Romantic 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 19th century genres was the Lied, a vocal piece in
which Shubert, Schumann, Brahams, and Wolf attained a new union between music and
poetry. Furthermore, a large number of leading composers in the 19th century
were extremely interested and articulate in literary expression, and leading
Romantic novelists and poets wrote about music with deep love and insight.
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