Is Rachmaninoff Romatic?

[bwl_13]

I hear this is a pretty common question but I'd love to get a discussion going. Would you (personally) consider Rachmaninoff as a romantic era composer?

I don't think all composers need to fit into categories or genres or anything, but the question still remains. I think Scriabin might fit into a similar situation. The music has some very dense harmonies and intense chromaticism, but it also seems to be stuck in a middle between more contemporary writing and romantic writing. Rach also wrote music after what most people consider the romantic era was over.

Personally, I don't think Rachmaninoff is romantic. His music is stylistically different enough from even late romantic composers that he is sort of in his own category. I think of his music as a vivid description of emotion and stories, but not as engulfed in it as other romantics tend to be like Wagner or Tchaikovsky.

What are your thoughts? Is this pointless or is there a use for these terms? I'm partially writing this question because for an audition I wasn't allowed to use Rachmaninoff in one of my categories because his music was too romantic even though it was post 1900. They said the same thing about Debussy, which I found even weirder...

[ranjit]

I think Rachmaninoff is romantic. It's still sufficiently similar to say Liszt or Ravel, with more interesting harmonies and rhythms but similar structures and development, and utilizing the piano in pretty similar ways. Unlike say Prokofiev.

[tal ilivey]

yes, late romantic

[anacrusis]

Another vote for late romantic here. He is still using tonal harmony and many idioms found in late romantic piano music, though he has his own distinct harmonic language.

[fftransform]

I don't think it's even considered contentious, he's definitely a Romantic composer.  It's far less harmonically/melodically explorative than Mahler or Strauss, for example, but they're certainly considered Romantic.

Scriabin's later works are usually described as "Futurist" rather than Romantic (e.g. Sonatas 5-10, Vers la flamme, Etudes Op. 65).  It's much easier to just hear what differentiates "Futurism" in music than try to describe its technical differences from Romantic or this-or-that "modern/contemporary" style:

Futurism uses a lot of the figurative aspects in terms of both writing and performance from the Romantic composers, and also uses classical notions of key modulation, but does not use classical harmony.  Instead, they use a notion similar to a 'pitch center' but instead it's a 'chord center(s)'; or, you can think of it as using alternative scale systems.  Often they're dissonant and usually incorporate (or nearly incorporate) the Mystic Chord.  But instead of some other alternative scale system (like the pentatonic on the black keys), they'll modulate that pitch center around just like how classical harmony will have key changes (so moving off the black keys to other pentatonic scales).  Scriabin in particular often likes to use mode changes within his pseudo-scales as well, especially in the Op. 65 and Op. 67.  In these alternative scale systems these modulations don't always have the same 'musical meaning' as they would normally, but often they will be similar enough and the composers would exploit that to build narrative.

[bwl_13]

I don't think it's even considered contentious, he's definitely a Romantic composer.  It's far less harmonically/melodically explorative than Mahler or Strauss, for example, but they're certainly considered Romantic.

Scriabin's later works are usually described as "Futurist" rather than Romantic (e.g. Sonatas 5-10, Vers la flamme, Etudes Op. 65).  It's much easier to just hear what differentiates "Futurism" in music than try to describe its technical differences from Romantic or this-or-that "modern/contemporary" style:

Futurism uses a lot of the figurative aspects in terms of both writing and performance from the Romantic composers, and also uses classical notions of key modulation, but does not use classical harmony.  Instead, they use a notion similar to a 'pitch center' but instead it's a 'chord center(s)'; or, you can think of it as using alternative scale systems.  Often they're dissonant and usually incorporate (or nearly incorporate) the Mystic Chord.  But instead of some other alternative scale system (like the pentatonic on the black keys), they'll modulate that pitch center around just like how classical harmony will have key changes (so moving off the black keys to other pentatonic scales).  Scriabin in particular often likes to use mode changes within his pseudo-scales as well, especially in the Op. 65 and Op. 67.  In these alternative scale systems these modulations don't always have the same 'musical meaning' as they would normally, but often they will be similar enough and the composers would exploit that to build narrative.

Wicked response. Thanks a lot for this info. I might've considered it a bit contentious because a few of the profs I've spoken to as well as some people online have sort of casually cited Rachmaninoff as something other than romantic. I haven't heard of futurism before and I'll definitely be looking into it more. I've heard of pitch centres but most styles post 19th century has been pretty challenging to grasp and I haven't found too many resources online that presented it in a way that I can understand. I'll definitely be looking into more of this stuff. Thanks a lot!