Essay Archive - The Ideals of Instrumental Music
The Ideals of Instrumental Music
At one point in the study of the Romantic period of music, we come upon
the first of several apparently opposing conditions that plague all attempts to
grasp the meaning of Romantic as applied to the music of the 19th century. This
opposition involved the relation between music and words. If instrumental
music is the perfect Romantic art, why is it acknowledged that the great masters
of the symphony, the highest form of instrumental music, were not Romantic
composers, but were the Classical composers, Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven?
Moreover, one of the most characteristic ....
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