Virtuosity of the Nineteenth Century: Performing Music and Language in Heine, Liszt, and Baudelaire

A study of the reflexive relationship between music and language in the nineteenth century, this book maintains a discrete historical focus while drawing upon an aesthetic going back to problems of epic delivery in ancient Greece. Reading Romantic reactions to music together with linguistic and economic conflicts brought about by the rise of journalism, the book pursues the tension around performativity that both connects and separates music and writing.

Franz Liszt is the organizing figure...