Musical

Museum, Return of the Symphony

Brahms, Bruckner, Dvorak

Musc 3229

text pp. 731-63

THE SYMPHONIC DRY DECADES

1840-1870

Wagner

(in The Artwork of the Future): Beethovens Ninth

Symphony made all purely instrumental music obsolete.

Not

a single symphony composed in the 1850s&60s has

survived in the repertoire. [Anton Rubenstein; Joachim Raff;
Niels Gade; etc.]

Emil

Naumann (1827-88): Illustrated History of Music (1880):

Reflecting on the great achievements of the past, we observe
tonal art an organic whole. It is complete and finished.

MUSEUM CULTURE
In

the middle 19th century, the concert hall began to rival the opera house as a potential source of
profit:

Leipzig

Gewandhaus (drapers hall), 1781; rebuilt 1882-84.

Vienna

Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde (Society of Friends of Music), 1831.

The

Gesellschaft had been started in 1812 as an amateur orchestra, endowed the first Viennese
conservatory in 1817.

Goldener

Saal (large hall) for the Knstlerverein (Artists club, now the Vienna Philharmonic), 2000 seats, 1870.

Gewerbehaussall

(Chamber of Commerce Hall), Dresden, 1871.

Socit

des Concerts du Conservatoire, Paris, 1828.

Cirque

Napolon, Paris (5000 seats), 1861.

St. James

Hall, London (2100 seats), 1858

Royal Albert
Carnegie

Hall, NY (2800 seats), 1891.

Symphony
Assembly

Hall, London (6500 seats), 1871home of the Promenade (Proms)

Hall, Boston (2650 seats), 1881.

Hall of the Nobility, St. Petersburg (1300 seats), 1830s

MUSEUM CULTURE
In

1800, 80% of all music performed in Vienna, Leipzig, Paris and London was the
work of living composers.

After

1850and especially by 1870the ratio of living to dead authors

performed was almost exactly reversed. The concert hall had become a museum.
The symphonic repertoire purveyed in the latter half of the 19th century had
been frozen at the centurys midpoint.

Why?

Commercial profit: Selling music to a mass public meant guaranteeing its

quality by invoking the test of time. To attend a concert was to document
ones membership in a coterie (Peter Gay).

The

esthetic of Romanticismof perpetual progress and renewal of artistic

meanscollided with the realities of musical life as actually lived. Classical
musicas defined todayis music in the permanent collection, first defined
around 1850.

The

ultimate paradox: Modernity in music has come to be chiefly defined by a

relationship to the past, rather than a relationship to the future.

NEW PATHS: JOHANNES BRAHMS

1833-97
Born

[compare to Wagner: 1813-1883]

in Hamburg; raised/adopted to/by Vienna.

Schumanns

last article in Neue Zeitschrift, now edited by Brendel: Neue

Bahnen (New Paths), 1853. Schumann saw himself as an embattled classicist
in opposition to the emerging New German School.

Schumanns

article: see text, pp. 735-6

Joseph

Joachimviolinist, former concertmaster of Weimar, who had

defected from Liszt (see his letter/manifesto of antihistoricism to Liszt,
text, pp. 654-55)

Schumann

was confined to a sanatorium for the mentally ill in 1854, and

died in 1856. Brahms took his place as the head of the Schumann
household.

TOWARD THE FIRST SYMPHONY

Feb, 1854:

Schumanns suicide attempt into the Rhine.

July, 1854:

Brahms completes sketches of three movements of

a symphony in D minor for piano duet, and orchestrated the
first movementbecame the D minor piano concerto, op. 15

Opens

with a visualization of Schumanns leap

Allusions:

Schumanns Symphony No. 4 (D-minor; actually

his second, but published posthumously as #4); Beethovens
9th (the D-minor symphony)

BRAHMS ALLUSIONS
The

D-minor concerto is as laden with

symbolism as Beethovens Ninth, but unlike
the Beethovenand the New German
School composersit contains no built-in
decoder key, no public aids to interpretation,
and therefore no certifiable message.

F. Schiller

(1794): the real and express

content that the poet puts in his work
remains always finite; the possible content
that he allows us to contribute is an infinite
quality.

THE SERENADES
1857-59:

Brahms worked 4 months per year as Kapellmeister

to the minor princely court of Detmoldhe was one of the
last composers to enjoy the security of aristocratic patronage.

He

composed for a 45-piece orchestra in Detmold;

Serenade

in D Major, op. 11 (1858)modeled on Haydn

(London Symphony_IV in particular)

Serenade

in A, op (1859)dedicated to Clara Schumann

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Why the delay?

I congratulate you regarding [Max] Bruchs symphony [No. 2]; hopefully I
will be properly envious of it when I see it. As usual, I am always
surprised less that I am so lazy than that others can be so
industrious. (Letter to Fritz Simrock, March 1870, Briefwerkel, IX, 95)

I will never compose a symphony! You have no idea how it feels to one
of us when he continually hears behind him such a giant. (Quoted as spoken
to Hermann Levi, October, 1871, Kalbeck, Brahms, I, 165)

1863: composed Rinaldooratorio after Goetheto become the

director of the Vienna Singakademie, one of the two Vienna choral
societies. directorship lasted one year

1868: German Requiem

1871: Triumphlied (song of triumphhis most popular work)

1874: returns to work on first symphony

1876: Ring des Nibelungen premieres at Bayreuth;

Symphony No. 1 is performed in Karlhruse

!

My Symphony is long
and not exactly
charming.
The Symphony is long
and difficult.
My Symphony is long
and in C-minor.

What Brahms had to say

about his first symphony

before the premiere:

One ought never to forget that by actually perfecting one

piece one gains and learns more than by commencing or halffinishing a dozen. Let it rest, let it rest, and keep going back to
it and working at it over and over again, until it is completed as
a finished work of art, until there is not a note too much or
too little, not a measure you could improve upon. Whether it
is beautiful also, is an entirely different matter, but perfect it
must be. You see, I am rather lazy, but I never cool down over
a work, once begun, until it is perfected, unassailable. (letter to
George Henschel, 1876, Henshel , Personal Recollections of Johannes
Brahms, [Boston, 1907], 39)

First
performance in
Karlsruhe, Nov.
4, 1876.

Critical Responses
In Brahmss First Symphony there appears to be a large quantity
of mere surplusage, a strenuous iteration and reiteration, after the
manner of one who is unable to utter his thought once and for all,
or even to clear it up to his own satisfactionan uneasy shifting
of form, key and rhythm, and one of two bare spots of bald pathos.
Boston Evening Transcript, Jan. 4, 1878
!

I played over the music of that scoundrel, Brahms. What a giftless

bastard! It annoys me that this self-inflated mediocrity is hailed as
a genius. Why, in comparison with him, Raff is a giant, not to
speak of Rubenstein, who is after all a live and important human
being, while Brahms is chaotic and absolutely empty dried up
stuff. Tchaikovskys Diary, entry under October 9, 1886.

The First Symphony of Brahms seemed to us as hard and uninspired as upon its former
hearing. It is mathematical music evolved with difficulty from an unimaginative
brain....How it ever came to be honored with the title of The Tenth Symphony is a
mystery to us....This noisy, ungraceful, confusing and una ttractive example of dry
pedantry before the masterpieces of Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Gade or even of
the reckless and over-fluent Raff! Absurd!.....It is possible that as we grow more familiar
with this symphony it may become clearer to us, but we might pore over a difficult
problem in mathematics until the same result was reached without arriving at the
concluding that it is a poetic inspiration.
Boston Gazette, January 24, 1878

Brahms takes an essentially commonplace theme; gives it a strange air by dressing it in

the most elaborate and far-fetched harmonies; keeps his countenance severely; and finds
that a good many wise-acres are ready to guarantee him as deep as Wagner, and the true
heir of Beethoven...Strip off the euphuism from these symphonies and you will find a
string of incomplete dance and ballad tunes following one another with no more organic
coherence than the succession of passing images reflected in a shop window in Piccadilly
during any twenty minutes of the day.
George Bernard Shaw, The World, London, June 18, 1890

[Title]

Structure

Instrumentation: 2 2 2 3*4 2 3 0 timp. str

I. Un poco sostenutoAllegro

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mm.9-13
(4+1)

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IV. Adagio-Allegro non troppo ma con brio

Modified Three-part Sonata Form:

Introduction (mm. 1-61)

Exposition (mm. 62-183)

Recapitulation of main theme (185-204.)

Development (mm. 204-301)

Recapitulation of Second and Closing groups (302)

Plus, Alphorn @ m. 285 + trombone chorale @ m. 407-16

!
!

What is missing?

Re-statement of main theme in the recapitulationis Brahms
circumventing the sonata principle?

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Hoch aufm Berg, tief im Thal,

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tau-send-mal!

Birthday card greeting to Clara Schumann, September

1868.
Sent
from
Switzerland
Also
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das
Alphorn
100
hert with the inscription, Thus
blew
the
alphorn
today:
!
&
High in the mountains, deep in the valley, I greet you a
thousand
times over!

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!

Also, Schubert #9 in C.Schumann #2 in C

101

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BRAHMSS CRITIQUE OF
WAGNERS BEETHOVEN
Brahmss

pg. 746)

hymn quotes both Beethoven and Bach, Cantata no. 106 (see text,

The

unique form of the fourth movement, with the vocal themes

recapitulation liquidated and replaced by the trombones hymn theme,
reflects Brahmss intent of placing Beethoven in the context of a larger
German traditionalong with Luther.

Brahmss liberalism:

RT: Tradition is the sole enabler of innovation that is

meaningful rather than destructive, because it is modified by social agreement
(in this case, recognition of a convention, permitting its intelligent
transformation).

Hans

749)

von Blow called it Beethovens 10th. Wagner was.enraged (text, pg.

ANTON BRUCKNER (1824-96)

Organist, choir

director at St. Florians monastarynear Linz

Moved

to Vienna in 1848taught at the Conservatory & University

of Vienna; organist at the Imperial Court Chapel

Composed

8 symphonies (incomplete 9th); 3 masses. Dedicated

Symphony No. 3 (1873) to Wagner.

Generally, copied

the form of Beethovens 9th in all his symphonies

(see text, pg. 751).

for

Ex:

more information: http://www.52composers.com/bruckner.html

Bruckner 7_IV (climax)

ANTONIN DVORAK (1841-1904)

Prolific, leading

Czech composer after Smetana; violist, organist.

Brahms

prodigy: won an Austrian award in which Brahms served as a judge;

Brahms helped him find a publisher (his own, Simrock) for Dvoraks Slavonic
Dances.

Chamber

music: 14 string quartets, 5 piano trios, etc (text pg. 754)

Symphonies:

9 symphonies, cello & violin concerti, program music (pg. 754)

1892-95:

Lived in the NY, director of the National Conservatory of Music.

Composed Symphony No. 9 (From the New World), premiered at Carnegie
Hall, 1893: the influence of American can be felt by anyone who has a
nose (pg. 756).

Worked

with Harry Burleigh (1866-1949) in learning and arranging African

American spiritualshe recalled singing dozens of spirituals for Dvorak during
the New World: symphonys composition process.

DVORAK 9_II
Modeled

more on Schubert than Brahms (sectional, episodic)

Begins

with a Lisztian chorale based on chromatic thirdsfollowed by the famous English

horn theme (exotic): 12 mm., ABA. [Entire mmt = ABA]

Climax, 5mm

before R5: bVI (Schubert, again), quoting the first movements main theme
in the trombones, the first movements secondary theme in the horns, violins, woodwinds.

Motivic

comparison with Wagnerextroversive and introversive significance of motives

evokes symphonic poem.

Dvorak

on the 2nd mmt: a sketch for an opera on Longfellows Hiawatha (text, pg. 756)
written in trochaic meter BY the SHORES of GItchee GUmee which Dvorak
related to (similarly, the Czech language emphasizes the first syllable).but for English =
nonspecific mythical exoticism and pseudoantiquity.

The

Scherzo (III) was suggested by the scene at the feast in Hiawatha where the Indians
dance (Dvorak)possibly representing the Dance of Pau-Puk Keewis from Hiawatha.

What

are plantation songs doing in a work that sought Americas mythic past in Indian lore?