Starting from the supposition that intellectual developments shape musical life and culture, this course surveys philosophical, aesthetic, and political debates waged during the second half of the eighteenth century in an attempt to understand how the "Enlightenment" informed and shaped musical expression. How did music participate in intellectual and ideological life? How did ideas circulating in the 18th century take shape musically? What premises did both composers and philosophers share? How were rationalism, religious tolerance, abolitionism, liberalism, revolutionary movements, entrepreneurism, geographical expansion, travel and exploration, sociability, the nascent women’s movement, and other markers of change and social mobility manifested musically? In short, how did musical creators, users, listeners, and interpreters become enlightened?