tory of Music). The famous 5th Symphony (1808) is said to portray an act of human defiance of Fate, showing that the music is now growing emotionally deeper, and the symphonic form is slightly disrupted by the linking of the 3rd and 4th movements. It also shows the increasing use of dynamics, which continued throughout the 19th Century to add emotion to the music. His cyclic 9th Symphony (1824) actually breaks away from the symphonic form when a singer invites the other performers to join in singing Shiller’s ‘Ode to Joy’. Nature and the IrrationalThe emphasis of Romanticism showed a trend away from the hierarchy of the gods, and concentrated more on humanism and the natural world. This was also predominant in the Rescue Operas, which some form of natural disaster usually having a crucial role in the plot, and Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony (no. 6 1808) also shows a delight in nature. The ever, evolving orchestra also gave the composers of the time a wide scope for pictorialism, and allowed the greater emphasis on individual emotion to flourish, especially in the later romantic period, or the High Romantic period. A good example of this kind of natural depiction in music is from Edvard Greig’s Peer Gynt Suite no. 1 (1874). In particular, Morning, shows a brilliant portrayal of a Norwegian Sunrise. There appears to be subtle hints of previous periods in this piece, with an almost Fugue-like subject and counter subject at the beginning of the piece, but with no polyphony, and with an apparently very strong basis on sonata form. The slight variation in the following repeats help to build up the piece, with more and more of the orchestra accompanying the melody, seemingly representing the rising sun and increasing daylight.Another strong emphasis of the Romantic Period was an interest in the supernatural. Also part of the Peer Gynt Suite no. 1 is a piece called In The Hall of the Mountain King, which shows a com...
