New German School
One debate in the 19th century was over whether it was acceptable to use the layout of a poem or other literary work to structure a work of instrumental music. The compositional school focused around Liszt and Wagner (the so-called New German School) argued in favor of literary inspiration (see Program music), while another camp, centered on Schumann, Brahms, and Eduard Hanslick argued that pure music should follow the forms laid out by Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. This conflict was eventually internalized, and by 1900, though the debate still raged, composers such as Richard Strauss would freely combine programmatic and symphonic structure, such as in the work "Ein Heldenleben".