Page:A Dictionary of Music and Musicians vol 3.djvu/160

148 the title to 3 movements for oboe and PF. (op. 94), and to a well-known piece in D minor (op. 32, no. 3), [App. p.773 "add the three pieces by Schumann, op. 28"] just as he, or some one of his followers [App. p.773 "omit the words or some one of his followers"], has used the similar title, 'in Legendenton.' The Romance which forms the second movement of his symphony in D minor, is a little poem full of sentimental expression.

In vocal music the term is obviously derived from the character or title of the words. In English poetry we have few 'romances,' though such of Moore's melodies as 'She is far from the land where her young hero sleeps' might well bear the title. But in France they abound, and some composers (such as Puget and Panseron) have derived nine-tenths of their reputation from them. 'Partant pour la Syrie' may be named as a good example, well known on this side the water. Mendelssohn's 'Songs without Words' are called in France 'Romances sans Paroles.' [ G. ]

ROMANI,, a famous Italian littérateur, born at Genoa, January 31, 1788. He was educated for the law, but soon forsook it for more congenial pursuits, and was in early life appointed to the post of poet to the royal theatres, with a salary of 6000 lire. The fall of the French government in Italy drove him to his own resources. He began with a comedy, 'L'Amante e l'Impostore,' which was very successful, and the forerunner of many dramatic pieces. But his claim to notice in a dictionary of music rests on his opera-librettos, in which he was for long the favourite of the Italian composers. For Simone Mayer he wrote 'Medea' (1812), 'La Rosa bianca e la Rosa rossa,' and others; for Rossini, 'Aureliano in Palmira,' and 'Il Turco in Italia'; for Bellini, 'Bianca e Faliero,' 'La Straniera,' 'La Sonnambula,' 'Il Pirata,' 'Norma,' 'I Capuletti,' and 'Beatrice di Tenda'; for Donizetti, 'Lucrezia,' 'Anna Bolena,' 'L'Elisir d'amore,' and 'Parisina'; for Mercadante, 'Il Conte d'Essex'; for Ricci, 'Un Avventura di Scaramuccia'; and many others, in all fully a hundred. As editor for many years of the 'Gazzetta Piemontese,' he was a voluminous writer.

In the latter part of his life he became blind, and was pensioned by government, and spent his last years in his family circle at Moneglia, on the Riviera, where he died full of years and honours, January 28, 1865. [ G. ]

ROMANO, —known under the name of —a composer and performer on the viola, was born at Rome about the year 1530. He was an ecclesiastic, and a member of the order of Monte Oliveto. His published works (according to Fétis) are—two books of Canzoni Napolitane for 5 voices (Venice, 1572 and 1575); a set of motets in 5 parts (Venice, 1579). A 5-part madrigal by him, 'Non pur d'almi splendori,' is published in the 'Libro terzo delle Muse' (Venice, Gardano, 1561). [ P. D. ]

ROMANTIC is a term which, with its antithesis, has been borrowed by music from literature. But so delicate and incorporeal are the qualities of composition which both words describe in their application to music, and so arbitrary has been their use by different writers, that neither word is susceptible of very precise definition. The best guide, however, to the meaning of 'romantic' is supplied by its etymology. The poetic tales of the middle ages, written in the old Romance dialects, were called Romances. In them mythological fables and Christian legends, stories of fairyland, and adventures of Crusaders and other heroes of chivalry, were indiscriminately blended, and the fantastic figures thus brought together moved in a dim atmosphere of mystic gloom and religious ecstasy. These mediæval productions had long been neglected and forgotten even by scholars, when, about the close of the last century, they were again brought into notice by a group of poets, of whom the most notable were the brothers August Wilhelm and Friedrich von Schlegel, Ludwig Tieck, and Friedrich Novalis. They set themselves to rescue the old romances from oblivion, and to revive the spirit of mediæval poetry in modern literature by the example of their own works. Hence they came to be called the Romantic School, and were thus distinguished from writers whose fidelity to rules and models of classic antiquity gave them a claim to the title of Classical.

It was not long before the term Romantic was introduced into musical literature; and it was understood to characterise both the subjects of certain musical works and the spirit in which they were treated. Its antithetical significance to the term Classical still clung to it; and regard to perfection of form being often subordinated by so-called romantic composers to the object of giving free play to the imaginative and emotional parts of our nature, there grew up around the epithet Romantic the notion of a tendency to depart more or less from the severity of purely classical compositions. But, in truth, no clear line divides the romantic from the classical. As we shall endeavour to show, the greatest names of the Classical school display the quality of romanticism in the spirit or expression of some of their works, while, on the other hand, the compositions of the Romantic school are frequently marked by scrupulous adherence to the forms of traditional excellence. Again, as the associations of the word Classical convey the highest meed of praise, works at first pronounced to be romantic establish, by general recognition of their merit, a claim to be considered classical. What is 'romantic' to-day may thus grow, although itself unchanged, to be 'classical' tomorrow. The reader will thus understand why, in Reichardt's opinion, Bach, Handel and Gluck were classical, but Haydn and Mozart romantic; why later critics, in presence of the fuller romanticism of Beethoven, placed Haydn and Mozart among the classical composers; and why Beethoven himself, in his turn, was declared to be classical.

The propriety of applying the term Romantic to operas whose subjects are taken from romantic