"This book may well become the next big statement on nineteenth-century music as a cultural phenomenon. Many will argue with it and, indeed, argue passionately--this is, after all, the proverbial problem that arises when one brings up religion and politics!--but that is precisely what is wanted and valued now. Moreover, it is not only accessible but will be vastly rewarding to music scholars, general and cultural historians, cultural theorists, and even many people who would simply describe themselves as music lovers."--Scott Burnham, Princeton University"This book provides original and startlingly creative contexts for the canonical musical figures that form its focus. For instance, the juxtaposition of Mozart and Rousseau as parallel voices in the development of a new kind of subjectivity yields brilliant insights, as does the linking of Beethoven, Goethe, and Schiller in the formulation of the 'genius as hero.' Perhaps the most suggestive of the author's depictions is of Wagner, whose cultural trajectory is read against Max Weber's "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism." Steinberg writes from the dual perspective of the cultural historian and the cultural critic, and much of the freshness and polemical vigor of the book comes from this unusual combination."--Mary Gluck, Brown University
