Haben die Deutschen einen Nationalcharakter in ihrer Music, und worinn besteht er?” (Do the Germans have a national character in their music, and if they do, what is it?). This is the question posed in 1783 Haben die Deutschen by Carl Friedrich Cramer in his Magazin der Musik; it was almost certainly alive in the minds of many of his contemporaries. In the early years of the eighteenth century musical culture in the German-speaking areas had already begun defining itself in contradistinction to still powerful influences from abroad, particularly from Italy (although these influences, as we shall see, remained important throughout the century). German and Austrian music lovers were already justly proud of their sacred music, produced by such distinguished composers as Dietrich Buxtehude (1637–1707) in northern Germany and Johann Josef Fux (1660–1741) in Vienna. They would soon become aware of the name of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750), who from 1708 was establishing his reputation as chamber musician and organist to the Duke of Saxe-Weimar, before moving in 1723 to his famous post as director of music for Leipzig. But the development of a secular musical culture, too, already well under way in the seventeenth century, and continued through the eighteenth. Particularly in the northern German states, Germanlanguage opera was emerging; by 1705, George Frederic Handel (1685– 1759) had written his first opera score for Hamburg. Other great names in music history would emerge, including Josef Haydn (1732–1809), Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–91), and Ludwig van Beethoven (1770– 1827).

A notable feature of the eighteenth century (and one that again has its roots in the seventeenth) is the democratization of musical culture. The consumption of music as a secular pastime shifted from being a privilege enjoyed almost exclusively by those at court to a commodity available to the urban bourgeoisie, in concert halls and civic operas. Thanks to the development of fully written-out notation for new instruments, such as the fortepiano, music moved into the homes of amateurs, and was no longer reserved for professionals who could master the old-style improvised continuo. The Germanspeaking middle classes had a strong sense of national identity, and their appropriation of musical culture in the course of the century helped further the sense of a developing “Germanness” in their national music.