<Li> <P> Felix Mendelssohn, 1839 </P> </Li> <P> Felix Mendelssohn, 1839 </P> <P> In the contemporary music culture, the romantic musician followed a public career depending on sensitive middle - class audiences rather than on a courtly patron, as had been the case with earlier musicians and composers . Public persona characterized a new generation of virtuosi who made their way as soloists, epitomized in the concert tours of Paganini and Liszt, and the conductor began to emerge as an important figure, on whose skill the interpretation of the increasingly complex music depended . </P> <P> The Romantic movement affected most aspects of intellectual life, and Romanticism and science had a powerful connection, especially in the period 1800--40 . Many scientists were influenced by versions of the Naturphilosophie of Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and others, and without abandoning empiricism, sought in their work to uncover what they tended to believe was a unified and organic Nature . The English scientist Sir Humphry Davy, a prominent Romantic thinker, said that understanding nature required "an attitude of admiration, love and worship, (...) a personal response ." He believed that knowledge was only attainable by those who truly appreciated and respected nature . Self - understanding was an important aspect of Romanticism . It had less to do with proving that man was capable of understanding nature (through his budding intellect) and therefore controlling it, and more to do with the emotional appeal of connecting himself with nature and understanding it through a harmonious co-existence . </P>

Who has been referred to as the high priest of romanticism