In music history, the 18th century is an epoch, in which concepts of distribution and statement of style are a delicate matter. To display this difficult situation, the first part of this study analyzes three selected music history books that are well known and commonly used in this country. The analysis shows that disagreement among the context of historical interpretations between analyzed books cannot be overlooked. On the other hand, it was also observed: it is mainly about the history of the (German) instrumental music, while the opera, in particular, the Italian opera seria, which has been also determined as one of the main genres of the century, is neglected. In the next part of the work was the cause of the differences in the historical interpretation investigated based on Carl Dahlhaus’s music-historical theory. It was noted that the basis of the 18th-century music history was laid out around the turn of the 20th-century by the so-called "German Bildungsbürgertum" derived from music historians, while the national sentiment played a significant role. With previous findings, it is tried in the last part of the work, a self-written music history of the 18th-century presented in the outline. In summary, the music history of the 18th-century should be treated more in the narrow context of political, cultural and social issues, as happened so far. This perhaps could be the diversity of historical interpretations, which is generally observed on the area of research discussed here.

• 연상춘(Yeon, Sang-Chun)