Every original genius in music, then, has something to alter existing forms. Why? Because he could not say exactly what he wished in the forms as he found them. Classicism, in its old sense always resisted just such movements. Original geniuses are not numerous. One makes or changes a form. The mechanical workers (often mistaken for geniuses) take the forms left by the geniuses and use them. The impression spreads that the form is the essential thing, and he who does not strictly adhere to it is condemned. An era of formalism usually follows any great improvement made in form by an original mind. This continues till another original mind makes a new departure, which is accomplished always in the face of opposition. This opposition is not wholly wrong, for it must be proved that a man is a genius before it can be admitted that he has a right to offer a new form to the world. It may be that his genius is purely technical, as in the case of Liszt, or wholly spiritual, as in the case of Schumann, but there must be something convincing in the man and his work. A small mind which has nothing to offer cannot justify an alteration of accepted forms. The contest between classicism and romanticism, now at an end, since classicism simply means devotion to pure beauty of form and matter, is exhibited throughout the three great periods of musical history. The Polyphonic period may be regarded as extending from the beginning of the French school, 1100 A. D., to the death of Bach, 1750. This, as the reader will see, includes the transfer of the technics of polyphonic writing from vocal to instrumental music. The classic period, that in which the great works in the sonata form were produced, extends from the production of Haydn's first symphony, 1754, to the production of Beethoven's "Eroica" symphony in 1804. Then came a transition period, during which the romantic element in music was pushed to the front by the "Eroica" and the fifth, sixth, and seventh of Beethoven's symphonies. In 1821 Weber's "Der Freischütz" was produced, and Schubert's "Der Erl-König" was first sung in public. From that time the romantic school in music has been dominant.