Speaking of Romanticism is a difficult task, not because of the large number of ideas that broke into the most convulsive moment of all musical history, when classic forms begin to remain small in front of the new ideals of freedom and creativity soak the paper laid down of the great names of universal music of this time, but precisely because of the characters that came into play from different points of view and with different roles. The best way to get closer to Romanticism musical Beethoven continues with Brahms, and this is opposed to Listz, whose daughter Cosima was married to the great director Hans von Bülow and then leave for another great figure of the nineteenth century: Richard Wagner. With the above, anyone can get an idea of ​​what it means, simply at the level of dates and names, the maelstrom that was the nineteenth century musical, from the premiere of the first symphony of Beethoven in 1800 to the "divergent currents of the end of the century "As Plantinga calls in the book, going through post-romanticism, Tristan chord, nationalist music, etc. Too much to order and work so that the reader can understand the discourse and make it his own when drawing conclusions. However, things get more complicated when adding new ways of composing, the importance of programmatic music, symphonic poems, lied and all the musical theory that derives from it. Well, all this and much more we will find perfectly structured and ordered is the volume that concerns us. The work is divided into 12 chapters, plus a bibliography of 20 pages and an index of names arranged alphabetically to facilitate possible searches. More than 100 illustrations adorn the text, from portraits to orchestral passages that serve to sustain the explanation, becoming one more tool to develop the author's discourse. The translation of Celsa Alonso has been very successful as the reading becomes enjoyable and does not fall into errors of the unknown to the jargon of musical theory. This aspect is important, because the work is a whole treatise that gives precise explanations analyzing scores, linking this point with the historical context of the time and composer of the work to be treated. So we have a fantastic manual that, while it may pass for informative in some pages, does not allow any layman without prior knowledge of music can approach the text and understand it in its entirety. Finally, and finishing already, I think we should mention the edition of the text, in this case in paperback with soft covers and soft paper, which is normal in this type of work. More than 500 pages of this book that AKAL gives us after thirty years - the original in English is from 1984 - being a reference on romantic music in North America. A great work that is reprinted in Spanish for the enjoyment of all Spanish speakers who love the subject.