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Nationalism was born in 1860, because of the interest in the culture of towns, inside the Romantic period. There’s a romantic feeling joined to the diverse political tendencies. Composers of different countries feel the necessity of expressing themselves with music of their own tradition. They try not to be under the influence of German and Italian music.
Nationalistic music appears around 1850 in broad Romanticism, and it coincides with political movements of European countries that claim their historical personality and changes that allow a major equality among the social classes..This movement is specially important in those countries without a lot of weight in their artistic development.
Nationalism uses harmony, cadences, melodies, rhythms, scales, timbres and so on, that belong to the nation of each composer, and they are used by artistic music.Some composers are influenced by legends, architectonic monuments, literary plays, pictorical motives, landscapes of their native land. In this way, the symphonic poem was consolidated during the 19th century. It’s formed by only one movement of the symphonic orchestra, but there are more small pieces by the piano or small instrumental groups with the same characteristics.
The last nationalisms have been connected with the artistic movements since 1950, and they evolve according to the political and social circumstances of each nation.
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