Chris Hatton, Affiliate Professor with CCU's School of Music, will be performing a piano recital of compositions in the musical Romanticism genre at the CCU Music Center on Tuesday, March 5. What is musical Romanticism? Although often defined as music composed during a discreet time period (i.e., the 19th century), Romanticism can perhaps best be described as an underlying idea or guiding principle behind some music from all eras. Nevertheless, 19th-century Romantic music is often characterized as being subjective and impulsive, as opposed to the more objective and rational tendencies found in 18th-century Classic music.
After Napoleon’s despotic seizure of power, it became unclear to Beethoven and many others in the early 19th century whether the positivistic ideals of "human progress" were certain to be achieved through the rational and scientific aims of the Enlightenment. In literature, visual arts, philosophy and music, artists began to turn inward for their inspiration, forging their own subjective emotional paths through the arts. Romantic works can be characterized by a greater emotional range -- both upwards into the sublime and downwards into despair or negativity -- the reason behind the title of this program, "sorrowful, yet always rejoicing." Christians will know these words through the letters of Paul, or possibly though their use as the personal motto of 19th century painter, Vincent Van Gogh.
Though not without its stormy moments, this program emphasizes the “rejoicing” aspect of Romanticism, from Beethoven’s “Pastoral” Sonata to the impassioned yearning of Schumann’s Fantasy and the bucolic but sometimes fiery technicality of Brahms’s Variations on an Original Theme.
This concert is free and open to the public.