 Two related questions may be asked with regard to imitation in music. The first is whether music may imitate extra-musical objects, and what value this imitation may have. The second concerns the role of such imitation in the musical expression of emotions. Over the course of the eighteenth century, answers to both questions were characterized by a growing skepticism toward imitation (see Lippman 1992: chapter 6). The gradual rise of instrumental music was certainly partly responsible for this change in attitude. Its increasing formal, melodic, and harmonic complexity made it less plausible to argue that it imitated the speaking voice, and yet this complexity only heightened music’s power to express and arouse the emotions.