Eighteenth Century Enlightenment

Nineteenth Century Romanticism

Music is an expression of balance and reason.

Music expresses the three “E’s”: emotion, enthusiasm, ecstasy.

Music is a rational and highly structured art.

Music is a spiritual, sublime, and inexplicable experience.

Music is a social experience.

Music is an individual revelation.

Music teaches us about this world.

Music teaches us about “other” worlds.

Music and musicians may appear as ordinary features and characters within a novel.

Musicians appear as fantastic literary characters, tossed about by unpredictable power of creativity.

Instruments are seen as physically beautiful: harpsichords are inlaid with mother-of-pearl; the insides of the lids are beautifully decorated; a gold flute is a status symbol.

Physical instruments represent the wretched limitations of music making: mere wood, strings, and wire – necessary, but not satisfactory for the sublime music composers want to write.

High melodies are emphasized, especially soprano and castrati.

Alto, baritone, and bass registers are “discovered” and exploited by composers.

Instruments that play in high registers are celebrated – flutes, oboe, trumpets, violins, plus the crispness and brilliance of the harpsichord.

Sustaining or “endless” instruments (not limited by breath) are preferred: piano, horns and low brass, viola, cello, bass, English horn, bassoon.