This book deals with musical creation in one of the most fertile and popular periods in its history, which goes from the Congress of Vienna in 1815 to the emergence of modernity in the nineties of the century. Throughout his chapters, the author traces a complex network of relationships involving composers, performers, publishers, oral traditions, the public (or better, the public), cities and nations.

Among the themes to which he devotes special attention are the involvement of the middle class in the musical realm, the rich but elusive concept of Romanticism, the cult of interpretive virtuosity, and the constantly changing balance between musical and commercial interests. All this highlights, in the face of reductionist and simplifying visions, the polyhedral nature and the richness of analysis of a time without which we could not understand the way in which we today conceive the practice and consumption of music.