(The Arts)
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? …
