Romanticism, music, nationalism

Abstract

In manifold ways, the stylistic and performative features and evolving genre conventions of nineteenth-century 'classical' music reflect the increasing grip of nationalism on cultural attitudes in Europe. Conversely, music could become an important medium for the expression and dissemination of nationalist ideals. A crossnational, European-wide survey of this interpenetration between musical and ideological developments is applied towards a tentative typological outline of 'musical nationalism'.

“Let no man write my epitaph”: the contributions of Percy Shelley, Thomas Moore and Robert Southey to the memorialisation of Robert Emmet

“…Moore is clearly identified as a nationalist radical and an adherent to "the United Irish tradition of political verse". 33 In contrast with the review above, Seamus Deane claims that Moore's populist work was often derided as pandering to London drawing-rooms with its sanitised version of Irishness, and of being too successful to reflect the economic failure so endemic within Ireland. This is contested by Leerssen who comments that even though the Melodies were often regarded as "syrupy drawing-room sentimentalities .…”

A Tainted Legacy

“…138 Finnur has been criticized for being unable to 'set limits to his imagination', 139 and not without good reason. But it is exactly the imaginative and visionary element of his work, spiced up with superlatives and occasional outbursts of patriotic enthusiasm, which paved the way for a more poetic strand of Edda reception in Scandinavian culture.…”

Anthony D. Smith and the role of art, architecture and music in the growth of modern nations: a comparative study of national parliaments and classical music in Britain and Denmark

“…He reflected upon these allegations that were made regarding the collection of folk songs that he carried out in close collaboration with Thomas Laub. Laub and Nielsen were very explicit about approaching this task in the context of their desire to do away with the excessive complexity that they believed characterized compositions of the Romantic era (Nielsen ; Leerssen , ; Lajosi ). Thus, to Nielsen and Laub, the collection of folk songs was part of an aspiration to go back to a simple and pure expression typically captured in a simple song characterized by emotions and sensitivity.…”