Historical Rivalry: Brahms vs Liszt

[Geo Dude]

Seeing as we've already had a Brahms vs Wagner thread this second historical rivalry seems a logical continuation.

I vote for Brahms.

[mc ukrneal]

Strange. A search of them comes up with this. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Brahms_and_Liszt. Perhaps it should be an option? 

[Karl Henning]

I don't get any sense of a "rivalry" between them, certainly nothing on the order of von Bülow's pitting Brahms VS. Wagner. Whether as pianists, or in terms of their orchestral music, Brahms and Liszt inhabited different spheres . . . .

[Karl Henning]

Thus: Banana Rhapsody.

[Lethevich]

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[Karl Henning]

Plantain?

[North Star]

Indeed, their rivalry wasn't against each other, but of their fans and supporters, and to do with the different views on music, Liszt composing short piano pieces, tone poems, programmatic music, with more adventurous harmonic language and flash, and Brahms employing old forms and models, composing sonatas, variations, symphonies, quartets.

Strange. A search of them comes up with this. http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Brahms_and_Liszt. Perhaps it should be an option? 

OALD knows it, too

[DavidW]

I don't get any sense of a "rivalry" between them, certainly nothing on the order of von Bülow's pitting Brahms VS. Wagner. Whether as pianists, or in terms of their orchestral music, Brahms and Liszt inhabited different spheres . . . .

Yeah there was no rivalry between the composers, but this is quoted for truth.

[Geo Dude]

I don't get any sense of a "rivalry" between them, certainly nothing on the order of von Bülow's pitting Brahms VS. Wagner. Whether as pianists, or in terms of their orchestral music, Brahms and Liszt inhabited different spheres . . . .

Karl,

There was an ideological war between 'new music' and 'old-style', Wagner and Liszt being heads of the 'new side' of the war and Brahms being forced into position of head of the 'old'.  Brahms and Joachim even started a petition railing against Liszt's ideas of conceptual music.  Things got pretty ugly after a certain point.  Jan Swafford's biography of Brahms goes into detail on these matters.

For what it's worth, Brahms generally tended to be kind toward Liszt as much as possible, but Liszt for all intents and purposes raged an intellectual war on Brahms.

[starrynight]

Maybe they each had other rivals who helped stimulate their creativity.  I myself suggested the Brahms - Wagner rivalry wasn't that relevant either, though I don't think anyone picked up on that.  Anyway I left other suggestions in that thread.  Other virtuoso composer-pianists of his time would have been rivals to Liszt.

[Karl Henning]

Karl,

There was an ideological war between 'new music' and 'old-style', Wagner and Liszt being heads of the 'new side' of the war and Brahms being forced into position of head of the 'old'.  Brahms and Joachim even started a petition railing against Liszt's ideas of conceptual music.  Things got pretty ugly after a certain point.  Jan Swafford's biography of Brahms goes into detail on these matters.

For what it's worth, Brahms generally tended to be kind toward Liszt as much as possible, but Liszt for all intents and purposes raged an intellectual war on Brahms.

Most interesting, thank you! I've not read Swafford's bio . . . I can readily imagine Brahms being kind to Liszt. I find it hard to imagine that Liszt's "war" would be at all personal.  Yes, I've been somewhat aware of the 'new music' bloods of that day.  Of course, with Wagner at the epicenter of anything, there is going to be sustained nastiness, and collateral damage.

[Geo Dude]

Most interesting, thank you! I've not read Swafford's bio . . . I can readily imagine Brahms being kind to Liszt. I find it hard to imagine that Liszt's "war" would be at all personal.  Yes, I've been somewhat aware of the 'new music' bloods of that day.  Of course, with Wagner at the epicenter of anything, there is going to be sustained nastiness, and collateral damage.

Well, Liszt's war was not entirely personal, of course, but it did become quite vicious when he influenced various reviewers and encouraged them to write some quite nasty reviews of Brahms and I find it difficult to believe that it wasn't at least somewhat personal given that he did suffer slights to his ego as a result of Brahms.  (Not to say that Brahms was innocent of this kind of behavior - in his later years he frequently encouraged a reviewer who happened to be in his pocket to tear Bruckner's works to shreds with stunning animosity.) 

To give a few examples, he met Brahms in his early 20s and expected the young man to become one of his disciples.  Brahms instead fell asleep in the midst of Liszt playing his one movement sonata.  (According to Joachim, who has a bit of a tendency to exaggerate, I should note.  In any case, his behavior made it clear to Liszt that he was not impressed by the work.)  He was also offended because Joachim 'left him' for Brahms.  The anti-Liszt petition -- accusing him of producing both music and philosophy that was the cause of all that was wrong with the current state of music -- being uncovered by an anti-Brahmsian journalist long before it was intended to presented to the public certainly didn't help matters.  Unsurprisingly, Wagner was a bit worse in his handling the manner, even accusing Brahms (in an editorial) of being Jewish, because, you know, that's the ultimate evil and all...  

Ironically, and speaking of strongly of Wagner's (lack of) character, in my opinion, Wagner set up a meeting with Brahms -- long prior to the petition accusing him of being Jewish, among other things -- that turned out to be quite cordial.  He was fully aware of the anti-Liszt petition, but didn't care about his strongest ally (and close friend) being slammed because the petition wasn't directed at him.

Swafford's biography is excellent, Karl, and I highly recommend it.

[Todd]

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Truly a thing of beauty.

[madaboutmahler]

Probably Brahms, only just though.... really should have voted for the banana option!

Both are such amazing composers.

[starrynight]

Indeed, their rivalry wasn't against each other, but of their fans and supporters, and to do with the different views on music,

I expect so, and I'm sure it was hyped up a lot too.  Sounds a bit trivial.

[Lisztianwagner]

I love Brahms' music very much, but I vote for Liszt, no doubt.