subtle changes in traditional composition direction foreshadowed ever-increasing tendencies toward German nationalistic ideas in music. As Henry Raynor puts it, "the Napoleonic invasions which turned Beethoven from a simple revolutionary into a patriotic Austrian revolutionary seem to have made him feel that his own language was a perfectly satisfactory way of telling pianists how he wanted his music played." These early feelings of nationalism, if not just for Beethoven, stemmed from the years of unity under the auspices of Napoleon's Empire, which gave a considerable portion of central Europe reason to realize their collective similarities. This large area shared a common language and historical legacy. Traditions were similar as were aspirations. Indeed, "the complex that was to become the German Empire presented a more or less homogeneous state, united by language and culture but forced by political organization into political disunity" Nonetheless, the idea of German unity had surfaced years earlier, long before the revolutionary borders of Central Europe were rationalized by Napoleon and before Beethoven's use of German vocabulary for instruction in his music. The prominent German Enlightenment thinkers Johann Gottfried Herder and Johann Gottlieb Fichte had espoused that nationalism in Germany was found in the unity of culture and not in the political situation of the region. Herder though that if the German-speaking world obtained a unity of culture and education, political unity would follow. More importantly, it was the personality of the German people or Volk and their awareness of a common culture that would create the less vital political unity. Herder was concerned with the cultural character exclusively in his nationalism. Also, his brand of philosophical nationalism was applicable to others, and not exclusively Germans. Somewhat conversely, Fichte believed that a nation was not merely the combination of peo...
