Music was not majorly affected by Romanticism until the advent of the 19th century. German composers took the forefront when it came to Romanticism in music, with Beethoven, Schumann, Brahms, and Mendelssohn making sizable contributions. Symphonic poems, which struck a connection between music and literature, were familiar to Romantic composers like Liszt. “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” by Felix Mendelssohn is an overture that is an example of the connection between music and literature (Bonds 266). Mendelssohn wrote this piece at the beginning of his career for William Shakespeare’s play “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” The use of the orchestra in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” by Felix Mendelssohn has numerous similarities with the “loudness war” in contemporary music.
The overture uses various forms that were proposed by the romanticism era in music. As such, Mendelssohn uses a large orchestra as well as solo parts. The parts that involve only a solo instrument convey different feelings to the listener than the parts that involve crescendos and other dynamic changes of the full orchestra. The solo parts have effects on a listener with the help of a much lesser frequency range. Therefore, it feels smaller and more fragile as compared to the powerful synergic effect of the orchestra (Bonds 254). The orchestra makes people reflect on how tiny they may feel in the world and how fragile they are compared to society, nature, or the environment. Hence, Romanticism in music expanded the scope of emotion evoked by art.
The broad specter of tools that is aimed at impressing a listener was developed during the romanticism era and is relevant in contemporary music. For example, the experimentation with frequency ranges to evoke more intense emotions was a trend in the popular music of the 1990s and 2000s. Music producers were aiming to achieve the most appealing sound, which resulted in the so-called “loudness war” (Vickers 12). The recording techniques allowed sound engineers to amplify and compress instruments in a way that they sounded as loud as possible. In conclusion, although this trend was negative, the resemblance between the use of the orchestra to amplify the music and overwhelm the listener can be seen in the “loudness war” in contemporary music.
Works Cited
Bonds, Mark Evan. Listen to This. 4th ed., Pearson, 2017.
Vickers, Earl. “The Loudness War: Background, Speculation, and Recommendations.” Audio Engineering Society Convention, 2010, pp. 1-27. Web.