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<jats:p>Like nineteenth-century handwriting, Romantic melody consisted of a single unbroken, shaped curviline and was invested with the ability to evoke the ideal, maternal feminine, to evoke deeper images and specific meanings, and to function simultaneously as language and as signifier of infinite meaning. It can be fruitfully compared with stenography, a handwriting-based information technology flourishing in the middle nineteenth century. This article documents the perceived handwriting-like nature of music and the perceived musicality of stenography through writings of E. T. A. Hoffmann, Robert Schumann, Wagner, and the stenographer F. X. Gabelsberger. The perceptual phenomenon of auditory streaming, along with analytical approaches developed by Robert O. Gjerdingen and Eugene Narmour, makes it possible to demonstrate structural similarities between stenography and melody (in examples by Berlioz, Mendelssohn, and Wagner) and to show commonalities between the notion of the "music of the future" and the futuristic aspirations of stenography. In turn, it becomes possible to perform the shapes of handwriting in Romantic melody and hear voices and fantastic visions in those shapes.</jats:p>

<jats:p>In the mid-nineteenth century, materialist and empiricist modes of thought characteristic of natural science increasingly called into question the speculation of German idealist philosophy. Music historians have commonly associated Eduard Hanslick's Vom Musikalisch-Sch&amp;#x9a;nen (On the Musically Beautiful, 1854) with this tendency toward positivism, interpreting the treatise as an argument for musical formalism. His treatise indeed sought to revise idealist musical aesthetics, but in a far less straightforward way. Hanslick devotes considerable attention to the "material" that makes up music and the musical work. The nature of music's materiality is in fact a central pillar of Hanslick's argument, which draws on the abundant literature of the 1840s and 50s promoting scientific materialism and on what might be described as an Aristotelian conception of matter. Hanslick's goal, however, was not to deny idealism, but rather to negotiate a middle ground between idealism and materialism, thereby reconciling a prevailing conception of music's metaphysical status with the physical properties of matter. This is most clearly observed in his carefully crafted conception of the musical "tone," which unites the inner world of thought and the external world of nature. Hanslick's somewhat ironic use of a materialist framework to demonstrate music's inherent ideality betrayed a desire not only to attune musical aesthetics with the latest materialist theories, but also to preserve art music's exclusivity. On the Musically Beautiful is perhaps best understood not as an unequivocal case for formalism but as evidence of the complex ways in which mid-century tensions between idealism and materialism informed German musical discourse.</jats:p>

<jats:p>The early-music revival provoked much heated debate in the second half of the nineteenth century. The leading scholars of the era, Philipp Spitta and Friedrich Chrysander were keen to encourage performances and editions of early music that presented it in the spirit in which it was conceived. This approach met with vociferous opposition from Robert Franz and his supporters, who embraced a Darwinian aesthetic. Although committed to reviving the past, Franz believed that the tastes of nineteenth-century listeners had become too sophisticated to enjoy early music in its original state and modernized it accordingly. The source of the most heated debates was the issue of continuo realization, a topic in which Brahms, through his performing and arranging activities, had a vested interest. Franz, who dismissed the musicologists as artistic philistines, found a difficult adversary in Brahms. Brahms's scholarly inclinations have been well documented, and predictably, his approach to reviving Baroque music reflected a high level of historical awareness. He was, however, first and foremost a creative musician, and as a consequence, aesthetic issues were paramount in his performances and publications. Considerable tensions arose between Franz, and Brahms, and Chrysander, which are explored here in relation to the latter's editions of Handel's Italian duets and trios. The difficulties surrounding continuo practice were not confined to opposition from Franz; even among musicologists there was much disagreement about how the music should be performed. Brahms's approach to continuo realization is considered in this context.</jats:p>

<jats:p>On 13 May 1871 Auber died. His passing was blamed on the horrors of the Franco-Prussian War, Siege and Commune, and provided a powerful symbol of the end of an era. Indeed, the idea that the debacle of 1870-71 caused a rupture in French music, one embodied in Auber's death, continues to influence music histories; political events are thought to mark a clear turning point away from the operettas of the Second Empire to the more serious works associated with the Third Republic. This notion of a turning point has much to recommend it, but the accepted history may ultimately be better viewed as an example of an apocalyptic narrative; after the event, the infamous frivolity of Napoleon III's era was seen to have led, inexorably, to defeat in the War, and to steep cultural change. I argue that this narrative was retrospectively constructed by contemporary music critics dissatisfied with existing French musical culture. The siege, the Commune, and the "timely" death of Auber were used as a means of bolstering demands for change: if the nation were to recover, she would have to change her ways, musical and otherwise. This constructed narrative obscures the picture suggested by primary sources; that not only had changes begun before the war, but that light-hearted forms continued to flourish afterward. It is clearly a narrative in need of historical revision.</jats:p>

<jats:p>Perhaps more than any of his contemporaries in turn-of-the-century France, the composer Vincent d'Indy fashioned an identity based on opposition. Understanding the dynamic of oppositional politics, he defined himself, his music, and the music school he directed, the Schola Cantorum, through difference. This has led both his successors and his critics up through the present to associate him with defiant ultra-conservatism. However, d'Indy was also a man of alliances, alliances that served the composer and the state well. In "Deconstructing d'Indy," I throw into question the attitudes that have accumulated about him and suggest a more nuanced view of the man and his politics based on his practices, particularly before 1900. I show how he allowed government officials to use his difference to help them combat monopolies and bridge conflict with the Republic. The article argues that in misconstruing the nature and function of political differences in France and their relationship to reputation-building strategies, we risk substituting ideology and our own projections of its meaning for a composer's identity and importance in his or her times.</jats:p>