Romantic Rebellion
Evan GoldenbergMarch 18, 2009
Composer, conductor, theorist, and educator, Howard Hanson was passionately
involved in everything musical until his death in 1981. Director of the Eastman School of
Music for 40 years from 1924 to 19641, he influenced and inspired many, sharing his love
of artistry and music with students and colleagues. Hanson had strong opinions
regarding the purpose and importance of music for both creator and listener, and his
philosophy is aptly reflected in the music he wrote, especially given the style for its time.
As a composer, Hanson is best known for his Symphony No. 2, “Romantic,” which,
completed in 1930, is as much an ideological manifesto as it is a musical masterpiece.
Radical developments were taking place in the cultural realms of the early 20th
century. In music, Arnold Schoenberg and others famously decided that the deep well of
tonality, which had sustained harmonic and melodic structure for centuries, had run dry.
Schoenberg’s twelve-tone system of composition eventually evolved into intellectually
complex serialism, and by mid-century, a significant avant-garde movement had sprung
into being, fueled by a new Modernist aesthetic. Though their work was by-and-large
horribly unsuccessful with the general public, Modernists continued to dogmatically
reject all things traditional, further estranging themselves from their audiences.
There remained throughout this time, however, a sizable contingent of composers
for whom the springs of tonality were still very much alive and flowing. These
1
1 Watanabe, Ruth T. and James Perone. Hanson, Howard. Grove Music Online.
proponents of so-called Neo-Romanticism2, of whom Hanson was certainly one,
understandably received scathing criticism from their Modernist rivals. Describing the
response to new music written by composers not concerned with elitist avant-garde
Modernism, Nicholas Tawa writes, “Anything that sported a triad or a lyric melody, that
sounded beautiful in the customary sense of the word, or that evoked strong personal
emotion was censured as old hat, clichéd, uninspired, unoriginal, and having nothing
new to say.” 3 In critical and scholarly circles, Neo-Romanticism as an ideology was
belligerently rejected for a supposed lack of individuality and failure to contribute to the
evolution of music as an art form. Nevertheless, the Neo-Romantics believed firmly in
the role of emotion in music, and judging by public response to their music, so did their
audiences.
Connecting with audiences, however, was not something considered important by
Modernists; in fact, some took up the extreme position that “a work’s success with the
public [was] sufficient evidence of its inferiority.” 4 It is not surprising, then, that
common criticisms endured by Neo-Romantics, including Howard Hanson, were that
they wrote popular music as a trivial means to achieve fame, wealth, or some other
commercial advantage, or that they were simply untalented. Walter Simmons
2
2 The prefix “neo” is slightly misleading, as no revival was taking place. Romanticism as an ideology and as an aesthetic was still very much alive at this time, and the so-called Neo-Romantics thought it still had much to offer. Walter Simmons, Voices in the Wilderness: Six American Neo-Romantic Composers (Lanham, Scarecrow Press, 2004), pp. 9-10.
3 Walter Simmons, Voices in the Wilderness: Six American Neo-Romantic Composers (Lanham, Scarecrow Press, 2004), pp. 5.
4 Walter Simmons, Voices in the Wilderness: Six American Neo-Romantic Composers (Lanham, Scarecrow Press, 2004), pp. 4.
summarizes the hostile attitude that affected even the great Romantics like Tchaikovsky
and Strauss decades earlier:
Few would dispute the claim that the general listening public is most readily drawn to music with the qualities associated with the Romantic aesthetic. However, an implied assumption underlying much critical and musicological commentary suggests that a direct appeal to the emotions represents a lower form of artistic expression, as if accessibility somehow diminished the magnitude of a work’s aesthetic achievement.5
Modernists viewed the music of Neo-Romantic composers as unsophisticated art for
unsophisticated listeners. Fortunately for the music appreciators of today, such criticisms
did not stop the Neo-Romantic ideal from blossoming into a successful, vibrant source of
wonderful music.
It is in this social and historical context that Howard Hanson wrote the
“Romantic” Symphony, the work upon which his reputation as a composer is largely
based. Though the most extreme manifestations of Modernist attitudes would not take
centre stage until the 1950s and 60s, thirty or so years after the work was written, the
“Romantic” Symphony is, as its title suggests, a defiant stand against highly intellectual
music and the rejection of tonality. Hanson was acutely aware of the direction music was
headed in, and he would have none of it.
The symphony begins with a rising three-note motif (Example 1) that is the basis
for much of the thematic material, both harmonic and melodic, in the work. Set in a
starkly polytonal world (G major and D♭ major, a tritone apart no less), the phrase
3
5 Walter Simmons, Voices in the Wilderness: Six American Neo-Romantic Composers (Lanham, Scarecrow Press, 2004), pp. 10-11.
grows in pitch, dynamic, and instrumentation, before being inverted and subsiding6.
Tension and uncertainty rise and fall with the music, and the listener is immediately
drawn into a symphony that, from the outset, speaks directly to emotion.
Example 1 (Mvt. 1, mm. 1-4)7
The horns now enter with a hurried and turbulent fanfare-like theme (Example 2),
firmly grounded in the polytonal harmonic framework of the opening and repeated
canonically by various instruments before coming to a climax of tension and stress.
Example 2 (Mvt. 1, mm. 19-30)8
144 The Musical Quarterly
in odd rhythms. They become less frequent in later works, and this fact
makes for less difficulty in performance.
To analyse and discuss in detail all of Hanson's more important
works would require more time and space than the scope of this paper
assumes. But it is desirable that a few passages be quoted to illustrate
the various aspects of his style that have been mentioned. The early
Nordic characteristics, so predominant for a period, persist even when
the subject is purely American. No better example of this can be found
than the opening measures of the opera, "Merry Mount," the hymn of
the Puritans.
Ex. 1—Merry Mount
Lento
if
The cold, dark gray of the north continues almost unrelieved
throughout the eighteen minutes of the "Lament for Beowulf', a work
of compelling effectiveness and gloom. The "Romantic" Symphony
opens in similar color, but is soon brightened by a rousing call in the
horns, forming the first theme. This theme illustrates a characteristic
of Hanson's melodies—his constant use of a minor seventh either as a
skip or as the compass of a phrase. In the present instance the interval
is made up of two superimposed perfect fourths:
Ex. 2—Romantic Symphony—ist Movement
4 Horns
In "Pan and the Priest," we find the minor seventh as a skip and,
in the "Nordic" Symphony, as the compass of consecutive thirds.
Ex. 3—Pan and the Priest
J=..Horn
4
6 Stuart Malina. Podcast #21 - Hanson #2. 2008.
7 Howard Hanson, Symphony No. 2, Op. 30 “Romantic.” Philadelphia Orchestra Critical Edition, Clinton F. Nieweg, ed. (1999) pp. 5
8 Burnet Tuthill, Howard Hanson. The Musical Quarterly XX11.2 (1936) pp. 144.
Two intensely lush and beautifully tonal sections follow, allowing a release of the built-
up tension, and an opportunity for the audience to relax and enjoy simple, lyrical
melodies. The first tune begins in the oboe and makes its way to the horn and strings.
The second is likely the most recognized passage in Hanson’s entire output. The “big
theme” of the symphony (Example 3) features sentimental melodies in the horn and
violins (note the three note figures reminiscent of the opening), and a rich, pulsating,
tonal accompaniment in the lower strings. The addition of the second (F) to the major
triad (E♭) creates an impressionistic, almost surreal atmosphere of blurred harmonies.
Example 3 (Mvt. 1 mm. 99-105)9
Howard Hanson 145
Ex. 4—Nordic Symphony (Slow Movement) Andante
Two Flutes
Through the use of the minor seventh in different ways, he imparts tohis themes sometimes a bold strength, sometimes the flowing expres-sion of nature.
The second subject of the first movement of the "Romantic" Sym-phony brings us the American aspect of Hanson's musical style. Thereis no reminiscence or flavor of any folk music, no negro spiritual orfiddler's breakdown, no mountain, cowboy, or Indian element, but afrank melody, unabashed in its sentiment, simple alike in rhythm andinterval, with an accompaniment of rich, pulsating harmonies.
Ex. 5—Romantic Symphony—1st Movement—Lento J = »
Horn . 1
¥^1P
J. 1 J J J 1colS^batta
Other strings
bxr
fei
3EE
T r
Continuing in like manner to a climax
5
9 Burnet Tuthill, Howard Hanson. The Musical Quarterly XX11.2 (1936) pp. 145.
The climax of the “big theme” brings what may be loosely called the exposition of the
first movement, or even the symphony as a whole, to a close. It is not an exposition in
the traditional sense of two contrasting themes that will later be developed, however.
Rather, it is an exposition in that nearly all of the thematic material used in the
remainder of the symphony has now been declared.
The first movement continues by taking these same themes, restating and
reshaping them in various musical ways to create different emotional contexts. The
lyrical oboe solo reappears with a more timid, slightly confused character. The turbulent
horn fanfare from the opening returns, stretched in time, as a light, airy melody in the
flute, and quickens into a triumphant, almost march-like passage. Yet between each
iteration of each theme, the common thread of polytonality and emotional tension and
uncertainty is revisited. The movement appears unsure of which emotions it wants to
evoke, visiting many for brief periods of time before ending, still somewhat undecided.
Unlike the first, the second movement begins in the clear, simple tonality of C
major. Hanson takes what is considered by many to be a “boring” key, the key of
mindless finger exercises and tedious studies, and creates a slow and beautiful,
hummable melody. This idea is briefly developed, eventually being combined with the
initial polytonal three-note motif from the first movement before leading into a grand
entrance of the “big theme.” After a few more climaxes, the various themes reappear and
subside, and the movement ends as it began, in pure, simple harmony. There is no
harmonic or emotional tension here, only warmth, sweetness, and bliss.
6
The third and final movement begins in sharp contrast to the smooth, lyrical
second movement, opening with fast, excited triplets in the winds and strings and a
bright fanfare in the horns that is echoed in other sections of the orchestra. Overall, the
movement operates in a similar fashion to the other two. One or two new musical ideas
are introduced, but for the most part Hanson revisits motifs heard in the first and
second movements, modifying them to create various emotional landscapes.
Indeed, emotion is at the core of the “Romantic” Symphony; Hanson made
obvious efforts to span the entire gamut of human sentiment in the work. It is relatively
short for a symphony, less than 30 minutes in length, but it leaves an audience with the
feeling of having completed a vigorous, satisfying, soulful workout. The piece is a
Romantic rebellion against the cold, atonal music that was quickly gaining ground at
the time, a change in the musical community that Hanson was very much at odds with.
At the time of the symphony’s premiere in 1930, he remarked:
The symphony represents for me my escape from the rather bitter type of modern musical realism which occupies so large a place in contemporary thought. Much contemporary music seems to me to be showing a tendency to become entirely too cerebral. I do not believe that music is primarily a matter of the intellect, but rather a manifestation of the emotions. I have, therefore, aimed in this symphony to create a work that was young in spirit, lyrical and romantic in temperament, and simple and direct in expression.10
The “Romantic” Symphony was Hanson’s defiant rejection of the direction in which
modern music was headed, a direction that labeled music as a purely intellectual
7
10 Walter Simmons, Voices in the Wilderness: Six American Neo-Romantic Composers (Lanham, Scarecrow Press, 2004), pp. 116-117.
pursuit. Hanson was a firm believer in the visceral power of music, something he sought
to capture fully in his writing.
With this in mind, it is worth considering some of the more common criticisms
that the “Romantic” Symphony has endured from Modernists and non-Modernists alike.
One of the most frequently cited deficiencies of the symphony is that it lacks any
structural integrity, that there is no “coherent progression of autonomous musical ideas
that unfold according to their own intrinsic logic by means of organic development.” 11
On the whole, this statement is true - the themes and motifs in the symphony, while
sharing certain common features, do seem to lack a clear progression from one to the
next, and their development, in the traditional sense, is stunted. However, it is
important to consider what Hanson was striving to achieve with the work, and to
critique it on that basis. The “Romantic” Symphony was not intended to be a flawless
display of musical form and structure, “intellectual” aspects of the compositional process.
On the contrary, it was intended to be a reflection of the enormous emotional spectrum
that music has the ability to project. When viewed in this light, as a collection of
emotional rather than musical states, an intellectual, structural analysis of the
“Romantic” Symphony becomes pointless and invalid.
That is not to say that the work has absolutely no structure whatsoever, for it
would fall apart and be entirely incomprehensible if that were the case. The symphony is
very cyclical in nature, a hallmark of great Romantic composers from decades earlier,
8
11 Walter Simmons, Voices in the Wilderness: Six American Neo-Romantic Composers (Lanham, Scarecrow Press, 2004), pp. 127.
including Dvořák and Tchaikovsky, who suffered the identical criticism regarding the
structure of his works. The recurring themes and motifs of the “Romantic” Symphony
are easily identifiable and are not constrained to single movements, giving the work an
overarching sense of unity. In fact, it is entirely plausible that Hanson intentionally
reused the same simple harmonic and melodic elements in their original forms as a
means of highlighting emotional, as opposed to musical, transitions and developments.
To be sure, it is possible for a work such as the “Romantic” symphony to excel in both
form and expression, but this was not the purpose of Hanson’s writing, and, accordingly,
not the context within which it should be critiqued.
Criticism of the “Romantic” Symphony did not stop at claims of structural
weakness, however. As a Neo-Romantic writing in a musical climate dominated by
Modernism and the avant-garde, Howard Hanson’s individuality as a composer was
called into question time and time again. He was accused of recycling music that had
already been written, and of bringing nothing new to the repertoire. But Hanson flatly
rejected the Modernist obsession with innovation for its own sake, and was entirely
aware of historical influences on his music, influences he felt all composers should value
rather than deny. In an interview with David Russell Williams, he said:
I once introduced Schoenberg to an audience as the man who made us conscious of the beauty of the major triad! I've never understood the arrogance of composers. Can you think of a single great composer who didn't owe enormous debts of gratitude to his predecessors - can you think of anybody from Bach on up?12
9
12 David Russell Williams, Howard Hanson (1896-1981). Perspectives of New Music Vol. 20 No. 1/2 (1981-1982) pp. 20.
Hanson was by no means a great innovator, but he was certainly not a talentless
imitator. Terry Teachout, paraphrasing T.S. Eliot, notes that “great artists do not
imitate, they steal, and in doing so they transform their stolen goods into something
wholly personal and individual. When a great composer knowingly evokes the past, he
does so in ways other than imitative.” 13 With the “Romantic” Symphony, Hanson “stole”
the greatest features of the Romantic aesthetic, and used them to create a highly
personal, individual statement about the role of music in our lives.
The criticism perhaps most neglectful of Hanson’s musical philosophy is that the
“Romantic” Symphony appeals to a lower class of listener, that it is unsophisticated and
unsatisfying for more seasoned concertgoers. Again, as with claims of structural
weakness, this may be true taken out of context and with an attitude at odds with
Hanson’s. The symphony is highly accessible, and not musically complex. It is often
described as hedonistic, having a “movie music” or Broadway-like character. However,
when Hanson’s goals for the symphony are taken into account, such statements become
compliments rather than insults. Good film composers are able to evoke different
emotional responses in very short periods of time, reflecting the ever-changing drama
unfolding onscreen. Hanson believed that this incredible visceral power of music should
not be restricted to theatres and cinemas, but that it should triumph in concert halls as
well. Asked by an interviewer in 1978 whether the “Romantic” Symphony was
intentionally aimed at a musically illiterate audience, Hanson responded, “that’s what
the intellectual would like to have you think...[but] I get letters to this day from those
10
13 Terry Teachout, Romantics’ Return, Commentary 120.1 (2005) pp. 62-63.
who are not morons saying that their favorites are the Fourth Brahms and [my]
Romantic Symphony.” 14
Howard Hanson’s “Romantic” Symphony is a clear rebellion against the emerging
Modernist and avant-garde attitudes of the time. It is an unabashed display of
sentiment, a work that truly speaks to its audience. As one of the greatest music
educators of our time, Hanson strove to instill in his students a love of music as a
primarily emotional pursuit. How fitting that the “big theme” from his “Romantic”
Symphony is played at the conclusion of every student performance at the Interlochen
Center for the Arts. It is conducted by a young concertmaster, and followed not by
applause, but silence and quiet reflection. The Interlochen Theme is permanently
emblazoned on the hearts of thousands of alumni, and has an uncanny ability to reduce
them to tears of joyful reminiscence. For Hanson, who believed that “music should come
from the heart more than from the head,” 15 that is precisely what music is all about.
11
14 Walter Simmons, Voices in the Wilderness: Six American Neo-Romantic Composers (Lanham, Scarecrow Press, 2004), pp. 11.
15 Walter Simmons, Voices in the Wilderness: Six American Neo-Romantic Composers (Lanham, Scarecrow Press, 2004), pp. 119.
Works Cited
Hanson, Howard. Symphony No. 2, Op. 30 “Romantic.” Philadelphia Orchestra Critical Edition. Clinton F. Nieweg, ed. New York: Carl Fischer, 1999.
Malina, Stuart. Podcast #21 - Hanson #2. 10 September 2008. Audio Podcast. http://www.stuartmalina.com/blog/files/podcast_65.mp3. 10 March 2009.
Simmons, Walter. Voices in the Wilderness: Six American Neo-Romantic Composers. Lanham: Scarecrow Press, 2004.
Teachout, Terry. Romantics’ Return. Commentary 120.1 (2005) pp. 62-66.
Tuthill, Burnet C. Howard Hanson. The Musical Quarterly XXII.2 (1936) pp. 140-153.
Watanabe, Ruth T. and James Perone. Hanson, Howard. Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. 7 Feb. 2009 http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/12342.
Williams, David Russell. Howard Hanson (1896-1981). Perspectives of New Music, Vol. 20, No. 1/2 (Autumn, 1981 - Summer, 1982), pp. 12-25.
12