Pantera - Hard Lines, Sunken Cheeks

With Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven began a new reckoning in music, coinciding with the historical period, marked by great upheavals in other areas of life. The era of absolutism and unlimited domination of the princes was ending, throughout Europe, under the influence of the ideas of the Enlightenment, new thinking was gaining strength, casting doubt on the old order. Philosophers, scholars and artists called for religious tolerance and equality before the law, insisted on the constitutional restriction of monarchical power and advocated the separation of the church from the state. These demands led to the 1789 revolution in France, and in Austria to relatively soft reforms “from above” during the reign of Emperor Joseph II.