POLL Brahms or Wagner?

[starrynight]

I think the 'modern age' would have been ushered in whether Wagner had existed or not. Romanticism pushed tonality as far as they could which was a natural progression after the basic system had been fully exploited in earlier periods.

[marvinbrown]

I think the 'modern age' would have been ushered in whether Wagner had existed or not. Romanticism pushed tonality as far as they could which was a natural progression after the basic system had been fully exploited in earlier periods.

  I disagree: read my post above on Tristan und Isolde.

  marvin

 

[marvinbrown]

Some good stuff from PaulSC, here, marvin, and he's bang on. There's really no debate about it, musicologically speaking - Schoenberg himself said that his art derived in equal measure from Brahms and from Wagner, and the analysis of the music bears this out. One could in an extremely generalised way say that the still-tonal chromatic leanings of Wagner, Liszt and a few other composers hinted at the border to be crossed by Schoenberg in his op 11 and the freely-atonal territories explored in the subsequent works (and wonderful, wonderful works they are too!). And then one has to say that the Schoenberg found it necessary to temper this freedom with a strong dose of the developing variation principle he perceived in Brahms - a principle which is just as important to Schoenberg as atonality ever was. It is Brahmsian developing variation, with its rigorous motivic work, which leads to the twelve-tone technique, with its fundamental concern with unity and consistency of interval and motive. Wagner's influence on Schoenberg was deeply important but broad-brush - rather like Wagner's music, one could say: it is the totality, not the details, that weighs so heavy. But Brahms's influence was technical and specific (witness the analyses of Brahms that Schoenberg published), and therefore affected the everyday note-to-note details of Schoenberg's work deeply.

  I am in a nasty mood:

http://davidsbuendler.freehostia.com/sberg.htm


  I especially love this paragraph:

  In contrast to Schoenberg's characterization of Brahms as a "progressive", the great conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler wrote, 13 years earlier, in his essay entitled "Brahms and the Crisis of Our Time":

"A function in the sense of 'progress,' the music of his later years did not fulfill. With respect to the disintegrating Tristan-harmony, to the first beginnings of later polytonality etc. stood he, that ever had the purely musical universal-form in view, in opposition. There is little difference between the harmony of Brahms around the 90th year and that of Schubert in the 20th year of the same century. ... And herewith we come to that, which makes the case of Brahms meaningful for us today, which imparts to him nothing short of the most immediate topicality.

Brahms is the first great musician, in whose case historical meaning and meaning as an artistic personality no longer coincide: that this was so, was not his fault, but rather that of his epoch."

  Well?

  marvin

[starrynight]

Was opera really that important in modernism anyway?  It was more central in earlier periods.  And all this myths and legends stuff is very much tied to romanticism.

[Florestan]

I'd have never thought that the War of the Romantics is still alive.

- Wagner!
- No, Brahms!
- But wait, Wagner did that!
- Yes, and Brahms did this!
- You're wrong!
- No wait, actually I am right!
- Wagner was the future!
- Brahms was it even more!

etc etc etc.

[marvinbrown]

Was opera really that important in modernism anyway?  It was more central in earlier periods.  And all this myths and legends stuff is very much tied to romanticism.

  Richard Strauss' Elektra, Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth, Berg's Lulu and Wozzek........sounds quite important to me.

  marvin

[marvinbrown]

I'd have never thought that the War of the Romantics is still alive.

- Wagner!
- No, Brahms!
- But wait, Wagner did that!
- Yes, and Brahms did this!
- You're wrong!
- No wait, actually I am right!
- Wagner was the future!
- Brahms was it even more!

etc etc etc.

  Well wasn't that the intention of this thread: Brahms OR Wagner?

 

  marvin

[Florestan]

  Well wasn't that the intention of this thread: Brahms OR Wagner?

I'm not sure. I think it was more like whom do you like most, than whom do you like most and why and why you don't like the other just as much... 

Anyway, sorry for interrupting.

[Gurn Blanston]

  Well wasn't that the intention of this thread: Brahms OR Wagner?

 

  marvin

I think the poll starter wasn't sufficiently clear, however, I never considered it to be anything other than 'whose music would you rather listen to?'. Any claims that Brahms was more influential to later composers is destined to fail. But that doesn't mean that I don't or shouldn't prefer to listen to him than I would to Wagner. I just think you are going down a way different road than anyone else here, and I don't mean the Wagner road, I mean you are arguing for something that no one else is. IMO.

[Karl Henning]

How can anyone imagine a choice other than Brahms?   0:)

(* pounds the table *)

[Karl Henning]

 Quote from: marvinbrown on February 28, 2012, 01:53:13 PM

In the words of Mahler "there was only Beethoven and Wagner...........

 
You forgot to close the quotation marks, you were so upset, Marvin!

But, you know, Mahler was famously neurotic, wasn't he? ; )

[Karl Henning]

 Quote from: Gurnatron5500 on Today at 12:16:43 PM

I think the poll starter wasn't sufficiently clear, however,

I never considered it to be anything other than 'whose music would you rather listen to?' Any claims that Brahms was more influential to later composers is destined to fail. 
Well (as you indirectly observe), and the poll was not Who was more influential, Brahms or Wagner? Still, Brahms has had a greater influence than he is often credited for; and Wagnerites notoriously claim that their idol influenced everything up to and including the Wankel rotary engine. And beyond . . . .

[Karl Henning]

 Quote from: starrynight on Today at 08:39:52 AM

I think the 'modern age' would have been ushered in whether Wagner had existed or not.

 
Man, how can you say that? The entire existence of the universe now hinges upon Wagner! In your heart, you know it is true!

[Karl Henning]

 Quote from: marvinbrown on February 28, 2012, 01:53:13 PM

Wider compass?? How much wider can it get than the Ring cycle, the ultra emorional Tristan, the lighthearted Meistersinger.

   
Meistersinger is "light-hearted"? Dude, you been drinking the Kool-Aid too long! : )

In part, compass here means both variety of genres, and excellence in a wide variety of musical scale.  Wagnerites are often rather too inclined to think that grandiosomania covers all the bases . . . .

[Lisztianwagner]

Quote from: marvinbrown on February 28, 2012, 01:53:13 PM

In the words of Mahler "there was only Beethoven and Wagner...........

 
But, you know, Mahler was famously neurotic, wasn't he? ; )

[Karl Henning]

Well, Ilaria, technically it is possible not to be neurotic, and yet to say something as narrow-sighted as There was only Beethoven and Wagner.  Fellow really ought to have gotten around a bit more.

[Ataraxia]

Well, Ilaria, technically it is possible not to be neurotic, and yet to say something as narrow-sighted as There was only Beethoven and Wagner.  Fellow really ought to have gotten around a bit more.

No, he was only slightly off.

[Bulldog]

I think the poll starter wasn't sufficiently clear, however, I never considered it to be anything other than 'whose music would you rather listen to?'.

Same here, but there's always at least one person who wants to look at it as an "influence" poll.

[Karl Henning]

 Quote from: MN Dave on Today at 01:10:01 PM

No, he was only slightly off.

 
The ghost of Mahler wants to buy you a drink . . . .

[Luke]

  I am in a nasty mood:

http://davidsbuendler.freehostia.com/sberg.htm


  I especially love this paragraph:

  In contrast to Schoenberg's characterization of Brahms as a "progressive", the great conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler wrote, 13 years earlier, in his essay entitled "Brahms and the Crisis of Our Time":

"A function in the sense of 'progress,' the music of his later years did not fulfill. With respect to the disintegrating Tristan-harmony, to the first beginnings of later polytonality etc. stood he, that ever had the purely musical universal-form in view, in opposition. There is little difference between the harmony of Brahms around the 90th year and that of Schubert in the 20th year of the same century. ... And herewith we come to that, which makes the case of Brahms meaningful for us today, which imparts to him nothing short of the most immediate topicality.

Brahms is the first great musician, in whose case historical meaning and meaning as an artistic personality no longer coincide: that this was so, was not his fault, but rather that of his epoch."

  Well?

  marvin

Well? Furtwangler was wrong, and Schoenberg (and many others) right. Not surprisingly, really. The musical evidence, rather than the harmony-hyperbole, bears it out. The focus on simple harmonic audacity alone will doubtless make Brahms appear relatively meek in comparison to RW (though he can be every bit as ellusive and subtle when he wishes - op 119/1, for example). A focus on motivic technique, ever-present and very rigorous counterpoint and Schoenberg's prized developing variation shows where Brahms's importance lies. It may be less showy than the Tristan chord etc but it is equally important.