amongst the close knit circle of friends that made up the Brahms Limited Liability Corporation were Gernsheim, Herzogenberg, Von Bulow, Max Bruch, Dvorak. and Joseph Joachim. What I find interesting is that none of these composers have withstood the test of time and stood on on their own.(Only Dvorak was able to break out of the mold but he was considerably influenced by Wagner in his early years). It was like they were all inferior little Brahms. All there works (I do enjoy them) seemingly mimic Brahms style to no end.

On the contrary, in the Wagner camp, we have Liszt, Bruckner, Hugo Wolf, Draeseke, Engelbert Humperdinck, to a lesser extent Mahler, and the great conductors of Hans Richter, Hermann Levi and Arthur Nikisch. All these guys made names for themselves and can stand on their own 2 feet. They all produce masterpieces that are in the standard repetoire (forgiveness for Draeseke he is now having a comeback), and the conductors left their imprint on the profession that is being felt 100 + years after wards.


ps.
Interesting story is that Von Bulow had his Symphonic Poem "The singer's curse" premiered the same night at the same concert with Bruckner's 4th. The latter became triumphant and the former failed miserably. Von Bulow hence became a Brahmsian. He even had the audacity to claim that Saint Saens is one of the greatest composers of his time knowingly leaving out Wagner, Bruckner and Liszt. Heck this guy even went as far as premiering Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto whilst hurling insults at the Wagner camp.

I admire the works of both camps but would probably be part of the Wagner side if fully pressed only due to Mahlerian influence.

Jim

Bruch is probably underrated actually. Herzogenberg I think I've liked something from as well. So just because someone's work isn't so well known doesn't mean it's not worthwhile. Not everyone likes all of Bruckner, Humperdinck is mainly known for one opera?

The thing is that none of key figures in Wagner camp were stricte followers. They all belived in forward-looking music, but all of them developed something individual, Liszt was leading pianist, Wagner contributed to opera, Wolf was the chamber lied guy etc, etc. (I don't count Bruckner, he had two bottoms).

In Brahms camp there was Brahms and wanne-be's. Brahms was like someone who jumped out from the ship to swimm against the drif and he managed to do so because he was what he was, mighty geezer. Some tried to jump after him and follow but it was doomed to fail, because it could be done only by someone one of a kind.

There was place in history for Brahms but no place for those who attempted to be like him.

if you mean his 1st and 3rd violin concertos (the 3rd is all Brahms), and his pieces for clarinet viola and piano, then yes he is greatly underrated but none of his symphonies and other chamber music can cut it in the standard repetoire. His octet is good but too typical.

its probably not worth remembering. But I do like his 2nd symphony. I am thinking of picking up his cello sonatas along with Rontgen's. They seem quite good.

Bruckner's greatness is an established fact. Humperdinck's opera is simply brilliant and has become a Christmas tradition.


But this goes back to my original point. The members of the Wagner LLC established and made a name for themselves in distinction from Wagner. But the members of the Brahms LLC could not get out of the shadow of Brahms.

It seems that Wagner was the better mentor than Brahms.

you didnt have to knock Bruckner. Bruckner did his thing, won his triumphs, got his wreathed laurels and he is forever part of the standard repetoire. Additionally Bruckner was the greatest organist of his time, and taught the likes of Mahler, Hans Rott and Franz Schmidt. No one in the Brahms camp had such an impact on future generations in both teaching, performance and composition.

And I agree with the second paragraph. But the question is, why didn't Brahms tell his inferior minions to stop copying him, and be bold and daring so as to not be forgotten.

I don't think it has anything to do with how good their mentoring was. Brahms was (relatively) conservative in his composing. Although there was much new, in many ways he was like Bach - a giant at the end of an era. He was a Romantic with Classical yearnings. He was looking back, while the Wagner crowd were looking forward to the next step in the musical evolution.

But keep in mind that these composers were likely conducting for the moment - not for us today. Were they better received at the time? How do they compare at that time? Were Brahms and his proteges more or less respected than Wagner, et. al.?

A case in point would be Telemann vs. Bach. Today, I think it is nearly universally recognized that of these two contemporaries, Bach is by far the superior. And yet in their lifetimes, just the opposite was acknowledged. Telemann certainly received greater recognition in his lifetime than did Bach. He wrote music that, at the time, was very much in demand and popular. Bach busied himself with works that would only be fully appreciated after his death.

While Aesthetically I fully agree with the Brahms & Co that music should be purely abstract and nothing in the music should represent something else.

IT is a rather silly idea to have sounds represent characters or themes and to have thme come in at the appropriate time like a play. Wagners method I can understand, his leitmotifs are so amazingly well crafted that they seem to embody and suggest their meaning anyway.

It is funny that most of the good music came out of the Wagner camp, and I would like to dispute the inclusion of Dvorak in the Brahms camp. Brahms may have given him a lot of help and influenced him but I dont believe Dvorak ever explicitly took part in this little war, in fact he is famous for some fantastic tone poems and Wagner influenced just as much as Brahms did.


ScipioAfricanus, while I do agree that Wagner, Liszt etc.. probably had a much greater impact on the history and course of music, I believe this is simply due to the extremely forward and different nature of their ideas. If we regard the fact that Brahms became a sort of musical father for many later composers including: Dvorak, Reger, Zemlinsky, Busoni, Dohnanyi. And deeply influenced many other directly: Schoenberg, Elgar, Parry, Stenhammar, and in return also a lot of the successors to these - Webern.

Then we regard Dvoraks influence on Czech composers and pupils such as Suk, Novak.. and many other. Dont forget his journey to america where he practically defined American music and kickstarted the music that would lead to a lot of what was to come. A few pupils of his pupils there including Gershwin and Duke Ellington among others.

I agree there would be many more composers you could put in the conservative camp, it's just that music history ignores them for the very reasons people are hinting at here.....the other camp is considered more 'forward', more 'evolved'. Puzzling because why should one style be considered more 'evolved' than another, it's just a style. All that should matter is whether the music is any good or not.

actually Brahms was quite celebrated in his day way before he earned any of it. He sat on Beethoven's throne since Schumann hailed him, and never once churned out a symphony until he was in his 40's. He also had the lowlife slimeball critic Eduard Hanslick in his corner, who hailed everything Brahms wrote and discredited everything Bruckner, Liszt and Wagner wrote. Brahms also had the notorious credit to his name by standing up and leaving during the premiere of Bruckner's 3rd Symphony.
That being said, both Brahms and Wagner knew they were on the threshold of History. The followers of Wagner seemed to take it more seriously than the followers of Brahms in that they eeked out their own greatness between the pillars of these two Giants. The followers of Brahms seemed content with mimicking him and writing him love letters.

Dvorak wrote Tone Poems in his later life. Tone Poems owes most of his origination and development of Liszt. That being said I like Dvorak alot. He was the only one who part of the Brahms LLC that is worth any consideration. Funny thing though, Dvorak played in the orchestra that was conducted by Smetana. And Smetana was directly influenced by Liszt and Wagner. So even many in the Brahmsian camp owe much to the Wagner camp and not the other way around.
And I didn't mention Liszt's impact on piano playing and the students he taught.

All in all the only thing the Brahms Camp seem to have better than the Wagner Camp is proper sexual conduct in relationships (that's meant to be a joke and not an insult to the Wagner camp).

Well maybe I did not make it explicit enough but in my post I was trying to question Dvoraks placement in the Brahms group.

HIstorically I do not believe he was so attached to Brahms's Germanic composition style and his influence from Wagner and Smetana (and thus Liszt) is equal if not exceeding the influence of Brahms.

Brahms was conservative, but damn he was a good conservative composer! When composers try to mimic the greats (i.e. Beethoven) their music becomes sub-original and almost meaningless as art. It's true that much of Brahms is simply an extension of Beethoven's 2nd creative period, but he forged his own voice through his desire to be like Beethoven.

Music history remembers the extraordinary and not the common. I think that goes some way in explaining why composers who were more influenced by Beethoven's experimental 3rd period are more famous (being experimental themselves).

__________________
When all the paint has been dried, when all the stone has been carved, music shall remain, and we shall work with what remains.

he dined and supped with Brahms and never reigned in Hanslick from his attacks on the Wagnerites who were writing great music. Because of this he is part of the Brahms camp.

I can imagine Brahms sitting at Herzogenberg's Home listening to a Herzogenberg Piano Trio and saying to himself "Oh how my little child loves me"