GRMUS H635 — Late Style and Early Romanticism: Beethoven and Schubert

An examination of the notion of late style that emerged with early Romanticism, focusing on the music that Beethoven and Schubert wrote after the Congress of Vienna in 1815. We will listen to and study the influential works that Beethoven and Schubert wrote in their final years—such as their late piano sonatas, symphonies, and string quartets—as a way to discuss seminal intersections between late style, musical aesthetics, and historical context. In doing so, the course will underscore how early Romantic thought entailed a critique of modernity that located in musical experience the possibility of overcoming artificial divides between self and Nature, exacerbated by the Industrial Revolution. Topics will include the opposition between Classicism and Romanticism, disability and illness, distinctions between the beautiful and the sublime, changes in the patronage system, the growth of the middle class, and the music-publishing market, as well as the history of performance and listening practices in both public and domestic settings.