Mapman, Your question "What changed" is a great question, but change didn't occur abruptly at the end of the 19th century as an unprecedented phenomenon. Change, even change in music, is relentless.
The audience changed, beginning in the late 18th century, shifting from the clergy and the nobility to increasingly include the merchant class. The venue changed from the elector's palace to the city's music hall. The practice of one performance per piece changed to one where the major composers had their works published, printed, and widely distributed. The works enjoyed multiple performances across Europe. LvB's 3rd symphony was worlds apart from Haydn's 10th not just in in structure, scope, and content, but also in terms of its receiving audience. Haydn's early symphonies could afford to be more formulaic than LvB's. Beethoven also had music critics to deal with. LvB had to do something new with each subsequent symphony. With the turn of the 20th century, this pressure became that much more pronounced as recorded and broadcasted music came on the scene.
Music had to change, and the change had to accelerate and become more radical. Stravinsky was going to go nowhere if he produced a 4 movement symphony in the style of Brahms.
It could be argued that the rate of change has accelerated. The baroque period is generally recognized as lasting 150 years. Bach continued producing Baroque works 25 years after everyone else had stopped. There were a few guys who continued to write romantic pieces into the 20th century. Not many people would recognize their names, apart from Richard Strauss and Rachmaninov, perhaps.
Another question is why was the change not as monolithic as it was at other periods? The passing of the romantic genre was not followed by emergence of a single predominant new genre. I suspect that this is because Mahler, Brahms, Dvorak etc were hard acts to follow. Their music was the end of a road. The road did not extend.
Now is the time to call in Frogman for an expert opinion.
The audience changed, beginning in the late 18th century, shifting from the clergy and the nobility to increasingly include the merchant class. The venue changed from the elector's palace to the city's music hall. The practice of one performance per piece changed to one where the major composers had their works published, printed, and widely distributed. The works enjoyed multiple performances across Europe. LvB's 3rd symphony was worlds apart from Haydn's 10th not just in in structure, scope, and content, but also in terms of its receiving audience. Haydn's early symphonies could afford to be more formulaic than LvB's. Beethoven also had music critics to deal with. LvB had to do something new with each subsequent symphony. With the turn of the 20th century, this pressure became that much more pronounced as recorded and broadcasted music came on the scene.
Music had to change, and the change had to accelerate and become more radical. Stravinsky was going to go nowhere if he produced a 4 movement symphony in the style of Brahms.
It could be argued that the rate of change has accelerated. The baroque period is generally recognized as lasting 150 years. Bach continued producing Baroque works 25 years after everyone else had stopped. There were a few guys who continued to write romantic pieces into the 20th century. Not many people would recognize their names, apart from Richard Strauss and Rachmaninov, perhaps.
Another question is why was the change not as monolithic as it was at other periods? The passing of the romantic genre was not followed by emergence of a single predominant new genre. I suspect that this is because Mahler, Brahms, Dvorak etc were hard acts to follow. Their music was the end of a road. The road did not extend.
Now is the time to call in Frogman for an expert opinion.
