59TJ123-8-2009 LK VWD0011 Tradition Humanistic 6th Edition W:220mm x H:292mm 175L 115 Stora Enso M/A Magenta (V)The Romantic Style in Music
CHAPTER 29 The Romantic Style in Art and Music 5959Church in Manhattan and the Smithsonian) was designed
by James Renwick (1818–1895).
Exoticism in Western Architecture
Romantic architecture also drew inspiration from the
“exotic” East, and especially those parts of the world in
which the European powers were building colonial
empires. The most intriguing Western pastiche of non-
Western styles is the Royal Pavilion at Brighton, on the
south coast of England. Designed by the English architect
John Nash (1752–1835) between 1815 and 1821 as a sea-
side resort for the Prince Regent, it combines a fanciful
assortment of Chinese, Indian, and Islamic motifs (Figure
29.14). Nash raised bulbous domes and slender minarets
over a hidden frame of cast iron, the structural medium
that would soon come to dominate modern architecture
(see chapter 30). The bizarre interior decor, which includes
waterlily chandeliers and cast-iron palm trees with copper
leaves, produced an eclectic style that Nash’s critics called
“Indian Gothic.”
“Music is the most romantic of all the arts—one might
almost say, the only genuine romantic one—for its sole
subject is the infinite.” Thus wrote the German novelist
and musician E. T. A. Hoffmann (1776–1822). Like many
Romantic composers, Hoffmann believed that music held
a privileged position in its capacity to express what he
called “an inexpressible longing.” For the Romantics,
music—the most abstract and elusive of the arts—was
capable of freeing the intellect and speaking directly to
the heart.
The nineteenth century produced an enormous amount
of music in all genres—a phenomenon that is reflected in
the fact that audiences today listen to more nineteenth-
century music than to the music of any previous time
period. Its hallmark is personalized expression, a feature as
apparent in large orchestral works as it is in small, intimate
pieces.
During the Romantic era, the orchestra grew to grand
proportions. Mid nineteenth-century orchestras were
often five times larger than those used by Haydn and
Mozart. While the volume of sound expanded, the
varieties of instrumental possibilities also grew larger, in
part because of technical improvements made in the
instruments themselves. Brass instruments (such as the
trumpet and the tuba) gained new pitches and a wider
range with the addition of valves; woodwind instruments
(such as the flute and the clarinet) underwent structural
changes that greatly facilitated fingering and tuning.
Modifications to the violin lent the instrument greater
power; and the early nineteenth-century piano, which
acquired an iron frame, two or three pedals, and thicker
strings, was capable of increased brilliance in tone and
greater expressiveness—features that made it the most
popular musical instrument of the century. Such mechan-
ical improvements expanded the tonal potential of musi-
cal instruments and produced a virtual revolution in
orchestral textures.Figure 29.14 JOHN NASH, The Royal Pavilion, Brighton, from the northeast, 1815–1821.