Fillmore writes that his objective in writing this volume was: to discriminate clearly the natural epochs into which the history of pianoforte music divides; to give a lucid statement and exposition of the principles of composition which have governed and determined the creative activity of those epochs; to trace the development of these principles as manifested in the phenomena of composition, and to point out the relation of the work of each epoch to what preceded and what followed it; to call attention to the great epoch-making composers whose work furnishes the chief examples of those characteristic principles; to give a clear and discriminating account of their work, a trustworthy estimate of their relative rank and place in history; and to furnish biographical sketches of them sufficiently full to give general readers a not inadequate notion of the men and their lives. It was also to notice the work and lives of minor composers and performers with as much fullness as the limits of the book would permit; to trace the development of the technique of the pianoforte; and to give a sufficient account of the instruments which preceded the pianoforte, and of their relation to that instrument.