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The acquisition of performing skill was continued by the hegemony of the singing class in British music education throughout the nineteenth century. Greater emphasis began to be placed on the study of musical literature rather than simply on class singing combined with the increase in the number of professional and amateur concerts.

Russia's efforts to invent a nation-state are analyzed. Independence created the need to define a new national ideology that combined both old traditions and new ideas. However, this process spurred debates over what old and new ideas to bring into the mix. Adding to the fray were factors such as post-imperial trauma, the influence of fragmented imperial institutions and struggles of ethnic Russians to adjust to their new environment.

George Sand's eleventh 'Lettre d'un voyageur' to Giacomo Meyerbeer (1836) represents a Romantic view of religion and art. The 'Lettres d'un voyager' are a series of twelve articles that use the letter form to address a general readership on a broad range of contemporary issues. The letter to Meyerbeer criticizes Meyerbeer's music, but also attacks both atheism and the Catholic Church. Sand's main criticisms of Meyerbeer concern his sacrifice of artistic integrity to convention, his empty virtuosity and the quality of the librettos selected for his operas. Sand also criticizes religious persecution of the Protestants for political ends., George Sand's Lettres d'un voyageur consist of twelve articles in letter form written between March 1834 and November 1836 and published, with the exception of Letter Twelve which appeared in [...]

George Sand's 'Lettres d'un voyageur,' addressed to the composer Giacomo Meyerbeer between 1834-1836, records her attitudes towards contemporary music, religion and the arts. Sand challenged Catholicism and lamented the atheism of the day. She criticized the fashions of her age through Meyerbeer whom she accused of compromising artistic integrity to satisfy the audience. Sand perceives an instructive role for art and art criticism and believes that music has to idealistically represent reality to inspire emotion. She objected to the empty virtuosity of Meyerbeer's opera 'Les Huguenots.'

Arnold Schoenberg was excessively criticized by William Thomson in the book 'Schoenberg's Error.' Thomson failed to recognize the historical context of Schoenberg's approach to tonality, and his subsequent abandonment of tradition to make a new system. However, the book does have valuable insights into modal theory, tonal theory, the psychology of perception and the history of ideas. These insights are digressions from the main theme of condemnation of Schoenberg.

Arnold Schoenberg's second string quartet uses foreground motif in its first movement to fix its structure of form and tonality. He chose a sonata form for the piece, possibly to support traditional composition techniques. However, Schoenberg uses thematic restatements instead of tonal designs to articulate the form. This differs from the traditional theory of sonata form.

By George Perle. New York: Pendragon Press, 1995. [xiii, 68 p. ISBN 0-945193-65-3. £24.] In the preface to his monograph on Alban Berg's Lyric Suite (1926), George Perle documents his [...]