Revue des Romantiques was founded by two passionate high-school musicians. With a combined total of over two decades of experience in classical music performance, music theory, and historical musicology analysis, these two founders wanted to dive deeper into the world of musicology research. This blog has two key purposes.
A Romantic Music Hub
Many existing music guide websites and blogs cover a wide range of music, spanning from Pérotin of the 1200s to Caroline Shaw of the modern age. Our blog focuses almost entirely on the Romantic era. Our goal is for the Revue to be a go-to music hub for any curious musicians and musicologists who want to learn more about the specifics of any Romantic composer (like Liszt, our specialty!). In fact, there are already very few websites that have as thorough a focus on Liszt as we do, much less those run by the new generation. We hope to eventually document all major keyboard compositions by Liszt (a huge task, especially since Revue also partially covers other composers like Busoni) on our Archives page, so that if you ever need to know all there is to know about a certain piece, this would be the go-to place. Revue des Romantiques decided to focus specifically on the Romantic era for three key reasons:
A Hidden Complexity
Romantic music, especially for piano, is extremely misunderstood, especially by the younger generation, which our work is targeted towards. This is the age of social media and short attention spans. Most younger musicians simply learn to play their instruments. Some learn to play it well and win national prizes. But very few bother to truly understand the music they play. Why is that?
Social media has become a hub for technically talented pianists to showcase the hardest and most impressive-sounding pieces possible, all the while lacking any musical taste and understanding of the repertoire. This leads younger musicians to believe that, to be the best pianist, one must play the hardest pieces and win the most competitions, which is simply not true. True art is a lifestyle- one must live a life of genuine artistic curiosity and passion to understand it. Too many times do one hear the phrases, “I practice because my parents force me to,” or “I practice a lot to win XYZ competition.” The entire predicament is a never-ending loop: because the youth (who make up the majority of modern social media’s viewership) believe such falsities, they only watch influencers who promote them, leaving “pure-art” influencers with no other option but to join the hype.
Romantic music is in particular danger of this because it is the perfect blend of “classical” music for the modern ear: it is complex and difficult (but not too difficult so that barely anyone can actually play it and popularize it), is typically objectively pleasant to listen to (unlike Sorabji, which tends to be polarizing even for the most open-minded of individuals), and usually incorporates singable, catchy melodies (unlike Baroque or even some Classical pieces, which may be quite inaccessible to people who only listen to modern Rock or Pop). Romanticism is neither so old or outdated that many people don’t even bother, nor so new that it loses its old-world, antique aesthetic and charm.
The ever-decreasing attention spans of newer musicians also imperil the art. Musicians don’t bother to read the history of the composition they play because “Oh, look! My phone is conveniently right here so I can watch reels!” They stop listening to longer-form pieces like operatic fantasies or the entirety of a Piano Sonata because “Why would it matter to me? I’m only playing the first movement of K.545, why should I listen to the others when I could use this time to hop on Roblox?” Even many symphony orchestras around the world are being dissolved (or are performing less frequently) due to a lack of audience, which arises from the fact that everyone’s “too busy” for art. The ignorance has led some pianists we’ve seen not even to know the key signature of the piece they play, much less to understand its historical context.
Perhaps it is not entirely fair to blame this musical quandary on the younger generation. Modern society puts pressure on aspiring musicians that often leads to overcompetitiveness, envy, and misunderstanding. It’s markedly worse in the United States (where this blog is located) than in some other places, however, probably due to America’s rapid industrialization after the Second World War. Advancement always means greater expectations for the youth in terms of prestige and wealth, two things that music has not historically been associated with. Most of the time, people would rather be “successful” by winning competitions and appearing as an impressive pianist than face the steep learning curve of truly understanding the art. Ultimately, doing things quickly and efficiently in the modern age is, in the grand scheme of things, effective if your goal is to be “successful,” but it certainly is not if you want to pursue a life of musical excellence.
Realistic Planning
Wanting to cover all eras of music would be doable. Wanting to cover all eras of music while maintaining historical accuracy and analytical quality would be simply unrealistic and impossible. Even after narrowing the timeframe to just over 100 years, Revue still acknowledges that it will never document at least 99% of what there is to know about Romanticism, but we can promise that we will continue to pick out a select few topics that we believe best represent our goals. It is better to (or, at least attempt to) present blog posts of quality than to present blog posts of quantity. At a certain point, we would be stretching it so thin that it all falls incohesively apart, leaving behind nothing but a mediocre mess. Besides, if there was something one wanted to learn about music that Revue does not cover, he or she could simply use the greatest modern technological innovation: the internet.
Mastery of Subject
This subtitle should really say “Confidence of Subject.” There is no such thing as full mastery of any art, but we are confident that we are knowledgeable enough, specifically on Romantic-era keyboard music, to share our analyses and thoughts with the reader.
Artistic Inspiration
Revue des Romantiques aims to inspire younger audiences to pursue their own musical (and, more broadly, artistic) journey. We hope to do this by showing off how much there is to learn about any given composer or piece. Many serious online musical resources are equally inaccessible and daunting to the new musician or musicologist. Revue des Romantiques eases the transition for fledglings into the world of musicology because its content is written at a high school level. The greatest passions and competence arise not from force but from natural curiosity and exposure. Our vision is similar to that of a traditional, pre-Internet education: provide just the spark for the kindling, and let it grow into a fire naturally. Then, the fully grown avian can provide its own contributions and help out other newcomers to the community, thus repeating the cycle.