Prologue. An unlikely genre : the rise of the symphony
Listening with imagination : the revolution in aesthetics. From Kant to Hoffmann ; Idealism and the changing perception of perception ; Idealism and the new aesthetics of listening
Listening as thinking : from rhetoric to philosophy. Listening in a rhetorical framework ; Listening in a philosophical framework ; Art as philosophy
Listening to truth : Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. The infinite sublime ; History as knowing ; The synthesis of conscious and unconscious ; Organic coherence ; Beyond the sublime
Listening to the aesthetic state : cosmopolitanism. The communal voice of the symphony ; The imperatives of individual and social synthesis ; The state as organism ; Schiller's idea of the aesthetic state ; Goethe's pedagogical province
Listening to the German State : nationalism. German nationalism ; The symphony as a 'German' genre ; The performance politics of the music festival ; The symphony as democracy
Epilogue. Listening to form : the refuge of absolute music.