2 - Grand style and sublime in eighteenth-century aesthetics

Summary

The symphony occupied a prominent position in late-eighteenth-century discussions of aesthetics, genre, and form, for reasons that are not hard to discern. First, as we have seen, it had an inevitable part in musical life of the period, whether in concerts, in operas and oratorios, or in music performed in churches. Because the symphony had so many purposes, venues, and formal arrangements, critics and theorists could address a variety of rewarding subjects. Second, its “something-for-everyone” approach to instrumentation did not elicit the endless debates over the propriety of virtuosity that clouded the critical reception of concertos and soloists. And finally, it came to occupy a position both grand and normative, by virtue of its scoring, its prominent mood-setting placement as the first (and often last) music heard, and its role in establishing and keeping before the public certain formal principles that could generate and then either satisfy or surprise audience expectations.

Symphony and elevated style

A significant discussion of the symphony from the early 1770s should put some of these assertions into perspective. J. A. P. Schulz, who wrote many of the music entries in Sulzer's influential encyclopedia General Theory of the Fine Arts, described the symphony this way:

The symphony is excellently suited for the expression of the grand, the festive, and the sublime. Its purpose is to prepare the listeners for an important musical work, or in a chamber concert to summon up all the splendor of instrumental music. […]