For Wagner, it therefore followed logically that vocal music was where the future lay. As substantiation, Wagner pointed to the fact that even Beethoven felt this, because he added voices to the Ninth Symphony in seeking expression beyond mere notes. Both composers actually had a grudging respect for one another, though the spectacularly pompous Wagner would never have admitted it. (Brahms, who was less pretentious, actually bought the expensive handwritten autograph copy of one of Wagner’s scores.)īoth men viewed themselves as the rightful heir of Beethoven. Wagner believed the Great Master had achieved all their was to achieve in the purely instrumental forms. Neither one was self-proclaimed but rather, co-opted by the different factions. Here is the truth: Both were innovators Wagner forged new genres and Brahms infused established genres with a modern musical vocabulary, which made them new again.Īt any rate, Wagner was the emblem of program music, Brahms of absolute. Contrarily, for the Brahmsians, Wagner was appealing to the masses with degenerative, manipulative, and grandiose drivel, while their hero was preserving the venerated and sacred genres of Beethoven (who incidentally, interchanged genres unperturbed whenever it fit his creative inspiration in the moment.). For the Wagnerians, Brahms was accused of being antiquarian, academic, and conservative, because he returned to the old forms that they believed were now obsolete. The fact that emotions become disproportional to the issue is indicative of our nature, not the issue. People instinctively want to belong to a group for we are, after all, pack animals.
The war was predominantly restricted to vociferous condemnations in print and vocal denunciations at performances.Įast Coast vs. In the 19th Century, the conflict was somewhat more restrained, with only occasional outbursts of physical violence at concerts.
The feud between these musicians resulted in two gang-related homicides, with both men being cut down in their prime. Could people really get that worked up about something like this? Well, unfortunately we have a tragic parallel in the two great rap artists Biggie and 2Pac.
This so-called ‘war’ was a deep philosophical split among musicians, music critics, and music-lovers, where one camp believed that the other was perverting, debasing, and contaminating True Art.įrom our perspective it seems fantastically overblown. Now, what do you get if you take some over-hyped Romantics spoiling for a fight? The War of the Romantics. In fact, these last two composers invented a new genre, which they called a ‘TONE-POEM’ or ‘SYMPHONIC POEM’, which was a single movement (unlike a symphony which had several movements) and was explicitly pictorial or depicted a narrative.Īs you can probably see, these two genres of music – absolute and program music – stand on opposite ends of a spectrum. Examples include Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony (which is about being out in the countryside), Berlioz’ Symphonie Fantastique, and most works by Liszt and Richard Strauss. This is in contrast to program music, which is a direct response to a story, image, title, character, or whatever else. in other words, all the traditional forms. Examples include symphonies, concertos, sonatas, string quartets etc. There is no ‘extra-musical’ inspiration (i.e. beyond the music) from a story or image or title or anything at all outside of the music itself. These were ABSOLUTE music on the one hand, and PROGRAM music on the other.Ībsolute music has no other meaning than the notes on the page, pure and simple. During their lifetimes, these composers were proclaimed the standard-bearers of two divergent movements within classical music. These are Richard Wagner, the great and epic opera composer, and Johannes Brahms, the grand symphonist. In the last quarter of the 19th Century we encounter two transitional figures that lead us into the twilight of German musical dominance. (For an in depth discussion of its overarching traits and characteristics, see the previous blog entitled The Gods Must Be Crazy. The Romantic period occupies the middle half of the 19th Century.