ness and
obscurity, on the whole (as Goethe says of romantic literature) "a
wider and more varied subject matter and a freer form has been
attained." The chief aim of romantic art being to arouse the
imagination, we find a predilection for the use of solo wood-wind
instruments, which are capable of such warmth and variety of
tone-color. Whereas in the classical masters, and even generally in
Beethoven, the melodies are likely to be the upper voice of a harmonic
mass, or assigned to groups of instruments, Weber and Schubert in
particular showed the eloquence to be gained by the use of such
warm-blooded _solo_ instruments as the horn, the oboe and the
clarinet. Schubert fairly conjures with the horn, often holding us
spellbound with its haunting appeal, _e.g._, in the well-known second
movement of the C major Symphony, the calls of which, as Schumann
said, "seem to come from another world." Schubert was anything but a
thinker, and reflected unconsciously the tendencies which were in the
air; but his wonderful gift of lyric melody was thoroughly in keeping
with the individual expression for which Romanticism stood. He said
himself that his compositions were the direct result of his inmost
sorrows. He was steeped in romantic poetry and the glowing fancy in
his best work leads us to condone the occasional prolixity referred to
by Schumann as "heavenly length." Schubert was well named by Liszt the
most poetic of musicians, _i.e._, a creator of pure beauty which
enthralls the imagination of the hearer. Why expect the work of any
one composer to manifest all possible merits? If we crave dynamic
power of emotion or sublimity of thought we may have recourse to Bach
and Beethoven; but the spontaneous charm of Schubert never grows old;
and it is not without interest to note that his music fulfils the
definition of one of the most poetic composers of our time, Debussy,
who claims that music is chiefly meant "to give pleasure."

We note these same tendencies in Weber as shown in the overtures to
his three Romantic operas, _Der Freischuetz_, _Euryanthe_ and _Oberon_,
which are the foundations of the modern art of dramatic orchestration,
_i.e._, the intensification of certain ideas and situations by the
special tone color and register of solo-instruments or by a novel use
of customary means, _e.g._, the divided violins in the mysterious
passage of the _Euryanthe_ overture. Another favorite means of
arresting the attention was by modul