Abstract

This book discusses important changes in attitudes toward music as seen in the writings of British and German philosophers, journalists, and musicians. Selecting four major aesthetic issues (the affections, imitation of nature, taste, and the imagination), Boomgaarden shows that the continuity of Eighteenth-Century musical thought defies any attempt to place the shift in musical style from Baroque to Classical at 1750--a shift which had actually begun long before. Significant and previously unknown interrelationships between writers in the two countries are also documented. The study is a significant contribution to women's, religious, and art history.