Grove Music Online

Neo-romantic
Jann Pasler

https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.40720
Published in print: 20 January 2001
Published online: 2001

(1) The term is used to refer to the return to emotional expression

associated with 19th-century Romanticism. In 1923 Schloezer used it
to contrast Schoenberg's expressiveness with Stravinsky's neo-
classicism. In works such as Hindemith's Mathis der Maler (1934–5),
‘neo-romantic’ refers to the composer's return to tonality as a
structural and expressive element. In the 1940s, composers such as
those of La Jeune France conceptualized their music as neo-romantic
to suggest a rupture with modernist tendencies. As Baudrier put it,
they wished to ‘create a new language … based on no classicism, no
pre-existent structures’. They addressed ‘aesthetic problems from
the social rather than individual perspective’.

Since the mid-1970s, neo-romantic has become synonymous with

neo-conservative post-modernism, especially in Germany, Austria
and the USA. The Horizons '83 and '84 concerts sponsored by the
New York PO drew public attention to the aesthetic. Unlike works of
the 1960s that cite older traditions (Kagel), neo-romantic works
appeal directly to the emotions. In their Third String Quartets, for
example, Rihm uses the expressive gestures of late Romantic music,
‘though with a structural thinking entirely typical of the 20th
century’ (La Motte-Haber), while Rochberg writes ‘a music of
remembering’ like that of Beethoven and Mahler; its movements
‘could almost be mistaken for discoveries from the past’ (Rockwell).
Others, like del Tredeci and Zwilich, incorporate tonal harmony,
tunefulness and forms rooted in the 19th century. By pleasing the
ear, using standard orchestral forces and writing operas and
symphonies embodying this aesthetic, neo-romantics have succeeded
in attracting large audiences.

(2) The word is also used to describe the revival of folk culture in
England from the early to the mid-20th century, including the ‘folk-
inspired emancipation of English music from German
hegemony’ (Trentmann). It refers to the movement's critique of
modernity, obsession with nature and emphasis on community, the
unconscious and pantheism. What made the return to traditional
Romantic elements new in the work of such composers as Vaughan
Williams, Holst, Delius and later Tippett, was their interest in
communitarian ideals rather than solitary transcendentalism.

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 Bibliography
B. de Schloezer: ‘La musique’, Revue contemporaine (1
Feb 1923)

Y. Baudrier and D. Lesur: ‘Vers un nouveau romantisme’,

ReM, nos.198–202 (1946), 103–6

‘Fragen an junge Komponisten’, Musica, 37 (1983), 415–

16

J. Rockwell: All American Music: Composition in the late

Twentieth Century (New York, 1983) [incl. ‘David Del
Tredici: the Return of Tonality, the Orchestral Audience,
and the Danger of Success’, ‘Frederic Rzewski: the
Romantic Revival and the Dilemma of the Political
Composer’, 71–95]

G. Groemer: Paths to the new Romanticism: Aesthetic and

Thought of the American post-avant-garde as exemplified
in selected tonal piano music (DMA diss., Johns Hopkins
U., 1984)

W. Rihm: ‘Trois essais sur le thème de … (une

conférence)’, Contrechamps, no.3 (1984), 69–82

M. Wehnert: ‘“Neo-Romantik” im 20. Jahrhundert? vom

ungebräuchlichen Begriff zum Schlagwort’, Der Einfluss
der romantischen Musik … im 20. Jahrhundert: Dresden
1984, 7–17

P. Dennison: ‘Tippett and the New Romanticism’, Michael

Tippett, O.M.: a Celebration, ed. G. Lewis (Tunbridge
Wells, 1985), 175–90

L. Inese: ‘Charakteristische Tendenzen in der Entwicklung

der lettischen Musik der siebziger Jahre’, Kunst und
Literatur, 35 (1987), 395–9

J. McGuire: ‘“All in the golden afternoon”: zur Neuen

Romantik David Del Tredicis’, MusikTexte, no.18 (1987),
20–22

I. Podracky: ‘Mnohovrstvovy charakter kompozicnej

techniky v sucasnej slovenskej hudbe: neotonalizmus,
neoromantizmus’, Slovak Music, 1 (1987), 3–6

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 M.R. Linton: George Rochberg's Concord Quartets: an
Analysis of Grand Romanticism in the Twentieth Century
(diss., New York U., 1988)

G. Watkins: Soundings: Music in the Twentieth Century

(New York, 1988), 645–51

R. Barthes: ‘The Romantic Song’, The Responsibility of

Forms (Paris, 1991)

P. Cahn: ‘Zum Fortwirken von Neoromantik und

Neoklassizismus nach 1945’, Hindemith-Jb 1991, 7–12

A. De Lisa: ‘Post-moderni e neo-romantici: via l'estetica,

resta il potere’, Sonus [Potenza], 3/3 (1991), 3–4

‘New Tonality’, CMR, 6/2 (1992)

H. Halbreich: ‘Die Neubewertung des Begriffs

“Konsonanz” jenseits des Begriffs Tonalität’,
Wiederaneignung und Neubestimmung: der Fall
“Postmoderne” in der Musik, ed. O. Kolleritsch (Vienna,
1993), 117–26

M.R. Campbell: Tonal Reform or Radical Tonality? a Study

of Neoromanticism in American Music, with an Emphasis
on the Music and Thought of George Rochberg, David Del
Tredici, and Stephen Albert (diss., U. of Connecticut,
1994)

F. Trentmann: ‘Civilization and its Discontents: English

Neo-Romanticism and the Transformation of Anti-
modernism and Twentieth-Century Western Culture’,
Journal of Contemporary History, 29 (1994), 583–625

H. de la Motte-Haber: ‘Postmodernism in Music:

Retrospection as Reassessment’, CMR, 12 (1995), 77–83

J. Boros: ‘A “New Tonality”?’, PNM, 34 (1996), 252–8

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