Abstract
The paper focuses on the reconstruction of the substantial aesthetic disputes during the 18th century that influenced the definition of the relationship between vocal and instrumental music and contributed to the creation of new musical forms. Fontenell's sentence Sonate, que me veux-tu? introduces a controversy in French aesthetics, which has been difficult to find a way to defend the meaning of purely instrumental music.
On the analysis of the views of key figures of this dispute (Batteux, Rousseau a d'Alembert) a study shows that the persistent distrust in the ability of instrumental music to fulfill the desired purpose has led, in France, to suppress its development. And vice versa: instrumental music has found background for its dynamic development in the German rhetorical tradition - its contribution to the definition of new musical forms based on the adaptation of the rhetorical model is discussed in the second part of the study.