Brahms and Wagner (and Bruckner) ?

Question

What about Brahms vs. Wagner debate ? What would you do if you were caught in the middle like poor Anton Bruckner ?
http://www.geocities.com/Vienna/4291/debate.htm
“During the late 19th century, the musical world was caught up in the "musico-political" debate between Johannes Brahms and Richard Wagner. You were for one or the other. Vienna was the home of Brahms and regarded by critics, especially the mightiest of critics - Eduard Hanslick, as the heir to Beethoven. Supporters of Brahms refused even to discuss Bruckner’s music and even Brahms viewed Bruckner as a lamentable lunatic whose mental health had been ruined by the priests of St. Florian. (…)
The conflict between the adherents of Wagner and of Brahms during the last third of the nineteenth century played a significant part in the history of German and Austrian music. In 1888 Friedrich Nietzsche wrote that the opponents of Wagner championed Brahms merely because they needed an antagonist to Wagner. This was a shrewd observation. Having openly declared his admiration of Wagner’s music, Bruckner found himself caught in the cross-fire. In September 1873 he visited Wagner in Bayreuth and requested the latter’s permission to dedicate a symphony to him. Wagner accepted the dedication of the third symphony. In the same year Bruckner joined the Vienna Academic Richard Wagner Association. This prompted Eduard Hanslick, Professor of Music History at Vienna University and spokesman of the Brahms camp, to launch an all-out attack on Bruckner, whom he perceived as an exponent of "wagnerism" in Austria. Hanslick, whose allegiances lay with a formalistic concept of musical structure, was bound to view Bruckner’s entire symphonic output as a monstrosity, since its guiding formal principle is that of expressive articulation. It defies analysis in terms of Hanslick’s definition of music as the interplay of "forms moved by sound". (…)
In February 1863, Wagner's Tannhäuser was performed for the first time in Linz. Bruckner and his teacher, Otto Kitzler, studied the scores. Within 2 years, Bruckner was labeled as a Wagnerian symphonist. (…)
One reason Bruckner is not known outside of Austria and Germany is that England loved Brahms (ironically Brahms hated England). Therefore, Bruckner's standing in the English speaking world suffered.”

Answer 1

hfrankma. wrote



"Brahms is just a minor technical writer with the emotional strength of a jelly fish. "



Them's fightin' words, bucko.



Bruckner was a didactic composer who had nothing to say and took an hour and a half to say it.



There.



I would have been squarely in the middle of the debate, because I adore both composers. Haslick failed to see the inner structure of Wagner -- he is as classically oriented as Brahms was. His phrase structures are Beethovenian. From the standpoint of harmonic coloration, Brahms and Wagner fought to a standstill. I'll give Wagner the prize in harmonic innovation, and Brahms the prize for his perfect discursive

style.



I will give Bruckner no prizes and a bonk on the head for that interminable mass that he wrote. Like the majority of his output, it is a sonourous, directionless, foggy lump of sound that has all the appeal and personality of a blamanche.

Answer 2

With the exception of musicologists with too much time on their hands we rarely look back on this debate. That's because the two sides are actually very close together in everything but rhetoric.



Both Brahms and Wagner used classical forms and phrase structures in the same mold as Beethoven. Once you study their orchestration it is actually remarkably similar, though Wagner favored the trombones a little more than Brahms.



I must say having performed Bruckner 4 and 7 that they were the most tedious pieces I've ever played. you just play the same sequence in every key, and then you do it again just to be sure. this probably why Bruckner isn't played so much, many performers find it a boring and tedious task.

Answer 3

Brahms Wagner

Answer 4

Sorry folks... I love 'em all! I'd have been no good at all in the Brahms v Wagner debate; and I am one of those English oddities who actually likes Bruckner.

If Hanslick and Clara had kept their opinions civilised, they might have all got on better - though not sure about the irascible Brahms who, like W. C. Fields, wasn't prejudiced but just seemed to hate everybody!

Answer 5

I'm going to propose a radical solution to this problem, utilizing the Occam's razor approach.



Reasons why Bruckner's not so well liked are very weak at best, but there is one possibility that the writer has not brought up, and which offers a very simple solution:



People just don't care that much for Bruckner.



It's simple and you won't ever get a Ph.d. thesis out of it, but in the long run, it's probably the real answer. Nobody really cares today whether Anton supported Wagner or Brahms, both of whom are very much liked today equally for crafting wonderful music.



Bruckner, aside from his Expressway, hasn't really made much of an impression. I've heard some of his stuff, and was underwhelmed.

Answer 6

This is a very interesting story. Thank you for bringing it to our attention.

I suppose if Anton Bruckner were a politician or knew how this would play out, he would not have said anything, or found anyway to incorporate both Wagner and Brahms into his works. He could of claimed Wagner's inspiration to Wagner supporters and Brahms inspiration to Brahms supporters.

The problem with that is, it would not only have changed history, he would not have been true to himself.

It's also sad that he wasn't able to see into the foreseeable future, and know that the length of his pieces, ( running over an hour each) would effect his legacy, because it was unable to fit on a CD.

Answer 7

The comments made by the four most important symphonists of the 1880 s certainly do make very entertaining reading. Tchaikovsky thought the symphonies of "that scoundrel Brahms" were devoid of anything natural or melodic. Brahms referred to those of Bruckner as "symphonic boa-constrictors". Bruckner, in turn, responded to one of his students who expressed enthusiasm for Dvorak s orchestrations by commenting that (get this) "it wouldn t matter whether you painted two sausages blue or green, for they would still remain two sausages in the end." Of course, Dvorak was Brahms disciple (especially for his sixth & seventh symphonies; Sibelius was largely Tchaikovsky s, Mahler was Bruckner s, and Dvorak inspired a generation of American symphonists.



From a more enlightened perspective, is hard to escape the impression that they all forced one another to be better composers than they might otherwise have been (this likely applied to Saint-Saens and Franck as well; Borodin s symphonies were earlier). Dvorak s, Tchaikovsky s, and Bruckner s all improved through the 70 s and 80 s, and Brahms No.1 is well-beyond his first concerto and serenades.



So who is the rightful heir to Beethoven? Brahms comes the closest to Beethoven s tightly-wound second, third, fourth, fifth and seventh. Bruckner follows Beethoven s sixth with his vaguely programmatic works (yes, Bruckner described a program for the finale of his own third symphony). Bizet may come closest to Beethoven s first (tho he may have been looking more toward Mozart 41). Mendelssohn and Mahler come closest to Beethoven s ninth.



What s missing? Beethoven No.8 - one of his funniest scores. It seems no nineteenth century composer could match Beethoven s sense of humor! I believe this to be so true... Maybe the scherzo to Mahler 4 comes closest, but even that...



Poor Schubert. He would have been the rightful heir to everything 1) had he lived, and 2) if his works were known in a timely manner.

Answer 8

I hope this war continues as long as people listen to classical music. Both Wagner and Bruckner were vital creative forces who wrote exciting creative music. Brahms is just a minor technical writer with the emotional strength of a jelly fish. Bruckner is played here in the USA and I get to hear his work a couple of times a year with out fail. The New York Philharmonic and Lorin Maazel close out their season tonight and tomorrow with Bruckner's Eighth. I think Bruckner's music is a getting the recognition it deserves more and more in the USA.

Answer 9

Pass the jellyfish please. Wagner had the emotional strength of a construction site, people don't have emotions like that overbearing crap, it's obnoxious and means nothing.

If you can combine music and racism, music has never touched you.

I connote Wagner to Freud, an egotist who realized he was living in a time of change and contrived a doctrine that didn't mean anything to anybody to get his own name attached to something which was happening anyway. It took a softer and more empathic human being like Jung who gave a **** about his niche to rewrite and adapt that crap into something that addresses our humanity (Schoenberg)

Bruckner got himself the same antisemitic following that Wagner did and used it to pretend he had something to say about music, which he didn't.

At least jellyfish have some kind of allegiance to organic life forms, Wagner never did.



Frickin' Nazi

Answer 10

I'm sure there's a question in here somewhere. You're asking whether we like Brahms or Wagner more?



[EDIT:

I'm amused by the author's claim that Bruckner's music isn't well known because of it's length. Come on...if this is the reason, then Wagner's music should be even less well known, right?? Bruckner's music is often given credit for being much better than it actually is...]

Answer 11

Nancy is right. It's already documented that Wagner was, to put it very nicely, not at all nice. best regards.

Answer 12

Just curious, who was the moustached guy? Richard Strauss?



Nothing much to answer since you didn;t really ask any question...