtuosic passages from both violin and piano, the sonata comes to an explosive end. There is an very interesting thing that in this movement, Strauss use the same motive with the first movement of Brahms Violin Sonata no.1. This can be considered as Strauss’s respect to

Beethoven’s career as a composer can be categorized into three periods: (1) the peak of Classical period where most of his works shown influences of his teacher Joseph Haydn, as well as influences from other great musicians of all time such as Mozart. (2) 2nd period where Beethoven began to lose his hearing, his music changed as he expanded the traditional style forms and let it sounded emotionally more powerful and full of boldness. (3) He strived to search for new sounding and he restudied Bach’s work in hoping to absorb the polyphonic color infused in his later works.

Steve Reich’s influence over today’s music is one of the biggest in the musical history. The timing and unique style of Reich’s music impacted other musicians during his time and still influences musicians today. Not only did he give a sustainable way of composing new classical or contemporary

Baroque musical style basically means Music intensifies emotions. In the period 1600’s and early 1700’s. Europeans set out to develop musical approaches designed to “ramp up” various emotional states and help listeners experience their diversity more deeply. A composer would be Johann Sebastian Bach and one of his composition would be Wachet auf (Sleepers, Awake).

Music helps people communicate how they feel when they just can't find the words to say it. It gives people a way to express who they are inside through many different forms. Music can be found throughout history. In this report I am going to discuss different musical periods in history with two artists or composers works representing that period.

Topic chosen for my research is based on romanticism and nature. Romanticism and nature are almost of same meaning to each other. Romanticism (also the romantic era or the Romantic period) was an artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of 18th century and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate period from 1800 to 1850. To set a typical example we can take it as romantic lyric which suggest a mystical relationship with nature. Many romantic poets has its ability to connect romanticism with nature through their expression of love, imagination and his experience in a natural setting to go beyond his/her everyday life. Some of those poets such as William Wordsworth,

‘The Romantic Revolution’ by Tim Blanning is renowned for its insight into the romantic revolution and its effects on the world as we know it today. In this essay, this book will be reviewed by focusing on, if the aims he sets out were met, was the book reader friendly and was his argument sufficiently made and backed up. His book has a lot of information crammed into 180 pages and he bases a lot of work off the assumption people have previous knowledge of the people, works and ideas he discusses. Despite this being a famous piece of work, it is definitely not without flaws.

The Romantic period believed that emotion was a form of intelligence, and art was a path to transcendence. As a result of the change in beliefs, Romantic poetry is often characterized by nature, imagination, memory, and wisdom. Imagination acts as a source of creativity, and allows us to see what is not immediately apparent. The Romantics believed that we could discover the imagination in nature, which often resulted in a harmony of the two. However, there are times when nature and imagination are in conflict with each other; for example, when imagination acts as an illusion, and distracts us from confronting the issue.