 At the end of the eighteenth century, a new aesthetic sensibility emerges in Europe. The imitation of nature loses ground to new values such as the expression of feelings and the autonomy of art. No longer confined to the imitation of the sensible world, art is conceived as a way to attain knowledge of a transcendent reality. This shift in attitude is of paramount importance for the position of music among the arts. If the eighteenth century had struggled to fit the growing instrumental repertoire into the clothes of imitation, the Romantics proclaimed music’s superiority precisely in virtue of its absolute nature. And while the early modern period had occasionally touted the pleasures of listening, the Romantics raised the bar, stressing that music’s value is not primarily hedonic, but rather cognitive.