LISZT MONUMENT, WEIMAR
What the public likes best of all in Liszt’s works, however, is his Hungarian rhapsodies, in which the gipsy songs of love and war and every phase of life are “pianized” with marvelous art, one of the greatest charms of which is that it is absolutely unfettered and unconventional,—a real improvisation, like the playing of gipsies themselves.
BRAHMS, THE CONSERVATIVE
THE BRAHMS MEMORIAL, VIENNA
Admirers of Liszt, and full-blooded Wagnerites, rarely care much for Brahms; while, conversely, the Brahmites look somewhat haughtily on those two composers, and all the other “progressives,” except Schumann, who is exempted, not only because there is a certain affinity between his music and that of their idol, but because he discovered Brahms, proclaiming him the “musical Messiah.” Brahms himself once signed a “protest” aimed against the Wagner-Liszt school; yet his bark was worse than his bite, for his works here and there show the influence of Wagner, and he liked some of Wagner’s operas.
Johannes Brahms is the god of the conservatives. He aimed, half-consciously, to carry on the traditions of Beethoven, and he had no use for modern realism and program music. His symphonies—the most delightful of which is the second—are marked simply numbers one, two, three, and four; and for his piano pieces he has no poetic titles after the manner of Schumann: they make their appeal by their own beauty, unadorned—and they have won a large audience of admirers.
Some of his songs everybody likes. They are on most programs, and are often redemanded. The music goes well with the words, and they are usually written most effectively for the voice, which makes the singers favor them too. But it is in his chamber music—trios, quartets, or sextets, for strings, with or without piano—that Brahms’ genius is most convincing. In this department he has composed many masterworks.
In general, it may be said that, while Brahms is melodically less spontaneous than some of the other masters, he excels most of them in the variety and originality of his rhythms.