Since the main artistic value in the Romantic era was the integrity of personal feeling, every genuine artist was expected to have a personal style. Many artists carried this very far, cultivating styles that were highly personal and even eccentric. Furthermore, Romanticism’s constant striving after ever-new kinds of expression put a premium on innovation; this could be seen as an exciting breaking down of artistic barriers on the one hand, and as a heroic personal breakthrough on the other. Consequently it is harder to define the Romantic style in general than to spot innovations, novelties, and individual peculiarities.

Nevertheless, nineteenth-century composers were united by some common interests: technical considerations concerning melody, harmony, rhythmic freedom, tone color, and, perhaps especially, musical form. But it is important to remember that one such common interest was to sound different from everybody else.