Introduces the main argument, that much about the instrumental music of the later eighteenth century can be grasped with reference to the concept of sociability. The concept is defined and placed alongside other rubrics such as expression, language and behaviour. Sociability is separated into affective and technical spheres. Haydn, a market leader both critically and commercially, is the central figure for the study. The modern reception of later eighteenth-century style is discussed with particular reference to Haydn and Mozart, noting the critical tendency to occupy a moral high ground above the image of a ‘shallow sociability’, and concluding with the challenge ‘When else … in Western music history has a whole style been so often understood negatively, as a problem in need of a solution?’. Then I investigate the listener-friendliness of the style: the pronounced orientation of this music towards a listening subject was historically novel. This music both challenges listeners and puts them at their ease.

Two case studies, one broad and one more specific, feature in this chapter. The pastoral is more than a musical topic; it is an encompassing orientation that intersects with the taste for reduction that I considered in Chapter 3 and those elements of affective sociability mentioned in Chapter 4. Indeed, the galant style altogether could be said to have aspired to the condition of the pastoral. As well as continuing the traditional idyllic pastoral representations, our style also introduces a more vigorous brand of folk imagery. The tempo di menuetto finale, a neglected movement type, can be understood as a countergeneric construct, increasingly written in pointed contrast to the fast final movement of instrumental works. It helps us to unlock some of the neglected aspects of the style altogether by modelling an intimate sensibility, full of feeling but disciplined by a minuet gait that promotes continuity of motion. With its undemonstrative depth, it provides some clue as to what has been missing or misunderstood in the reception of musical sociability.