A historical period is a construction. Periods dont just happen; still less are they given objectively in the historical record
On the contrary, a periodization is not so much true or false, as a reading, a way of making sense of complex data; periodizations serve the needs and desires of those who make and use them. James Webster, Between Enlightenment and Romanticism in Music History: First Viennese
Modernism and the Delayed Nineteenth Century, in 19 Century Music, vol. 25, nos. 2-3 (2001-02), p.110.
In music history, the hundred-year span from 1750 to 1850 has traditionally been split in half, consisting of a Classical period in the late eighteenth century, followed by a Romantic period. Some recent scholarship, however, has questioned the logic of this divide. Citing the similarities and continuities between what happened in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, scholars have argued that it might be more useful to think of these periods as thoroughly interconnected, rather than thinking of them as representing substantially different musical traditions.
Please read pp. 109-115 of James Websters article and write a brief essay in which you share your thoughts on the continuing usefulness of a Classic-Romantic divide. It is your choice to defend or reject the traditional division, or even to propose a new way of thinking about how the
period from 1750 to 1850 works as a whole.
Your essay should address the following:
How can periodization be useful to us now? Please respond to some of the points raised in James
Websters article, and explain to what ends you think our period divisions should work.
How, specifically, does music from late eighteenth century compare to that from the early nineteenth century? Discuss at least three musical examples in detail, commenting both on specific musical features and the cultural contexts that helped shape them. Feel free to include relevant material from the primary sources discussed in lecture where appropriate.
