Reading: Responses to Romanticism

Question 1

What was the only Romantic genre that Brahms cultivated?

Answer 1

The miniature.

Question 2

What were the two responses to the Romantic era?

Answer 2

1. Brahms and the renewal of Classicism.

2. Mahler and the nostalgia/lament of the death of Classicism.

Question 3

Describe Mahler’s music:

Answer 3

• Uneasy.
• Deliberate and self-conscious exaggeration.
• Distorted.

Question 4

What was the progression of development of Mahler’s Symphony No. 1?

Answer 4

Started out as a symphonic poem in one movement, grew to a five-movement symphony, and revised into four movements.