ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that ETA. Hoffmann's metaphysical commitments are more modest than a first glance at 'Beethoven's Instrumentalmusik'. It focuses on some representative metaphysical interpretations of Ludwig van 'Beethoven's Instrumentalmusik', arguing that these readings are vitiated by a reliance on external resources at the expense of the essay's immediate context within Hoffmann's Kreisleriana. 'Beethoven's Instrumentalmusik' can be approached externally, through his intellectual context. Abigail Chantler and Mark Evan Bonds both favour this approach; although they differ concerning which figures they take to be important for Hoffmann. Moreover, Wackenroder and Hoffmann both emphasise the role of feeling in musical experience. In holding that the musical expression of nature depends upon music's exploitation of sound qua an essential possibility of nature, David Charlton's position requires that the matter of music be identical with sound. Hoffmann denies this, claiming that tones 'reside only in the breast of humanity'.
