Musical Realism?!?!?!?!

    

    Movements in the arts have always influenced one another, each cultural movement sending ripples felt in a variety of fields such as art, music, literature, and architecture. But curiously enough, there is no realism period in music. There’s the Romantic era, which comes before, and the Modernist era, which comes after, but no Realism (technically there’s verismo but that’s only opera). Romanticism in music extends from the early 1800s all the way to the early 1900s, where eventually it falls off in response to Modernism’s popularity. It’s not possible to say that music was simply not affected by the realism movement, because every single other movement, Baroque, classical and Romantic, were all influenced by movements in literature (they were probably actually more influenced by art but I’m trying to make a point here): the Baroque movement inspired the likes of Johann Sebastian Bach and Antonio Vivaldi, the Neoclassical/Enlightenment period influenced famous Classical composers like Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Ludwig van Beethoven, and the Romanticism movement inspired Frederic Chopin, Pyotr Tchaikovsky, and Camille Saint-Saens. So why did the Romanticism era in music (1800s-1910s) ignore the realism era in literature (1850s-1900s) and proceed to dominate all through the 19th century? 

To understand realism, which was popularized by a rejection of romanticism, we need to first understand romanticism. Romanticism places heavy emphasis on emotion and individualism as well as the past and nature. Many works by Emily Dickinson, Victor Hugo, and Henry David Thoreau reflected these ideals. In music, romantic composers looked to create individualistic music that often was inspired by nature, literature, or poetry. Antonio Dvorak composed symphonic poems like The Water Goblin, The Noon Witch, and The Golden Spinning Wheel, based on Czech poems of similar names. In these pieces, Dvorak mimics natural elements such as flowing water with glamorous short trills, galloping horses with bouncing arpeggios, and the ominous life underwater with a switch of key from major to minor. And he’s not the only composer to do so. Sergei Rachmaninoff mimics the sounds of bells with an ominous C-sharp cadence in his famous Prelude in C-sharp minor (more commonly known as the Bells of Moscow). Alkan does the same in etude Aesop’s Feast, mimicking animal noises like the mooing of oxen in the 11th variation or the barking of hounds in the 22nd variation. Romantic composers mimic realistic elements to evoke individualistic and emotional narratives. The trills in The Water Goblin create the image of flowing water, allowing listeners to imagine the depths of the lake that the mischievous water goblin crawls out of. The ominous cadence in Rachmaninoff's Prelude is repeated throughout the piece, reminding the audience of the grand and cold might of Moscow. And Alkan’s use of multiple grace notes to mimic the barking of dogs as well as giant leaps to mimic the calling of birds brings to mind many of the animals used in Aesop’s fables. These techniques are perhaps the closest to realism that music can get to, as much of music is inspired by sounds heard around us. In fact, many of these pieces were composed are considered late Romanticism, which was definitely in part influenced by the realism movements in both literature and art.  

Barking of the dogs in the 22nd variation of Alkan's Aesop's Feast etude

    So while realism was not officially an era in musical history, it didn’t need to be. Musicians have been mimicking realistic elements in their pieces for centuries. The rise of the Romantic era only cemented this practice in stone, and in modern music, many composers combine techniques such as repeating patterns, tremolos, and scales to mimic the world around us. When I listen to music, I’ll often compose images that are influenced by the music that I’m listening to, and imagining octaves and scales as elements of the world around me allow me to enjoy and relish in the music made so long ago, yet still able to influence me, centuries later.

It's probably more naturalism if you look at just literature and music because they're mimicking natural sounds but realism is more of an art and literature movement so I just said realism