A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Schablone

by George Grove

SCHABLONE. The German term for a stencil or pattern, and thence in musical criticism often applied to music written with too much adherence to mechanical form or manner, whether the composer's own, or some one else's—made on a cut and dried pattern. The term capellmeister-musik is used by the German critics for a similar thing. With a slightly different metaphor we should say, 'cast in the same mould.'

[ G. ]