Carl Dahlhaus here treats Nietzsche's youthful analysis of the contradictions in Wagner's doctrine (and, more generally, in romantic musical aesthetics); the question of periodicization in romantic and neo-romantic music; the underlying kinship between Brahms's and Wagner's responses to the central musical problems of their time; and the true significance of musical nationalism. Included in this volume is Walter Kauffman's translation of the previously unpublished fragment, "On Music and Words," by the young Nietzsche.

Until his death in March, 1989, Carl Dahlhaus was Professor of Music at the Technische Universität in Berlin and general editor of the complete edition of Wagner's works. He is the author of Nineteenth-Century Music (California, 1989).

"Few writers succeed in the elusive pursuit of describing music as a cultural phenomenon. Carl Dahlhaus is one of these. His works dealing with the social and cultural aspects of music in the nineteenth century are exemplary specimens of cultural history. His four studies contained in the present volume are united by a common theme. He describes how certain composers of the late nineteenth century are related to that century's idealization of the individual artist as creator and hero."—Conrad L. Donakowski, Queen's Quarterly

"[Between Romanticism and Modernism] is more comprehensive in scope than its modest size and essayistic style disclose at first sight; while on the vexed question of historical method it makes, both in theory and in practice, a pronouncement of policy that goes beyond the confines of belles-lettres. . . . In themselves, the topics he broaches are the concern of any literate musician; but the familiar terrain is surveyed as if for the first time, and every turn reveals original perspectives."—Roger Hollinrake, Music and Letters