Music Is the Most Emotional of All Arts - Essay Example

The artist wrote and played music for themselves. Lee Marshall explains:
The only appropriate judge of the work becomes the artist himself because only the artist knows whether the work is true and the audience can only abide by Romanticism’s ‘first law [which] is the will of the creator.’ (33)
The artist pours themselves into a piece of work, which in turn allows the audience to feel the artist’s emotion more clearly. An example would be Shubert’s “Death and a Maiden”. This piece of music relates to how Shubert feels about his impending death.

What I do like about Romanticism is the close ties this style has to classical music. Shubert, one of my favorite composers, stuck toward a classical style. Mozart, Beethoven, and Schumann also used this approach. The Romanticism musicians:
continued to write symphonies, concertos, sonatas, and operas, forms that were all popular with classical composers. They also kept the basic rules for these forms, as well as keeping the rules of rhythm, melody, harmony, harmonic progression, tuning, and performance practice that was established in (or before) the Classical period. (Schmidt-Jones)

The only difference was the liberties made by each artist. Some took great liberties, others were more conservative.
The Romanticism era did create a greater emotional experience for the audience. This emotional experience varies from audience member to audience member. Some audience members might feel elated by Beethoven’s “Furelise”, while others might find the piece tiring. Schubert’s “Death and a Maiden” might make an audience member sad, angry, or frustrated. Individual music makes different people feel different things. That is the uniqueness of the Romanticism style. It makes everyone have different emotions. In the end, the artist wrote the piece to feel a certain emotion. The audience was second thoughts. Their emotions are secondary to the artists’ emotions. This allows the artist to be more creative, delving into their deepest emotions.

The Romanticism style cannot be deemed the best due to the influence this style has had on the music world. Without Romanticism, George Lucas’ “Star Wars” theme would never exist. “Fantasia” would never be created as a visual expression of the Romanticism theme. It would be unfair to compare two great masterpieces, just like it would be unfair to deem Romanticism the most emotive.

Music is the most emotional of all arts. Romanticism started to open up the emotional side of music, but I cannot agree that music finds its ultimate style in Romanticism. Many other musicians not from this period have created emotional music. Romanticism influenced music after that era. Without Romanticism, era music would not be where it is today.