ies found little more than elegance and beauty in Mozart's instrumental works. Spohr and his contemporaries found little in the latter works of Beethoven that was easily enjoyable. Additionally, German musicians felt that because their music was superior, if only their minds, that they had already mastered the music of other nations. The incomprehension witnessed in France by Wagner was not simply the foreignness of a different musical language. Rather, it was the feeling that the Germans just thought in music more deeply than the musicians of other nations felt it necessary to do so. This is significant for a time when music, more than any other medium, was the outlet and central unifying force of a people not united politically.The nineteenth century saw many more changes than the move from international to national music. The examples used here of Germany are but a small fraction of this phenomenon that occurred in the nations of all Europe during the century. Italy had its music nationalism, as did Hungary, Russia, and others. All of these nations had their own unique sets of circumstances and interesting composers. Other areas of music witnessed dramatic changes that can be traced to the spark of nationalism.Just as there were numerous experiments in politics across the continent, so to was there experimentation and innovation in music during the century. The employment of new harmonic structure and rhythmic techniques to give orchestral music greater color and intensity was one of the greatest of these. New instruments were added and older ones were redesigned to make them more sonorous and flexible. Also, different combinations of instruments were used to create new orchestral sounds. What's more, the cultural and political nationalism of the century created the political and cultural environment (in a broad and general sense) of the twentieth century. The nineteenth century created the musical environment in which t...
