Another Look at Critical Partisanship in the Viennese "fin de siècle": Schenker's Reviews of

Brahms's Vocal Music, 1891-92

Author(s): Kevin C. Karnes
Source: 19th-Century Music, Vol. 26, No. 1 (Summer, 2002), pp. 73-93
Published by: University of California Press
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Another Look at Critical
Viennese fin de siecle:
of Brahms's Vocal Music,
KEVIN C. KARNES
When Heinrich Schenker made his debut as a
critic in October 1891, he was determined to
stir up controversy. Working as a Viennese cor-
respondent for the Leipzig Musikalisches
Wochenblatt, his first assignment was innocu-
ous enough: to write a review of a newly pub-
lished collection of songs by Johannes Brahms.
He chose to preface his review, however, with
a sarcastic jibe at Brahms's detractors in the
critical press, and an indictment against the
contemporary critical discourse as a whole. He
began:
For some time now, critics and the public have been
whispering to each other that Brahms has entered
into his third and weakest creative period. These
days, when feuilletonistic criticism, instinctively rec-
ognizing the greatness of the composer but seldom
providing proof, is trying to work its way toward
[the methods of] music history and to occupy itself
with the construction of historical periods, even the
most brilliant rallies of Brahms's genius will, in them-
selves, hardly be proof enough. What 'can a Violin
Sonata in A Major, a String Quintet, op. 111, or a
Fourth Symphony in E Minor achieve against such a
proclamation?! Criticism sticks to what has already
been decided. Otherwise, there would indeed be no
I wish to thank Professors Ian Bent, John Daverio, James
Hepokoski, Allan Keiler, and Jessie Ann Owens for their
invaluable comments on earlier versions of this article.
19th-Century Music, XXVI/1, pp. 73-93. ISSN: 0148-2076. ? 2002 by The Regents of the University of
California. All rights reserved. Send requests for permission to reprint to: Rights and Permissions, University
of California Press, Journals Division, 2000 Center St., Ste. 303, Berkeley, CA 94704-1223.
Partisanship in the
Schenker's Reviews
1891-92
aesthetic in whose name it still speaks. Neverthe-
less, I will attempt, in the most recent songs, op. 107
(which Brahms wrote for a solo voice with piano
accompaniment), to provide proof that a brilliant
strength of invention and powerful artistic reason-
ing still work together unweakened in him to create
perfect artworks.'
l"Seit geraumer Zeit schon flustern sich Kritik und
Publicum zu, Brahms sei in seine dritte und schwachste
Schaffensperiodegetreten. Wenn nun die feuilletonistische
Kritik, instinctiv die Gr6sse des Componisten erkennend
(Beweiseliefert sie selten), derMusikgeschichtevorarbeiten
und sich mit Periodisirungenbefassen will, so werden ihr
selbst die Hinweise auf die glanzendsten Kundgebungen
des Brahms'schenGeistes in dieser Periode kaum Beweis
genug sein. Was kann einem Justament! gegeniubereine
Violinsonate in Adur, ein Streichquintett op. 111, eine 4.
Symphonie in Emoll u.s.w. ausrichten? Es bleibt dabei,
was beschlossen wurde. Sonst gabe es ja keine Aesthetik,
in deren Namen doch die Kritik spricht. Indessen will ich
versuchen, an den letzten Liedern,op. 107, die Brahmsfur
eine Singstimme mit Pianofortebegleitunggeschrieben,den
Nachweis zu liefern, dass noch immer in ihm glanzende
Erfindungskraft und machtiger Kunstverstand unge-
schwacht zusammenwirken,um vollkommene Kunstwerke
zu schaffen" (Schenker, review of Brahms's op. 107,
Musikalisches Wochenblatt 22 [1891]; rpt. in Heinrich
Schenkerals Essayist und Kritiker:Gesammelte Aufsdtze,
Rezensionen und kleinere Berichte aus den fahren 1891-
1901, ed. Hellmut Federhofer[Hildesheim: Georg Olms,
1990], pp. 2-8; cited at p. 2). All subsequent references to
this essay and to Schenker's review of Brahms's op. 104
(Musikalisches Wochenblatt 23 [1892]) will refer to this
volume. Unless otherwise noted, all translations appear-
ing in this article are my own.
73
 19TH Whereas his language may be unusually acer-
CENMUSICY bic, Schenker's intentions are precisely as we
would expect from a critic of his time. Ac-
knowledging the polarity of the critical dis-
course with respect to the most recent music
of Brahms, he proclaims at the start his undi-
minished allegiance to the aging master. At
once the battle lines appear clearly drawn. On
its own, Schenker's introduction seems to con-
firm a conception of German and Austrian criti-
cal culture that has, in the present century,
become a common assumption among histori-
ans. The discourse was sharply divided in terms
of both artistic and social ideology, and dis-
putes about the effectiveness and historical
value of Brahms's music lay at the heart of the
debate.2 In 1895 the Belgian critic Maurice
Kufferath published an essential formulation
of this view. While on assignment in Germany,
he lamented:
Here one believes in classicism or in revolution; one
cannot serve both at the same time. So it is, as
ordainedby the regimental cliques. Accordingly,one
situates himself in one camp or the other, and he
accepts unwaveringly the moral duty to combat
against everyone who wears the uniform of the en-
emy. On both sides, this exclusivity is promoted
aggressively, and it is always blind. The true Wagne-
rian swears allegiance only to Parsifal and Abbe
Liszt. Forhim, Schumann is a dilettante and Brahms
isn't even a musician. Forthe committed Brahmsian,
neither Liszt nor Wagner,nor even the very interest-
ing line of French or German masters who stand
alongsidetheir school (neitherSaint-Saensnor d'Indy,
neither Caesar Franck nor Richard Strauss nor
Bruckner)are worthy of even fleeting consideration.
Freedom of opinion is not allowed on either side,
and freedom to admire [whomever one pleases] is
forbidden.3
2See, for instance, Carl Dahlhaus, Nineteenth-Century
Music, trans. J. Bradford Robinson (Berkeley and Los Ange-
les: University of California Press, 1989), pp. 252-61; and
Piero Weiss and Richard Taruskin, Music in the Western
World: A History in Documents (New York: Schirmer,
1984), pp. 380-85 and 402-05.
3"Man bekennt hier den Glauben an den Classicismus
oder den Glauben an die Revolution; Beiden zugleich kann
man nicht dienen. So will's die Cliquendisciplin. Je
nachdem man sich in dem einen oder dem anderen Lager
befindet, ubernimmt man unausweichlich die moralische
Pflicht, Alles zu bekampfen, was die Uniform des Gegners
tragt. Diese Exclusivitat ist gegenseitig Manchmal
aggressiv, aber immer blind. Der echte Wagnerianer schw6rt
74
In recent years, a number of scholars have
begun to re-evaluate the musical and aesthetic
polarities of this period. Some have worked to
dispel the image of Brahms's music as the an-
tithesis of that of Wagner, Bruckner, and other
"revolutionary" composers.4 Others have ar-
gued compellingly that Brahms's music was
found to be equally if not even more challeng-
ing to the sensibilities of late-nineteenth-cen-
tury listeners than that of the so-called New
Germans.5 Nonetheless, with respect to the
critical discourse itself, Kufferath's view of the
field as sharply and uniformly divided between
pro-Wagner (later, pro-Bruckner) and pro-Brahms
parties has continued to prevail. Acknowledg-
ing this situation, Leon Botstein has observed
that "even where fundamental aesthetic issues
were at stake, as in the Bruckner case, the
social and political dimensions of the conflict
were decisive. The divisions represented seg-
ments within [the] Viennese public whose an-
tagonisms deepened and rendered extreme what
otherwise might have remained a serious mat-
ter of aesthetics."6 In light of such views,
Schenker's review of Brahms's songs, op. 107,
nur bei Parsifal und Abbe Liszt. Schumann ist fur ihn ein
Dilettant, Brahms nicht einmal ein Musiker. Fur den
iberzeugten Brahmseaner sind weder Liszt noch Wagner
noch auch die sehr interessante Reihe franz6sischer oder
deutcher Muster, welche ihrer Schule nahestehen, fur ihn
ist weder Sains-Saens, noch d'Indy, weder Casar Franck,
noch Richard Strauss oder Bruckner, auch nur einer
flichtigen Beachtung wert. Eine Freiheit des Urtheils ist
keinerseits gestattet, eine Freiheit der Wurdigung
ausgeschlossen" (cited in the anonymous article "Das Fest
der drei 'B' in Meiningen," Neue Musikalische Presse
[Vienna] 4, no. 41 [1895], 3).
4Pioneering studies in this area include David L. Brodbeck,
"Brahms, the Third Symphony, and the New German
School," in Brahms and His World, ed. Walter M. Frisch
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), pp. 65-79;
A. Peter Brown, "Brahms' Third Symphony and the New
German School," Journal of Musicology 2 (1983), 434-52;
and Dahlhaus, "Issues in Composition," in Between Ro-
manticism and Modernism: Four Studies in the Music of
the Later Nineteenth Century, trans. Mary Whittall (Ber-
keley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1980),
pp. 40-78.
5See especially Margaret Notley, "Brahms as Liberal: Genre,
Style, and Politics in Late-Nineteenth-Century Vienna,"
this journal 17 (1993), 107-23; and Peter Gay, "Aimez-
vous Brahms? On Polarities in Modernism," in Freud, Jews
and Other Germans: Masters and Victims in Modernist
Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978), pp.
231-56.
6Leon Botstein, "Brahms and Nineteenth-Century Paint-
ing," this journal 14 (1990), 159.
together with his 1892 review of Brahms'scho-
ral pieces, op. 104, is most illuminating.
Schenker's introduction may seem to con-
firm our belief in a sharply polarized critical
discourse, but the body of his essay confounds
it. As I shall attempt to show, his analyses of
Brahms'sworks rely at times on conceptions of
musical structure and meaning that are dis-
tinctly Wagnerian. Schenker's early debt to
Wagner, toward whom he later showed such
antipathy, has been all but ignored by recent
commentators despite its appearancein a vari-
ety of contexts.7 Perhaps more important, the
unexpected pairing of critical agenda and ana-
lytical strategy to be found in Schenker's writ-
ing encourages a reconsideration of the accu-
racy of some common assumptions about Ger-
man-language criticism in the late nineteenth
century. These essays remind us that there was
in fact room in the critical discourse for think-
ing that did not recognize the existence of an
unbridgeableaesthetic gulf separatingBrahms's
music and Wagner'saesthetics, but instead con-
sidered both manifestations of a common ideal
of musical expressiveness. The enthusiastic re-
ception that Schenker's reviews received from
a diverse arrayof fellow musicians and writers
furthermore confirms that he was not alone in
his views. Rather, his thinking about this mu-
sic and these ideas resonated with those of
many other writers during his time.
I shall begin by examining more closely the
issues that Schenker sought to address in his
essays-the musical problems most often iden-
tified by critics of Brahms's late style. I will
continue by describing Schenker's analytical
approachto Brahms's music and its relation to
the ideas of Wagner and other prominent writ-
ers on music aesthetics. Finally, I shall discuss
the reception of Schenker's reviews by a num-
ber of his contemporaries and conclude by sug-
gesting that Schenker's essays articulate ideas
about musical structure and meaning that were
7To my knowledge, Allan Keiler is the only scholar to
have acknowledged previously Schenker's early indebted-
ness to Wagner's thinking, in a discussion of Schenker's
use of the term Leitmotiv in his 1893 review of Verdi's
Falstaff. See Keiler, "Melody and Motive in Schenker's
Earliest Writings," in Critica Musica: Essays in Honor of
Paul Brainard, ed. John Knowles (Amsterdam: Gordon and
Breach, 1996), pp. 169-91.
widely held in his day, and, moreover, largely KEVIN C.
KARNES
transcendent of the partisanship that we often Schenker's
assume to be the defining characteristic of the Reviews of
Brahms
critical discourse of this period.
II
In the opening lines of his review of the op.
107 songs, Schenker observes that "for some
time now, critics and the public have been
whispering to each other that Brahms has en-
tered into his third and weakest creative pe-
riod." Although he elaborates no further on
this issue, it is not difficult to get a sense of
what he meant. Even a cursory review of the
writings of his journalistic peers reveals that,
throughout the 1880s and 1890s, the reception
of Brahms's music was dominated by a single
type of complaint. As the Viennese critic Emil
Ritter von Hartmann succinctly wrote in 1885,
"Brahmshas made it so difficult for us to un-
derstand his work completely."8
Admittedly, Hartmann's complaint need not
apply to Brahms's late works alone. Similar
concerns had been voiced by critics for decades
before Schenker began writing. In her study of
the critical reception of Brahms's First Sym-
phony, IngridFuchs has observed that remarks
about the impenetrable technical complexity
of the work were nearly universal in accounts
of its 1876 premiere.9A number of other schol-
ars, including Peter Gay, MargaretNotley, Carl
Dahlhaus, and Walter Frisch, have published
studies that report similar findings.10 Even
Eduard Hanslick, among Brahms's most ada-
mant nineteenth-century supporters, admitted
on first hearing his music that "his composi-
tions are hardly to be counted among those
8"Daf er uns das volle Verstehen so wenig leicht macht"
(cited in Gerold Gruber, "Brahms und Bruckner in der
zeitgen6ssischen Wiener Musikkritik," in Bruckner
Symposion: Johannes Brahms und Anton Bruckner, ed.
Othmar Wessely [Linz: Anton Bruckner-Institut, 1985], p.
208).
9See Fuchs, "Zeitgenossische Auffiihrungen der ersten
Symphonie op. 68 von Johannes Brahms in Wien: Studien
zur Wiener Brahms-Rezeption," in Brahms-Kongress Wien
1983: Kongressbericht, ed. Susanne Antonicek and Otto
Biba (Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 1988), pp. 167-86.
I0See Gay, "Aimez-vous Brahms?"; Notley, "Brahms as
Liberal"; Dahlhaus, Nineteenth-Century Music, pp. 252-
61; and Frisch, Brahms: The Four Symphonies (New York:
Schirmer, 1996), pp. 147-54.
75
 19TH immediately enlightening and gripping works
CENTURY
MUSIC which carry the listener along with them in
their flight.... Even for those who have grasped
his works more fully than I, it is by no means
easy to achieve an absolutely certain orienta-
tion."11
But for commentators up to the present day,
there is something that sets Brahms'slate works
apartfrom his earlier ones. The issue, however,
is not so much one of kind but one of degree.
The technical challenges posed by Brahms's
later compositions are in large part the same as
those presented by his earlierworks, only deep-
ened, made more profound. Thematic materi-
als are more compressed,formalstructuresmore
compact, and motivic processes more complex.
Malcolm MacDonaldhas recently observedthat
Brahms'slate works are characterizedby a "ten-
dency . . . always to create organic unity with
ever greater motivic economy and tonal fluid-
ity, yet [with an] increasing potency of ideas."12
Along similar lines, Walter Frisch has com-
mented on "the extreme conciseness and
economy that characterize [Brahms's]late cre-
ations."13
In Schenker's time, many critics made simi-
lar observations, but they typically described
their impressions with less academic detach-
ment. Graz-basedFriedrichvon Hausegger, for
one, called attention in the mid-1880s to the
same phenomena noted by MacDonald and
Frisch, only in less flattering terms. Hausegger,
who was an outspoken advocate of Wagner's
music and aesthetic ideas, made clear his ap-
preciation for much of Brahms's earlier vocal
and chamber music. Nonetheless, he was un-
enthusiastic about many of the composer'slater
works. In the case of the Fourth Symphony,
apparentlyone of Schenker'sfavorites,he wrote:
"No one will dispute the great mastery that
Brahms displays in the handling of musical
form. What can he not make from the most
insignificant themes! In what high degree is
llHanslick, "Brahms" (1862), cited in Henry Pleasants,
Hanslick's Music Criticisms (New York: Dover, 1950), p.
82.
12MacDonald, Brahms (New York: Schirmer, 1990), p. 302.
13Frisch, Brahms and the Principle of Developing Varia-
tion (Berkeley and Los AnTgeles: University of California
Press, 1984), p. 145.
76
this mastery apparent in the Fourth Symphony,
perhaps more than in any other work! But must
something be made from that which is insig-
nificant? Must God's mercy be forced upon it,
formally, in such a way that it all seems dished
up so ornately?"'4 For Hausegger, Brahms's im-
pressive skill at motivic development could
not compensate for the lack of readily appeal-
ing thematic material in his work. In making
such an assessment, Hausegger was far from
alone. Even Hanslick observed that the Fourth
Symphony's finale "is the most ingenious of all
[its movements], but it is also the least popular,
possibly because its size is out of proportion to
the melodic material."15 In a similar vein,
Hanslick remarked the following in 1889 about
another of Brahms's late works, his Concerto
for Violin and Violoncello, op. 102: "To me it
seems to be more the fruit of a great combina-
torial reasoning than an irresistible product of
creative fantasy and feeling. We miss in it a
freshness and originality of invention, a me-
lodic and rhythmic magic. It is widely acknowl-
edged how cleverly Brahms knows how to turn,
vary, and take full advantage of each motive. In
his Double Concerto too, we admire the art of
development. But this alone-that which is de-
veloped, the thematic stuff-seems to me not
meaningful enough in so large a work."'16
14"Niemand wird die grosse Meisterschaft, welche Brahms
in der Handlung der musikalischen Form an den Tag legt,
bestreiten. Was weiss er nicht aus den unbedeutendsten
Themen zu machen! In wie hohem Grade giebt sich diese
Meisterschaft in der vierten Symphonie, in dieser vielleicht
mehr als in jeder anderen, zu erkennen! Muss aber aus
dem Unbedeutenden etwas gemacht werden? Muss ihm
das Gottesgnadentum mit dem Ornate formlich
aufgezwungen werden?" (Hausegger, "Die E-Moll-
Symphonie von Joh. Brahms," in Gedanken eines
Schauenden [Munich: F. Bruckmann, 1903], p. 239).
1"Brahms's Symphony No. 4," cited in Pleasants,
Hanslick's Music Criticisms, p. 245.
16"Es scheint mir mehr die Frucht eines grofien
combinatorischen Verstandes zu sein, als eine
unwiderstehliche Eingebung sch6pferischer Phantasie und
Empfindung. Wir vermissen daran die Frische und
Ursprunglichkeit der Erfindung, den melodischen und
rhythmischen Zauber. Wie geistreich Brahms jedes Motiv
zu wenden, zu variiren, auszunitzen versteht, ist bekannt;
auch in seinem Doppelconcert bewundern wir die Kunst
der Durchfiihrung. Allein das, was durchgefuihrt wird, der
thematische Stoff, erscheint mir fur ein so grofges Werk
nicht bedeutend genug" (Hanslick, Musikalisches und
Litterarisches [Berlin: Allgemeiner Verein fur Deutsche
Litteratur, 1889], p. 155).
 For over a century, supporters and detractors
alike have observed that Brahms's late compo-
sitions present listeners with a challenging de-
gree of formal complexity and a lack of readily
comprehensible themes. For some, like
Hausegger and Hartmann in the nineteenth cen-
tury and MacDonald and Frisch in our own,
these aspects of Brahms's compositional style,
present from the start, became especially pro-
nounced in the final decades of the composer's
life. For those in Schenker's day who either did
not or could not appreciate such music, Brahms
seemed to have entered "into his third and
weakest creative period." It is precisely this
view that Schenker sought to counter in his
articles on Brahms's work. And although
Schenker's choice of Brahms's songs and choral
pieces may seem strange given his objectives
(after all, the intimate, understated style of op.
107 is decidedly not that of the Fourth Sym-
phony or the String Quintet, op. 111), I want to
suggest that he brought an analytical strategy
to the task of reviewing this music that en-
abled him, he believed, to demonstrate the com-
pelling strength of Brahms's late output as a
whole.
III
Before plunging into his analysis of Brahms's
op. 107, Schenker provides his readers with a
brief description of the analytical method he
intends to employ. He writes: "I will apply a
method here that possesses compelling strength
when it remains purely objective, but that does
not spurn subjective interpretation-so long as
the latter does not presume to be objective."'7
With these words, he situates his discussion
squarely within a nineteenth-century analyti-
cal tradition that Ian Bent has described as
hermeneutic. In Bent's terms, Schenker intends
to "describe" Brahms's music in terms of its
formal characteristics, and, in turn, to "inter-
pret rather than to describe" what he hears.
The latter, the "subjective" side of analysis, is
concerned with "the inner life of the music
17"Ichwende hierbei eine Methode an, der zwingende Kraft
innewohnt, wenn sie rein objectiv bleibt, die aber die
Subjectivitat nicht verschmaht, so lange sich dieselbe von
der Anmaassung frei halt, Objectivitat zu sein" (Schenker,
p.2).
rather than with its outward, audible form." It KEVIN C.
KARNES
is an attempt "to transcend that outer form and Schenker's
penetrate the non-material interior" of a work.'8 Reviews of
Brahms
As Bent has demonstrated, hermeneutic ap-
proaches to analysis, often informed by idealist
or Romantic conceptions of musical meaning,
appear throughout the nineteenth-century criti-
cal, theoretical, and even historical literature
on music. We should not, therefore, be sur-
prised to discover Schenker's own early indebt-
edness to this methodological trend, yet here it
seems that comments he made later in life,
especially with reference to the work of
Hermann Kretzschmar, have obscured this as-
pect of his intellectual history from the view of
many recent commentators.19 But although the
analytical approach that he brought to Brahms's
music may have been fairly typical for a critic
of this time, the way in which Schenker con-
ceived of the subjective side of his task, by
which he attempted to demonstrate the com-
prehensibility and effectiveness of Brahms's late
work, is more remarkable.
In these essays, Schenker's attempts to elu-
cidate Brahms's works for his readers often
amount to an exploration of the correspondence
between musical events and the emotions or
ideas implicit in the poetic texts they set. Again,
we can find many precedents for such an ana-
lytical approach, since many of Schenker's peers
were also fond of highlighting moments of par-
ticularly effective text setting in the songs they
considered.20 Schenker, however, is unusually
reflective about this issue, at times arguing
that Brahms's music clarifies emotional rela-
tionships that the poet himself had intended to
convey, but had been unable to communicate
effectively because of the inherent constraints
of his or her medium. Like many other critics,
Schenker was furthermore prone to construct-
18Bent, Music Analysis in the Nineteenth Century (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), II, 1 (italics in
original).
"9This fact has been discussed by Bent, in Music Analysis
in the Nineteenth Century, II, 12-13.
20This subject has recently been explored in detail by
Heather Platt, in "Hugo Wolf and the Reception of Brahms's
Lieder," in Brahms Studies, vol. II, ed. David Brodbeck
(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1998), pp. 91-111;
and "Jenner versus Wolf: The Critical Reception of
Brahms's Songs," Journal of Musicology 13 (1995), 377-
403.
77
 19TH ing poetic narratives that could be seen as un-
CENTURY derlying the unfolding of a work. But whereas
MUSIC
Mark Evan Bonds has recently argued that such
narratives were often motivated by abstract,
idealist conceptions of musical meaning,21 I
would suggest that Schenker's comments were
motivated at times by a different, more prob-
lematic critical agenda. In his analyses-and
especially his review of op. 104-Schenker con-
ceives of his task not as the construction but
rather as the uncovering of narratives that mo-
tivated the composer's own creative work, and
he argues that we, as listeners, must endeavor
to uncover such narratives if we are to under-
stand the structure of Brahms's music. He in-
sists repeatedly that the structural unfolding of
the pieces he discusses has been determined by
the composer's need to bring out emotional
states implied by the poet, and he even argues
that Brahms deliberately subjugated his cre-
ative efforts to the poet's expressive demands.
With respect to these issues, Schenker's words
exhibit a distinctly Wagnerian sensibility and
reveal his indebtedness to a complex of ideas
that Wagner articulated authoritatively at
midcentury, just as he was first attempting to
lay the aesthetic foundations for the music
drama.
Schenker begins his discussion of "An die
Stolze," the first song of op. 107, by observing
that the structure of Brahms's music does not
correspond precisely to that of the text it sets.
Rather, he argues that the song's form corre-
sponds more broadly to the poetic idea, which
itself transcends the form of Paul Flemming's
verse. He writes:
Indeed, the composer binds two strophes together
into a period. But through the postponement of the
decisive point of articulation-namely, of the domi-
nant-seventh chord-until after the first line of the
second and fourth strophes, the relationshipbetween
the textual ideas is developed far more sharply than
through the form of the poem alone. In truly
declamatoryfashion, the music strides forwardfrom
"und gleichwohl kann ich anders nicht" (andin any
case I can do nothing else [line 1]) to "ich muss ihr
21SeeBonds, "Idealismand the Aesthetics of Instrumental
Music at the Turn of the Nineteenth Century,"Journalof
the American Musicological Society 50 (1997), 387-420,
and esp. pp. 413-14.
78
guinstigsein" [I must win her favor [line 2]), and it
reaches its formal high point in the passionate, pen-
etrating setting of "ich will, ich soll, ich muss dich
lieben" (I will, I shall, I must love you [line 5]). As a
result, the touching message of the remaining lines
in the pairof strophesis renderedmuch more sharply
in the musical form of the Nachsatz.22
As shown in Table 1, the fourth line of the first
poetic strophe or quatrain ("mir mitgonnt
seinen Schein") concludes in m. 11. Apparently
assuming that the paired quatrains of
Flemming's text would be set in a simple bi-
nary form, Schenker suggests that we would
expect the primary musical interruption, de-
marcating the conclusion of the Vordersatz, to
occur at the juncture between first and second
quatrains at the end of m. 11. Schenker notes,
however, that Brahms postpones this interrup-
tion, an "articulating" dominant-seventh chord,
until m. 17 (ex. 1). By this time, the voice has
already begun the second quatrain and has in
fact completed its first line. In this way, Brahms
imposes a structural division on Flemming's
text that the poet himself did not.23
22"je zwei Strophenbindet der Componist zu einer Periode
zusammen. Durch Verlegung des entscheidenden
Wendepunctesaber-des Dominantseptaccordesnamlich-
hinter die erste Zeile der 2., respective 4. Strophe pragt
sich die Beziehung der textlichen Gedanken weit scharfer
aus, als selbst durch die Form des Gedichtes. Treu
declamierend schreitet die Musik vom 'und gleichwohl
kann ich andersnicht' zum 'ich muss ihr gunstig sein' vor
und erhalt ihren formellen Gipfelpunct erst in der
durchdringendleidenschaftlichen Vertonungdes 'ich will,
ich soll, ich muss dich lieben.' Dadurch erscheint noch
weiter die ruihrende Pointe der ubrigen Zeilen des
Strophenpaaresviel scharferumrissen in dermusikalischen
Formdes Nachsatzes" (Schenker,p. 2).
23Beforeconsidering the implications of Schenker's read-
ing, we should note some rather curious features of his
analysis. First, the generic structure on which Brahms
seems to play in "An die Stolze" is not, as Schenker sug-
gests, a simple binary form, but rather what James
Hepokoski has described as a through-composed "lyric-
binary,"which can in this case be characterizedschemati-
cally as aa'bc. Here the first poetic quatrain(mm. 1-11) is
set as a parallel period aa', concluding on the dominant
(albeit with perfect authentic cadence evaded via inver-
sion in m. 11). In its more normative guise, a lyric-binary
setting would continue by presenting lines 5-6 in a con-
trasting manner;this section (b)would end with a strongly
articulated dominant harmony, serving as the primaryin-
terruption in the song. Typically, lines 7-8, which con-
clude the second quatrain, would be cadential in nature,
preparingfor and realizing a perfect authentic cadence in
the tonic (c). Of particularinterest here is that the "deci-
 Table 1 KEVIN C.
KARNES
Schenker's Analysis of Brahms, "An die Stolze" (Op. 107, No. 1) Schenker's
Reviews of
Brahms
First Quatrain Line 1 Und gleichwohl kann ich anders nicht, I mm. 1-3
Line 2 ich muIf ihr gfinstig sein, mm. 3-5
Line 3 obgleich der Augen stolzes Licht mm. 7-9 Vordersatz
Line 4 mir mifigonnt seinen Schein. mm. 9-11
Second Quatrain Line 5 Ich will, ich soll, ich muf dich lieben, V7 mm. 12-17
Line 6 dadurchwir Beid uns nur betruiben, V7 mm. 17-21
Line 7 weil mein Wunsch doch nicht gilt, mm. 21-23 Nachsatz
Line 8 und du nicht h6ren wilt. I mm. 23-28

In his own review of "An die Stolze," pub-
lished two years earlier, Eduard Hanslick also
remarked on the unusual pairing of music and
text in Brahms's setting. For Hanslick, how-
ever, the discrepancies he found only reinforced
his previously voiced conviction that a musical
work cannot be said to express an emotional
message in any precise way.24 Observing that
Flemming's "bourgeois [biirgerlichen] words get
in the way of the passionate music," he con-
cluded that "one can consider this song as yet
another example of the ambiguity of music-a
thing rarely encountered with Brahms. The
music snuggles up faultlessly to the distressing
words of Flemming's poem, but the words of a
hopeful lover could underlie this straightfor-
ward A-major melody just as well."25 Schenker's
sive pointof articulation"-thestronglyarticulateddomi-
nant that marksa both a momentaryinterruptionof for-
wardmomentumand the dramaticturningpoint in the
narrative-wouldtypicallyoccurafterline 6. In "Andie
Stolze,"we find this interruptionafterline 5. One could
thereforearguethat the event that Schenkerdescribesas
"postponed" in this song in fact arrivesone line earlier
than we would expect. Of course,Schenker'sargument
about the essential displacementof this interruptionis
nonethelessvalid.I amgratefulto ProfessorHepokoskifor
drawingthis situationto my attention.On the lyric-bi-
naryform in general,see his "OttocentoOperaas Cul-
turalDrama:GenericMixturesin II trovatore,"in Verdi's
Middle Period 1849-1859: Source Studies, Analysis, and
Performance Practice, ed. Martin Chusid (Chicago: Uni-
versityof ChicagoPress,1997),pp. 147-96, and esp. pp.
150-60.
24Hanslickfirst advancedthis argumentin his 1854trea-
tise Vom Musikalisch-Sch6nen. See Hanslick, On the Mu-
sically Beautiful,trans. GeoffreyPayzant(Indianapolis:
Hackett,1986),pp. 16-20.
25"DiebiirgerlichenWortestellen sich leidenschaftlicher
Musikin den Weg.... Mankannan diesemLiede-ein
seltenerZufallbei Brahms-wiedereinmaleine Probeauf
own analysis of the relationship between the
music and text of "An die Stolze" could hardly
be more different. For Schenker, the formal
division that Brahms imposes on Flemming's
verse, while it may at first appear to undermine
the structure intended by the poet himself, cor-
responds perfectly to the meaning of the poem.
In fact, the structure of Brahms's music makes
this meaning more explicit for the listener than
the text alone can: the Vordersatz, lines 1-5,
describes the poet's love, and the Nachsatz,
lines 6-8, describes his sorrow. For Flemming,
working within the constraints of poetic con-
vention in this instance gave rise to a palpable
tension between the outward form of his work
and the ideas he sought to convey. It was up to
Brahms, who faced no such restrictions, to re-
solve this tension. By composing a setting that
contravened against the manifest structure of
Flemming's text, he was able to bring out "the
relationship between the textual ideas ... far
more sharply than [was possible] through the
form of the poem alone." It is here that
Schenker's thinking crosses paths with
Wagner's.
In Oper und Drama (1851), Wagner began
his discussion of the relationship between mu-
sic and text by identifying two formal param-
eters by which poets have for ages arranged
die Vieldeutigkeit der Musik machen. Die Musik schmiegt
sich tadellos dem schmerzlichen Gedichte Flemmings an,
aber auch die Worte eines hoffnungsvoll Liebenden diirften
sich dieser klaren A-dur-Melodie unterlegen lassen"
(Hanslick, Musikalisches und Litterarisches, p. 144 [em-
phasis added]).

79
 t '
19TH Sehrlebhaftund ausdrucksvoll
~ J JJ r
CENTURYI
MUSIC ry r r r r r r r
Und gleich - wohl kann ich an - ders nicht, ich muf ihr gun - stig sein,

lt# -
1 :r .rJ J
IJ >r J r r r r r
ob - gleich der Au - gen stol - zes Licht mir mif- gonnt sei - nen

p cresc.

tS#\#S y j22:@u \\\ r: j n- r

'
'I##r'r - it r V V r ? ? r ir r V hJ
Schein. __ Ich will, ich soil, ich soil, ich mugi _ dich

16

lie - ben, da - durch wir Beid uns nur be -

f f - P P
p

Example 1: Brahms, "An die Stolze," op. 107, no. 1, mm. 1-30.

their material in a misguided attempt to com- and rhyming strategies are by nature foreign to
municate effectively with their readers: meter linguistic expression. In summary, he com-
and rhyme. The real effect of these devices, he plained of poetry's "impoverished outward set-
argued, is in fact just the opposite. Metrical ting, which distorts the proper expressiveness
patterns destroy the natural rhythm of speech, of speech and obscures its meaningful con-

80
 21 KEVIN C.
KARNES
Schenker's
Reviews of
tri - ben, weil mein Wunsch doch nicht gilt, und du nicht ho - ren wilt, und Brahms

I
cresc.

26

(/:)##*r r sr J4 i - f - -

du nicht ho - ren wilt

(?
cresc
?i? j j i \ if P
p

Example 1 (continued)

tent."26 On the other hand, Wagner suggested Schenker's argument on behalf of Brahms's "An
that the emotional content of a poem-its die Stolze."
meaning in the deepest sense-can be revealed Schenker provides a similar reading of the
by a musical setting whose structural charac- fifth song of op. 107, "Madchenlied." Referring
teristics express the poetic idea itself in the to the opening strophe of the piece, he notes
clearest possible way. When a composer coor- that "in the most meager form of an eight-
dinates melodic and harmonic construction measure phrase, the music snuggles up to the
with the emotional unfolding of a poem rather words. Absorbing [their] content within itself,
than with its manifest structure, Wagner ar- it is raised to the most wondrously beautiful
gued, "the musician attains vindication for his height of expression."28 Again, Schenker sug-
work . . . from the poet's intention-from an gests that Brahms's music serves as a vehicle
intention that the latter could only hint at, or for poetic content-the idea expressed beneath
at best realize only partially and for a fraction a poem's formal structure. Continuing, he com-
of his message . . . but the full realization of ments in more explicit terms on the harmonic
which is possible for the musician alone."27 progression underlying this passage.
Four decades later, this would be precisely
The harmonies appearing within this phrase are
simple; they create a lasting effect with their power-
26t"Sein den richtigen
ful ability to support [the melody], and they take
armliche, Sprachausdruck
entstellende, seinen sinnvollen Inhalt verwirrende augere turns peaceably with one another. Although they
Fassung" (Wagner, Oper und Drama, in Gesammelte
Schriften und Dichtungen [3rd edn. Leipzig: C. F. W.
Siegel's Musikalienhandlung, 1903], IV, 112-113).
27"Die Rechtfertigung fur sein Verfahrung . . . erhalt der 28"In der knappsten Form eines achttaktigen Satzes
Musiker daher aus der Absicht des Dichters,-aus einer schmiegt sich die Musik an die Worte an, und, den Inhalt
Absicht, die dieser eben nur andeuten oder h6chstens nur in sich aufnehmend, schwingt sie sich zu wunderschoner
fur die Bruchtheile seiner Kundgebung . . . annahrend Hohe des Ausdrucks empor" (Schenker,p. 7). Schenker's
verwirklichen konnte, deren volle Verwirklichung aber use of the rather peculiar fragment die Musik schmiegt
eben nur dem Musiker m6glich ist" (Wagner, Oper und sich an in this passage may be a subtle-or even inadvert-
Drama, p. 153). ent-reference to Hanslick's review cited above.

81
 19TH Leise bewegt
CENTURY A A k L K
MUSIC

1. Auf die Nacht in den Spinn - stubn, da_ sing - en die Mad - chen, da lach - en die
2. Spinnt Je - des am Braut - schatz, daBi der Lieb - ste - sich freut. Nicht lan - ge, so

6
'

i##;
Dorf
S r
wie
IP
flink
7
gehn
#2
die
Ir-
Rad -
1- : --r
chen!
v l -
:1

bubn,
gibt es ein Hoch - aeit - ge - laut.

) 9 tW 5 2J^-^y rir^ A
.
\1 F - (_ -
I^

Example 2: Brahms, "Madchenlied," op. 107, no. 5, mm. 1-12.

progress far away from the [tonic] B-minor triad,29 Schenker describes the character of the pro-
they always make their way back to (and,after their gression underlying the first strophe as analo-
quiet wanderings, eventually arrive at) the triad for gous to that of the emotion portrayed by the
which they strive, and of which we have had, in- text: melancholy. In Paul Heyse's poem, a young
wardly, a premonition [i.e., they return to the tonic]. woman, unloved, works away her days at a
They make the impression of a complete cycle-an
spinning wheel while all the other women of
ellipse, I would say. The agreement (even better, the
her village marry. For Schenker, the circularity
analogy) between the melodic line and the progres-
sion of harmonies on the one hand, and the charac- of the progression, with its play between the
ter of melancholy on the other, is obvious. Indeed, tonic B minor and both B- and D-major sonori-
true melancholy, monotonous in its color and quiet ties, corresponds perfectly to the waves of mel-
by nature, always strikes in very small waves.30 ancholy afflicting the protagonist (ex. 2). As in
his review of "An die Stolze," Schenker dem-
onstrates how Brahms's music makes apparent
the emotional reality underlying events de-
29The original reads "Gmoll-Dreiklang." In his review, scribed in the poet's text. Whereas readers of
Schenker made use of a transposed score, a decision for the text alone must infer for themselves the
which Brahmshimself later chastised him; see Schenker,
"Erinnerungenan Brahms,"Deutsche Zeitschrift 46 (1933), emotional state of the young woman from the
477. In this translation, I have indicated the original key, actions and situations described by Heyse's
B minor.
30"Die Harmonien, die in diesem Rahmen auftreten, sind words, Brahms's musical setting makes the lis-
einfach, besitzen Ausdauerin der Tragkraftund 1osen still tener vividly and intuitively aware of the mood
einander ab. Indem sie fernervon einem Gmoll-Dreiklang
ausgehen, nach einem solchen wieder streben und nach
ruhiger Wanderung den erstrebten und von uns innig
vergeahnten Dreiklang auch erreichen, machen sie den auf der einen und des Charaktersder Schwermuth auf der
Eindruckeines geschlossenen Cyklus, einer Ellipse,mochte anderen Seite ist offenbar-; denn das ist es ja, dass wahre
ich sagen. Die Uebereinstimmung, besser das Analoge der Schwermuth, monoton in der Farbe, ruhig im Wesen, nur
Zeichnung der Melodie und der Bewegungder Harmonien sehr kleine Wellenkreise schlagt" (Schenker, p. 7).

82
intended by the poet. As Schenker writes, the
analogy between musical structure and prevail-
ing emotion is "obvious" in Brahms's song.
Once again, Schenker's observations about
the structure of Brahms's music are hardly re-
markable in themselves. What is interesting,
however, is the way in which he describes his
observations, and the similarity that exists be-
tween his description of the elucidative capac-
ity of harmonic structure in a vocal work and
Wagner's own remarks on the subject. In Oper
und Drama, the latter argued that "the musi-
cian becomes perfectly understandable precisely
through the technique of quite markedly re-
turning to the first tonality [Tonart], thus firmly
establishing the unity of the underlying emo-
tion. This is a feat impossible . . . for the poet.
The poet could only hint at the underlying
emotion through the sense of the verses; he
therefore longed for its full realization in feel-
ing, and left it for the musician to fulfill."31
Here we find Wagner describing precisely the
kind of musical situation that would be ex-
plored by Schenker in his review of
"Madchenlied." The conclusions reached by
the two authors, moreover, are the same.
In his 1892 review of op. 104, Schenker re-
turns to his consideration of the relationships
between music and text with an even greater
degree of enthusiasm. In this review he seems
particularly interested in exploring the capac-
ity of poetic events or ideas to regulate and
even determine the unfolding of musical form-
even within the composer's mind itself. In his
discussion of the first piece of op. 104,
"Nachtwache I," he begins by describing what
he calls the "antiphonal" structure of the work.
Throughout most of the piece, the choir is di-
vided into two parts, consisting of soprano and
altos, on the one hand, and tenor and basses, on
the other. The two choirs alternate in their
presentation of the harmonized melodic line,
311"DerMusiker gerade dadurchvollkommen verstandlich
wird, dafser in die erste Tonart ganz merklich zuruickgeht,
und die Gattungsempfindungdaher mit Bestimmtheit als
eine einheitliche bezeichnet, was dem Dichter . . . nicht
moglich war.-Allein der Dichter deutete durch den Sinn
beiderVersedie Gattungsempfindungan: er verlangtesomit
ihre Verwirklichungvor dem Gefiihle, und bestimmte den
verwirklichenden Musiker fur sein Verfahren" (Wagner,
Oper und Drama, p. 153).
with the upper choir leading the lower by one KEVINC.
KARNES
measure. Schenker suggests that this antipho- Schenker's
nal arrangement may be understood as repre- Reviews of
Brahms
senting two characters. He conceives of this
arrangement in a dramatic sense. "The overall
retention of the antiphonal structure," he
writes, "allows the choir to represent, as it
were, two individuals, embodied in the soprano
and the tenor."32 He continues by postulating a
hypothetical dramatic scenario, based on the
poetic text, that could have given rise to such a
setting: "It is like two lovers who have not yet
confessed their love for each other, but who,
separated by a great distance, dedicate to each
other their 'vom Odem der Liebe geweckten
Tone der Brust' [tones of the breast awakened
by the breath of love]. It is as if their tones and
sighs cross paths in the air that separates
them."33
The only problem with this interpretation,
he admits, is that Friedrich Rfickert's poem
does not allude to two individuals. Rather,
Schenker recognizes that the text is suggestive
of the thoughts of a single protagonist:
Leise Tone der Brust
Geweckt vom Odem der Liebe,
Hauchet zitternd hinaus,
Ob sich euch 6ffn' ein Ohr,
Offn' ein liebendes Herz,
Und wenn sich keines euch offnet,
Trag' ein Nachwind euch
Seufzend in meines zuruick.
(Soft tones of the breast,
awakened by the breath of love,
whisper forth tremulously
if an ear or loving heart
should open to you;
and should none open,
let a night wind bear you back,
sighing, to mine.)
32"Dasprincipielle Festhalten am Wechselgesang ... lasst
den Chor gleichsam zwei Individuen reprasentieren, die
im Sopranund im Tenor verk6rperterscheinen"(Schenker,
p. 14).
33"Es ist, als waren es zwei Liebende, die sich ihre
gegenseitige Liebe zwar noch nicht gestanden, aber, fern
von einander, ihre 'vom Odem der Liebe geweckten Tone
der Brust' einander widmen, und als kreuzten sich die
Tone und Seufzer in der Luft, die sie trennt" (ibid., p. 15).
My translations of the text of op. 104 are based on those
by Lionel Salter, published with the recording Brahms:
Choral Works (Philips CD 432 512-2).
83
19TH Although he suggests that a dramatic sce-
CMUSIC nario involving two lovers may have inspired
Brahms to compose an antiphonal setting to
this text, Schenker argues that the poet's inten-
tion to portray the experience of a single indi-
vidual may have in turn prompted the com-
poser to score each of the antiphonally opposed
choirs in a homophonic manner. Example 3,
mm. 1-4 of "Nachtwache I," indicates both the
homophonic and the antiphonal structures
Schenkerdescribes.Admitting the apparentcon-
flict between the poetic idea, suggestive of the
feelings of a single person, and Brahms's set-
ting (a conflict embodied in Schenker's inter-
pretation), Schenker observes that the antipho-
nal structure represents Brahms's own contri-
bution to the dramatic whole. He writes: "The
system of two individuals about which I said
more above, which destroys the homophonic
texture, furthermore seems to me to reveal an
independent idea on the part of the composer
himself, going beyond the idea of the poet."34
To be sure, Schenker's argumentation does
not rely on Wagnerianprecepts alone. Here, he
is clearly indebted to another line of aesthetic
thinking that precedes his own work by de-
cades. Throughout the century, the nature of
the creative process had been among the most
widely debated issues among writers on aes-
thetic subjects, and the ability of a composer of
songs to add a layer of meaning to that pro-
vided by a text alone was frequently discussed.
Writing in 1855, August Wilhelm Ambros ar-
gued that "it is the manner of robust spirits to
write a piece of music to some verbal text or
other, the intellectual content of which music
leaves the accompanying words, although it
was suggested by them and follows their ten-
dency, so far behind it in depth of thought that
they seem, as it were, like a mere point of
departure, whence the mind of the composer
has lifted itself up to something quite different
from and higher than what the scanty word
34"Das mit Zugrundelegung der Homophonie erfundene
System der zwei Individuen, von denen ich oben Naheres
sagte, scheint mir weiter eine eigene selbstandige,uber die
Idee des Dichters hinausgehende Pointe des Componisten
zu offenbaren"(Schenker,p. 15).
84
says."35 Three decades later, Friedrich von
Hausegger suggested that "a new process of
creation, aroused in [the composer's mind] by
the poetry, must provide the basis for his artis-
tic product. And so, the poet and the musician
admittedly find themselves at the same fount,
but they part ways as soon as they prepare to
quench their thirst."36Similar examples could
be easily multiplied.
There is, however, something more remark-
able about Schenker's account of "Nachtwache
I." We encounter it as soon as he attempts to
reason his way out of the interpretive paradox
in which he has found himself thus far. Admit-
ting that Riickert's text alone cannot account
for the structure of Brahms's setting, Schenker
concedes that "one will consider this impres-
sion of mine a mere hypothesis, in which I, for
my part, find an explanation for the two indi-
viduals." Nonetheless, he insists that "with-
out it, the division of the choir would remain
inexplicable for me since the content of the
poem seems by nature to revolt against it."37
Although he cannot prove that a dramatic nar-
rative relating to "two individuals" motivated
Brahms's choices when composing "Nacht-
wache I," Schenker argues that we, as listeners,
must assume that it did in order to understand
the structure of the piece. On this point his
thinking once again crosses paths with
Wagner's.
Several times over the course of Oper und
Drama, Wagner asserted, like Schenker, that
musical structures and processes can be in-
35Ambros, Die Grenzen der Musik und Poesie: Eine Studie
zur Asthetik der Tonkunst (Leipzig: H. Matthes, 1855),
trans. John Henry Cornell as The Boundaries of Music and
Poetry: A Study in Musical Aesthetics (New York: G.
Schirmer, 1893), pp. 100-01; in this passage, I have slightly
modified Cornell's translation.
361"EinNeuschaffungsprocefi aus dem in ihm durch die
Dichtung wachgerufenen Drange heraus mufg seinem
Kunstgebilde die Gestalt geben. Und so finden sich Dichter
und Musiker zwar an der gleichen Quelle, entfernen sich
aber sogleich wieder, wenn sie sich anschicken, ihren Trank
zu credenzen" (Hausegger, Die Musik als Ausdruck [2nd
edn. Vienna: Carl Konegen, 1887], pp. 185-86).
37"Diesen meinen Eindruck wolle man blos als Hypothese
betrachten, in der ich fuir meinen Theil die Erklarung der
beiden Individuen finde. Sonst bleibe mir die Spaltung des
Chores umso unerklarlicher, als ja der Inhalt des Gedichtes
sich von Haus aus gegen sie aufzulehnen scheint"
(Schenker,p. 15).
 antiphonal

Langsam
Pp
Sop.

Lei -se To ne erBrust, ge -weckt vom 0 -dem der Lie -be,

homophonic
Alto I

Alto II

Tenor

Lei -se To ne der Brust, ge - weckt vom 0 - dem der

pp
Bass I
r r ~~ -

hmp
I
Bass 11

Example 3: Brahms, "Nachtwache I," op.-104, no. 1, mm. 1-4.

 19TH comprehensible to an audience unless those
CEMTURY processes themselves have been determined by
the requirements of a dramatic event or sce-
nario. In a discussion of harmonic progression,
for instance, Wagner argued that traditionally
defined harmonic structures "have worked only
numbingly and bewilderingly upon the feel-
ings, and their most muddled excursions have,
in this sense, provided satisfaction only to a
certain opulence of musical intellect on the
part of our musicians themselves, but not to
the layman who does not understand[the inner
workings of] music."38 On the other hand, a
harmonic progression that is determined by ei-
ther the demands or the implications of the
poet's text appears to all "as something in-
stinctively knowable, to be seized upon with-
out any distracting effort, quickly and readily
comprehensible for the feelings."39 Later in his
treatise Wagner expressed this idea in more
general terms, in a way that encompasses all
aspects of musical construction: "In the exer-
cise of its highest faculty [i.e., its ability to
communicate precise feelings to the listener],
musical expression will remain entirely vague
and uncertain so long as it does not absorb
within itself the poetic intention described
above."40 From this Wagnerian vantage point,
to explain the problematic formal design of
"Nachtwache I" in terms of a dramatic sce-
nario, even one that may have been invented
post facto, and moreover to insist that our faith
in the validity of such a scenario is necessary to
understand the structure of the work may have
seemed to Schenker quite natural.
In his discussion of the second piece of op.
104, "Nachtwache II," Schenker returns to a
38"Soweit sie diesem ihren Ursprungeganz getreu blieb,
hat sie auf das Gefiihl auch nur betaubendund verwirrend
gewirkt,und ihre buntesten Kundgebungenin diesem Sinne
haben nur einer gewissen Musikverstandesschwelgerei
unserer Kiinstler selbst Genufi geboten, nicht aber dem
unmusikverstandigen Laien" (Wagner,Oper und Drama,
p. 157).
39"1Als einen unwillkuirlich kenntlichen, ohne alle
zerstreuende Miihe zu erfassenden, dem Gefuhle leicht
und schnell begreiflich zufuhren" (Wagner, Oper und
Drama, p. 158).
40"DerAusdruck der Musik wird, bei der Verwendung
dieser aufIerstenFahigkeit,so lange ein ganzlich vagerund
unbestimmender bleiben, als er nicht die soeben
bezeichnete dichterische Absicht in sich aufnimmt"
(Wagner,Oper und Drama, p. 189).
86
subject that occupied him in his review of op.
107. Here he comments on the ways in which
even the finest details of Brahms's music have
been composed in order to make clear to the
listener the emotions intimated yet left unde-
fined by the poet's words. Tracing the evolu-
tion of melodic contour, motivic development,
and harmonic progression in mm. 10-13, he
explains how nearly all of the musical events
in this passage have been constructed to serve
the demands of the poetic idea.
The way the passage loses itself in the key of AS
major (I say it loses itself because of its gentle glid-
ing over the C-minor triad,and because of the F triad
that saturates the first part of the second measure);
the rhythm and the sequence of harmonies, and es-
pecially the placement of the tonic and dominant
triads together; the melodic line at the word
"Stimmen," and the dynamic intensification of the
melody to a gentle height with this word-how will-
ingly all of these elements are bound together in
order to serve the poetic idea, which seeks to cap-
ture and hold down, as it were, a more remote thought
with the gentle strength of the mood. [These ele-
ments are furthermoreunited] in orderto satisfy the
form dictated by the poet, with its fine and soft
questioning, just like that of his own imagination!41
Observingthat the most salient aspects of com-
positional artistry in this piece owe their exist-
ence to the expressive requirements of the po-
etic idea, Schenkerproclaims that Brahmshim-
self seems to have created "Nachtwache II"
with "the most perfectly characteristic will, as
if he served that of the poet alone."42 Not un-
41"'DieEntriickung des Satzes in die Asdur-Tonart-sanft
mocht ich die Entruckung nennen wegen des
Hinweggleitens iiber Cmoll-Dreiklang und wegen des an
erster Stelle des 2. Taktes verwendeten weichen F-
Dreiklangs-, der Rhythmus und die Ordnung der
Harmonien, insbesondere die Stellung des Haupt- und des
Dominantdreiklangesinnerhalb derselben, der Tonfall der
Melodie bei dem Worte 'Stimmen' und endlich die
dynamische Hebung der Melodie zu einer sanften Hohe
gegen dieses Wort hin, wie willig verbinden sich all diese
Elemente, um der dichterischenIdee zu dienen, die ja einen
entlegenerenGedankenmit dersanften Kraftder Stimmung
gleichsam herabholen und fesseln will, und um der Form
des Dichters zu genigen, der fein und leise fragt,als wiirde
seine eigene Phantasieihn selbst erst befragen!"(Schenker,
p. 19).
42"Aber Brahms, mit ureigenem Wollen geradezu, als
bediente er sich dabei nur des Dichters" (ibid.).
 Table 2 KEVINC.
KARNES
Schenker's Analysis of Brahms, "Letztes Gliick" (Op. 104, No. 3) Schenker's
Reviews of
Brahms
TEXT KEY MELODICGROUP MOOD

Part 1 Leblos gleitet Blatt um Blatt f min. [A] Serious shadow of

Still und traurigvon den Baumen; (related the autumnal
(Lifelessly, leaf after leaf glides quietly motivically (relatedto mood of Part 4)
and sorrowfully from the trees;) to D)

Part 2 Seines Hoffens nimmer satt, A; Maj. [B] The dream of spring
Lebt das Herz in Friihlingstraumen. (related (relatedto mood of Part3)
(Its hopes never fulfilled, the heart motivically
persists in a dream of spring.) to C)

Part 3 Noch verweilt ein Sonnenblick F Maj. [C] A ray of sun lingering on the
Bei den spaten Hagerosen- (related late, wild roses
(A ray of sun lingers on the late, motivically (relatedto mood of Part 2)
wild roses-) to B)

Part 4 Wie bei einem letzten Gliick, f min. [D] A last, hopeless bliss
Einem sufien, hoffnungslosen. (related (relatedto mood of Part 1)
(As on a single last bliss, a sweet one, motivically
without hope.) to A)

like the composer in Wagner's Oper und Drama,
Schenker's Brahms has carried out his musical
work first and foremost in the service of the
poet's art.
Before I turn to the broader implications of
Schenker's approach to Brahms's music, it is
worthwhile to examine briefly one more ex-
ample from Schenker's reviews: "Letztes
Gluick," the third piece from op. 104, with a
text by Max Kalbeck. In his analysis, Schenker
describes some of the ways in which a poetic
idea can not only determine the unfolding of
isolated musical events but also prescribe-
virtually as an agent in itself-large-scale for-
mal designs. As he states in the opening sen-
tence of his discussion, "the most remarkable
thing about this six-part choral work is the
freedom with which the poetic idea has created
its own musical form corresponding precisely
to itself. "43 As shown in Table 2, Schenker
43"Am bemerkenswerthesten ist in diesem sechsstimmigen
Chor die Freiheit, mit welcher die dichterische Idee sich
eine eigene, eben nur ihr entsprechende musikalische Form
erschuf" (ibid., p. 21).
hears "Letztes Gliick" as divisible into four
large sections, each in a different key. He con-
siders the large-scale form of the work, as well
as both the tonalities and the melodic lines
that help define it, to have arisen as a product
of the emotional content of Kalbeck's poem, in
which each pair of lines suggests a different
mood.44
On examining the melodic structure of the
work in greater detail, however, Schenker makes
one of the most provocative observations in
the essay. Here he describes the way in which
melodic motives can portray specific emotions,
and how the recurrence of these motives over
the course of the piece can suggest dynamic
interconnections in the emotional world of a
dramatic protagonist. He describes, in other
words, a phenomenon similar to what has be-
44Fora more detailed discussion of Schenker's account of
the motivic organization of "Letztes Gliick" and
"Nachtwache II," with an emphasis on the ways in which
his readings of these works relate to his later ideas about
musical structure, see Keiler, "Melody and Motive in
Schenker's Earliest Writings," pp. 186-91.

87
 19TH come known as Wagner's system of Leit-
CENTURY
MUSIC motiven.
One will allow me to say the following about the
motivic replications and repetitions appearingin the
melody. In one's experience of a mood imparted
through the senses or only indirectly through the
imagination, opposing feelings seem to combat each
other, but in reality one feeling exerts a lasting effect
on the next. Ultimately, all [of these feelings] work
together, contributing to the overall characterof the
mood. In orderto re-createthe complicated nature of
a mood that one will readily consider "unified,"
motivic replications and repetitions, if operating in
the service of ideas, can function like materials for
binding together skillfully assembled thought con-
structions, since they can replicate certain effects of
one idea within opposing ones. It is possible (ulti-
mately, every individual must decide for himself)
that the partial repetition of the first melodic group
in the fourth part of our piece portraysperfectly the
idea of "des letzten Gliickes" [the last bliss; part 4],
since it implies a connection with the image, "leblos
gleitet Blatt um Blatt still und traurig von den
Baumen" [lifelessly, leaf after leaf glides quietly and
sorrowfully from the trees; part 1]. It is equally pos-
sible that similarities in the melodic construction of
the two middle sections bring these closer together
as well, with symbolic strength, so to speak.45
For Schenker, no emotional state is simple;
rather, each comprises a complex interaction
of divergent feelings. Motivic recurrence and
45"Zu den in der Melodie auftretenden motivischen
Nachbildungenund Wiederholungenerlaubeman mir
Folgendeszu bemerken.Wie in dem durch die Sinne
vermittelten oder nur mittelbar durch die Phantasie
angeregtenErlebender Stimmungdie Gegensatzezwar
einanderzu bekampfenscheinen,in Wahrheitaber der
Eine in dem Anderennachwirktund so endlich Alle
zusammenwirken, um die Complicirtheit einerStimmung
zu begrinden,diemanfureine'Einheitlichkeit' auszugeben
beliebt, so k6nnen motivische Nachbildungen und
Wiederholungen,wenn sie im Dienste der Gedanken
auftreten, ebenso sehr Bindemitteln fur gewandte
gedanklicheErscheinungen werden,als sie das gewisse
Nachwirken des einen Gegensatzes in dem anderen
wiedergebenkonnen.Es ist m6glich-in letzter Instanz
entscheidet jedes einzelne Individuum-, dass die
theilweiseWiederholung der erstenmelodischenGruppe
unseresChoresin derviertenden Gedanken'des letzten
Gliickes'satterdarstellt,weil sie die Verbindung mit dem
Bilde 'leblosgleitet Blatt um Blatt still und traurigvon
den Baumen'wiederanregt.Ebensoist es moglich,dass
Aehnlichkeiten derMelodiebildung in denbeidenmittleren
Lichtpartiendiese sozusagen mit symbolischerKraft
einandernaherruicken" (Schenker, pp.21-22).
88
development can replicate both the underlying
complexity of a single emotional state and the
possible relationships among the emotional
components of different moods. The motivic
similarities between the first and fourth parts
of "Letztes Gluick," for instance, suggest an
affinity between two shades of an autumnal
mood. A similar relationship, he asserts, exists
between parts two and three.
Schenker's discussion of motivic processes
and their emotional signification is remarkably
similar to Wagner's own initial formulation of
the idea behind the Leitmotiv technique. For
Wagner, too, musical motives can be made to
signify specific feelings through their associa-
tion with a poetic text. The processes of motivic
development and replication, as Schenker ob-
serves, can thus be used by the composer to
portray the complex, dynamic nature of human
emotion. In Oper und Drama, Wagner asserted:
The musical motive into which the thought-filled
poetic verse of a dramaticactor is poured (beforeour
eyes, so to speak) is a thing conditioned by neces-
sity. With its return, a definite emotion is percepti-
bly communicated to us. Indeed, we find that this
emotion is in turn derived from another one, which
had previously found itself longing toward the ex-
pression of a new one (the prioremotion is no longer
voiced by the actor, but is made perceptible to our
senses by the orchestra).The sounding of this mo-
tive thereforeunites for us a non-present cause with
its own effect-an emotion just now beginning to be
expressed.And whereas we and our feelings are made
enlightened witnesses to the organic growth of one
definite emotion from out of another, we endow our
feeling with the capacity for thinking; even, we may
say, with a capacity greaterthan thinking-with the
instinctive knowledge of thought realized in emo-
tion.46
46"DasmusikalischeMotivaber,in das-so zu sagenvor
unseren Augen-der gedankenhafte Wortvers eines
dramatischenDarstellerssich ergof, ist ein nothwendig
bedingtes;bei seiner Wiederkehrtheilt sich uns eine
bestimmte Empfindungwahrnehmbarmit, und zwar
wiederumals die Empfindung Desjenigen,dersich soeben
zur Kundgebungeiner neuen Empfindunggedrangtfuhlt,
die aus jener-jetzt von ihm unausgesprochenen,uns aber
durch das Orchester sinnlich wahrnehmbargemachten-
sich herleitet. Das Mitklingen jenes Motives verbindetuns
daher eine ungegenwartige bedingende mit der aus ihr
bedingten, soeben zu ihrer Kundgebungsich anlassenden
Empfinding;und indem wir so unser Gefiihl zum erhellten
Wahrnehmerdes organischenWachsens einer bestimmten
For Wagner and Schenker alike, the processes
of motivic development and recurrencecan pro-
vide a musical analogue to emotional thought.
They can mirror both the inherent dynamic
complexity of an emotional state and the un-
derlying connections between two or more dis-
tinct moods.
Schenkerconcludes his discussion of "Letztes
Gliick" by anticipating the criticism that his
interpretation might inspire among some of his
readers. He counters: "All of this is possible
within the mind of each individual, even if it
goes beyond the intentions of the composer,
who would perhaps claim only a formal func-
tion for the similarities and repetitions in his
melodic construction, as one generally does in
pure instrumental music."47 Schenker makes
no claim in these essays to provide authorita-
tive insight into Brahms'sown thinking. Rather,
he intends that his reviews serve as a guide to
listeners-as an aid to understanding and ap-
preciatingBrahms'smusic. Despite the fact that
his analyses of Brahms's works were confined
at this point to vocal compositions, his con-
cluding remarks suggest that he believed that
the sorts of interpretative strategies employed
in his reviews can be applied just as well to the
entirety of Brahms's musical output. Since
Brahmsprobablyconceived of the composition
of op. 104 in a manner similar to the composi-
tion of an instrumental work, it must be just as
valid to interpret Brahms'sinstrumental music
in the same way-in poetic, and even dramatic,
terms. Thus Schenker signals his fulfillment of
the promise he made in the introduction to his
review of op. 107: to introduce his readers to
the compelling strength of Brahms's late out-
put as a whole.
All things considered, it is not so much an
Empfindung aus der anderen machen, geben wir unserem
Gefiihle das Verm6gen des Denkens, d. h. hier aber: das
uiber das Denken erh6hte, unwillkiirliche Wissen des in
der Empfindung verwirklichten Gedankens" (Wagner, Oper
und Drama, p. 185).
47"Alles Das ist in der Empfindung des einzelnen
Individuums m6glich, auch wenn es uiber die Absicht des
Componisten hinausginge, welcher von den Aehnlichkeiten
und Wiederholungen seiner Melodiebildung vielleicht blos
formale Dienste beanspruchte, nicht anders, als man es in
der Regel in der reinen Instrumentalmusik thut" (Schenker,
p. 22).
explicit statement of allegiance to Wagner's KEVIN C.
KARNES
aesthetic ideas (Schenker makes no reference Schenker's
in these reviews to either the composer or his Reviews of
Brahms
writings) but a collection of numerous details
in his language and manner of argumentation
that points persuasively to Wagner, or at least
to a complex of ideas that Wagner articulated
in Oper und Drama. Carrying our investiga-
tion of the relationship between Schenker's
thinking and that of Wagnerfurther, however,
we soon reach a point at which Wagner ceases
to be such a central figure in our study. If we
read Schenker's reviews as he described them,
as interpretive guides to Brahms'smusic rather
than as attempts at an authoritative account of
musical structure or the creative process, then
they appearsimilar-in spirit, if not in detail-
to the widely read guides to Wagner's music
dramas published by Hans von Wolzogen and
others since the early 1870s. As several writers
have suggested, it was in fact von Wolzogen's
interpretive work, rather than Wagner's own
writing, that fixed the idea of the Leitmotiv as
an interpretiveconstruct within the nineteenth-
century musical consciousness.48
Thomas Grey has recently exploredthis mat-
ter further. Grey suggests that the idea of the
Leitmotiv, although codified around the music
of Wagnerand the writings of von Wolzogen, in
fact derives from an interpretive strategy prac-
ticed much earlier in the century and in differ-
ent contexts from those that these figures in-
tended.49Consequently, the aesthetic program
that Wagner adopted as he began work on the
music drama is indebted to some older and
rather unexpected lines of thinking, including
Romantic attempts to come to terms with "ab-
solute" music at the beginning of the century.50
Most important for the present discussion,
Grey's work alerts us to the fact that many
ideas surfacing throughout the second half of
48See, for instance, Bent, Music Analysis in the Nineteenth
Century, II, 88-92.
49See Grey, ".. .. wie ein rother Faden: On the Origins of
'leitmotif' as Critical Construct and Musical Practice," in
Music Theory in the Age of Romanticism, ed. Ian Bent
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. 187-
210.
50Grey explores Wagner's intellectual heritage in detail in
Wagner's Musical Prose: Texts and Contexts (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1995).
89
 19TH the century bore the unmistakable stamp of
CEMTURY Wagnerian thinking: even in cases where
Wagner might not have been the originator of
such concepts, he was their most prominent
mediator. By the end of the century, the trans-
mission of these concepts had been furthercom-
plicated by decades of interpretation. In
Schenker's case, it may well be that the critic's
primary source for the ideas on which we have
focused was not literally Wagner's work, but
rather the writings of any number of his fellow
critics, philosophers, and historians who were
likewise concerned with the composer's music
and writings at this time. Likely candidates
include Hausegger,the biographerCarlFriedrich
Glasenapp, and Schenker's veteran colleague
on the staff of the Musikalisches Wochenblatt,
Theodor Helm. Schenker's thinking may also
have been shaped by his personal contacts with
such figures as the critic Max Kalbeck and the
composerIgnazBriill-both of whom were prob-
ably more familiar in 1891-92 with Wagner's
work than Schenker was himself.51In any case,
it is clear that Wagner'sideas were "in the air,"
and that aspects of his thinking, however trans-
formed in substance and removed in origin from
the composer's own writings, surfacedat times
in some very non-Wagnerian contexts. That
Schenker, for one, found some of his ideas to be
immediately relevant to analytical problems
arisingin Brahms'svocal music would no doubt
have surprised a critic like Maurice Kufferath,
just as it probablywould have surprisedWagner
himself. Nonetheless, as I shall argue in the
final part of this article, it turns out that
Schenker was far from alone in his views on
these issues or this music. Rather, both his
analytical strategy and his conclusions about
Brahms's work were greeted enthusiastically
by several prominent supportersof Brahmsand
Wagner alike. The reception of Schenker's re-
views, in other words, suggests that there were
many during this time who believed that
Brahms's music was not, after all, incompat-
ible with Wagner'saesthetics.
5For a discussion of Schenker's early contacts in Vienna,
see Hellmut Federhofer, Heinrich Schenker: Nach
Tagebiichern und Briefen in der Oswald Jonas Memorial
Collection (Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1985).
90
IV
We may begin to document the contempo-
raryreception of Schenker's reviews by looking
no further than his publisher, Ernst Wilhelm
Fritzsch. By the time Fritzsch took over the
editorial chair of the Musikalisches Wochen-
blatt in 1870, he had already emerged as an
instrumental figure in furtheringWagner'sown
career as a writer. In 1871 Fritzsch's Leipzig
publishing house began printing the first edi-
tion of Wagner's collected writings, his
Gesammelte Schriften und Dichtungen. In the
same year, Fritzsch enlisted Wagner'sinvolve-
ment with the Wochenblatt, and the composer,
who otherwise detested the critical press, be-
gan at once to contribute sporadicallybut regu-
larly to the journal.52In the years immediately
following Wagner's death in 1883, essays on
the composer, his writings, and his music came
to dominate its pages. Unfortunately, only one
of Fritzsch's letters to Schenker survives in the
critic's estate, and it is unrelated to Schenker's
essays on Brahms.53Still, we can get a sense of
Fritzsch's impressions of Schenker's reviews
by the positions that he assigned them in his
paper.On 1 October 1891, Schenker'sreview of
op. 107 appearedon pages 2-4, after an essay by
Hugo Riemann on a new approachto the teach-
ing of harmony. In August of the following
year, his analysis of op. 104 occupied the entire
first page of three consecutive issues. It was
highly unusual for Fritzsch to accord such
prominence to a review, and its placement in-
dicates the depth of the impression that
Schenker's work must have made on the sea-
soned editor.
It was not only associates of Wagner, how-
ever, who were favorably disposed toward
Schenker's writing. The composer and pianist
Ignaz Briill, one of Brahms's closest personal
friends, was also enthusiastic about the work
52On Wagner's involvement with Fritzsch's paper, see
Christa and Peter Jost, Richard Wagner und sein Verleger
Ernst Wilhelm Fritzsch (Tutzing: Hans Schneider, 1997).
53This unpublished letter, dated 3 August 1892, concerns
Schenker's request to publish a review of Bruckner's Eighth
Symphony; it is located in the Oswald Jonas Memorial
Collection at the Special Collections Library of the Uni-
versity of California, Riverside, Box 11, Folder 11.
of the young critic. In January 1891, Briill sent
Schenker the following letter.
Honored Doctor!
I am very grateful for what you have kindly sent.
Your essay is outstanding. To me it seems well
founded and written from the heart, and it expresses
my own opinion a hundredtimes better than I could
myself.
I am very happy about your new endeavors.
Devotedly yours, in friendship
Ignaz Briill54
Although we cannot know with certainty the
identity of the essay to which Brull refers,
Hellmut Federhofer has suggested that it is most
likely Schenker's review of Brahms's op. 107.55
The evidence, I believe, seems to support this
hypothesis-but in any case, it seems probable
that the essay in question had something to do
with Brahms. Bruill's letter is dated 13 January
1891, a little over nine months before
Schenker's review would be published. At the
time this review appeared, however, Schenker
had not published any other writings, and no
earlier essays by him have survived. Moreover,
it seems only natural that Schenker would have
sought the response of someone acquainted in-
timately with both Brahms and his music when
preparing his first essay for publication.
But whereas the conditions under which
Briill's letter was written remain uncertain, the
enthusiasm of Max Kalbeck, another of
Brahms's close friends, can be documented more
fully. In the fourth volume of his monumental
biography of Brahms, published in 1914, Kalbeck
constructs nearly his entire treatment of op.
54"Sehr verehrter Herr Doctor! Fur Ihre freundliche
Zusendung bin ich Ihnen sehr verbunden. Ihr essay [sic]
ist ausgezeichnet. Er ist mir aus der Seele
herausgeschrieben,begriindet u. sagt nur meine Meinung
100mal besser, als ich es konnte. Ich freue mich sehr auf
IhreNova. Ihnen freundschaftlichergebenIgnazBrill" (let-
ter dated 13 January 1891, located in the Oswald Jonas
Memorial Collection, Box 9, Folder 23; a transcription,
differing slightly from my own, has been published in
Federhofer,Heinrich Schenker,p. 73).
55Federhofer, Heinrich Schenker,p. 73, n. 31.
104 around Schenker's 1892 review. Kalbeck KEVIN C.
KARNES
describes Schenker's essay as "lovingly percep- Schenker's
tive of the merits and subtleties of op. 104," Reviews of
Brahms
and he quotes from Schenker's article three
times over the course of his own discussion.56
With respect to the first piece of the collec-
tion, "Nachtwache I," Kalbeck approves of
Schenker's characterization of the antiphonal
setting as representing the voices of two lovers
calling to each other in the night. For Kalbeck,
however, Schenker's terms simply required
some clarification. He felt instead that the set-
ting may more readily be understood as repre-
senting the lament of a lone, would-be lover,
whose calls are answered by hollow echoes.57
Although Kalbeck himself was prone at times
to constructing poetic interpretations of
Brahms's music, it is striking that he responds
not so much to the music itself as to Schenker's
interpretation of it, originally published over
twenty years earlier. The degree to which
Schenker's discussion of the piece seems to
have resonated with Kalbeck's own impressions
can be appreciated by the latter's approval of
even one of the most provocative-and most
conspicuously Wagnerian-sentiments ex-
pressed in Schenker's review. Loosely quoting
from Schenker's article, Kalbeck agrees that
"Brahms has, as Schenker says, 'lifted' the poet
'up to transfiguring heights'; it thus appears as
if he has carried out only [the poet's] will."58
For Kalbeck, as for Schenker (and as is sug-
gested in Oper und Drama), Brahms the com-
poser has carried out his work in the exclusive
service of the poet's art. He has, in the process,
elevated the expressiveness of his artistic prod-
uct to a level above that to which either music
or poetry alone can attain.
Finally, we should note the significance that
Schenker's reviews of Brahms's vocal music
had for the subsequent unfolding of his career,
56"In einer liebevoll auf die Vorzuige und Feinheiten des
op. 104 eingehenden Kritik rechtfertigt Heinrich Schenker"
(Kalbeck, Johannes Brahms [Berlin: Deutsche Brahms-
Gesellschaft, 1907-19141, vol. IV [1914], pp. 141-43; cited
at p. 141).
57Ibid.,pp. 141-42.
51"Brahms hat, wie Schenker sagt, den Dichter 'in eine
verklarende Hohe gehoben,' und sich dabei den Anschein
gegeben, als habe er nur dessen Willen vollstreckt" (ibid.,
p. 142).
91
 19TH and also the rather unexpected turns that they
CENTURY would precipitate. Among the admirers of
MUSIC
Schenker's work was the Berlin critic and pub-
lisher Maximilian Harden, an important sup-
porter of both Wagner and artistic modernism
as a whole. As it turns out, Harden's enthusi-
asm for Schenker's essays of 1891-92 was such
that he invited Schenker to participate in the
foundingof his new Berlinweekly, Die Zukunft.
This would be the first general-interest publi-
cation for which Schenker would write.
As an outspoken theater critic and political
commentator,Harden'sown artistic sympathies
lay unambiguously with Wagnerand his circle.
He considered Wagner one of the four greatest
men of the nineteenth century.59He was per-
sonally acquainted with Wagner's widow,
Cosima, and son, Siegfried,and he corresponded
with one of the most notoriously outspoken of
Wagner'snineteenth-century advocates, Hous-
ton Stewart Chamberlain.60 As he confessed to
Schenker in 1894, he felt that he did not under-
stand Brahms at all.61 Nonetheless, when he
began in mid-1892 to invite some of the lead-
ing writers in Europeto participatein the found-
ing of Die Zukunft, Hardenturned to Schenker
to contribute essays on music. By this time,
Schenker had published only three articles, all
in the Musikalisches Wochenblatt: the two re-
views of Brahms'smusic considered here, and a
shorter, more cursory analysis of a piano quin-
tet by the Viennese composer Hermann
59The others were German chancellor Otto von Bismarck,
French author Emile Zola, and American inventor Tho-
mas Edison; see Harry F. Young, Maximilian Harden, Cen-
sor Germaniae: Ein Publizist im Widerstreit von 1892 bis
1927 (Miinster: Regensberg, 1971), p. 41.
60Harden mentions his correspondence with Cosima and
Siegfried Wagner in an unpublished postcard sent to
Schenker, dated 4 October 1894, located in the Oswald
Jonas Memorial Collection, Box 11, Folder 42. On Harden's
correspondence with Chamberlain, see Young, Maximilian
Harden, p. 139.
61Inan unpublished letter dated 24 November 1894, Harden
requested that Schenker "put aside" his attempts to per-
suade Brahms to contribute a statement to Die Zukunft,
and he admitted his uncertainty about the true greatness
of the artist: "Brahms m6chte ich Sie bitten, noch
zuriickzustellen. Es wird so entsetzlich viel gebrahmst. Ist
er denn so grofg? Mir scheint er aus zweiter Hand ein
Grogfer in kleiner Zeit. Aber ich verstehe nichts davon";
located in the Oswald Jonas Memorial Collection, Box 11,
Folder 42.
92
Gradener.62 Harden's initial correspondence
with Schenker has not survived, but a long
letter that he wrote to the critic in October
1892, just four days before Schenker's first ar-
ticle would appear in Die Zukunft, is espe-
cially valuable for its insight into the editor's
impressions of Schenker's work. Harden states
that he found Schenker's approach to critical
writing compelling, but also somewhat prob-
lematic. Although it seems to have been
Schenker's analytical work that first attracted
his attention (Schenker had published nothing
but analytical reviews at this time), he had to
acknowledge that such writing was unsuitable
for his paper. In this letter, he explains his
decision to delete the overly technical sections
of Schenker's first contribution to Die Zukunft,
an essay on the operas of Pietro Mascagni.
Very honored Sir,
The first letter I wrote to you still awaits a reply, and
I fear-since you forgot to give me your address-I
fear that it has not reached you. ... I had asked you
for permission to carry out an act of violence, to
perform a cutting operation on your article, which
revealed to me an unusually thoughtful spirit but
which in its given form was not useful for my par-
ticular purposes (for a thousand reasons, which I
would repeat in writing if only I were not deathly
tired and still hopeful that you have read them all in
the first letter). The primary reason: your Berlin de-
but should not be overly complex. In any case, since
the article would otherwise be useless and your re-
sponse had not arrived,I carriedout the highly dan-
gerous operation myself, and therefore can only ask
for your forgiveness after the fact. It would not only
be permissible, but I expressly request [that you pro-
vide me with] more theoretically simple languagein
the second article. I have worked fourteen hours to
[re]writewhat you have sketched out all too loosely
this time (that which I have deleted).... I am very
happy about our association, and I think that you
should come here [to Berlin],where there is not even
a Hanslick, and where music criticism is simply
lamentable.63
Schenker'sreviewof Gradener's
62For Quintet,op. 19, see
Schenker,pp. 8-13.
63"Sehr geehrter Herr, Der erste Brief den ich Ihnen schrieb
harrt noch der Antwort und ich ffirchte, da Sie vergaften
Ihre Adresse anzugeben, ich fuirchte,er hat Sie gar nicht
erreicht.... Ich hatte Sie um die Erlaubnis,fur einem [sic]
Gewaltakt gebeten, zu einer sehr einschneidenden Opera-
It is unfortunate that the "thousand reasons"
Harden cites for deleting the technical discus-
sion from Schenker's article must be left to the
imagination. It is clear, however, that he felt
that such writing might alienate his readers.In
any case, Schenker took Harden's cautionary
words to heart. Neither his subsequent writing
for Die Zukunft nor his later essays for the
Musikalisches Wochenblatt contain detailed
analytical discussions. As it turned out, he
would not publish another analytical essay for
over a decade.
To appreciate the significance of the enthu-
siasm shown by Harden, Kalbeck, Brull, and
Fritzsch for Schenker's early reviews one need
only keep in mind the seemingly unusual pair-
tion in Ihrem Artikel, der mir einen merkwiirdig
empfindenden Geist zeigth, der aber in seiner hier
vorliegenden Form fur meine besondrem [sic] Zwecke nicht
brauchbar war. Aus Tausend Griinden, die ich schreiben
nur wiederholen wiirde, wenn ich nicht totmude ware und
immer noch hoffte, im ersten Brief hatten Sie Alles gelesen.
Hauptgrund: Ihr Berliner Debut sollte nicht verschn6rkelt
werden. Inzwischen habe ich, da der Artikel sonst
unbrauchbar geworden ward und Ihre Entscheidung nicht
eintraf, die lebensgefahrliche Operation selbst vollzogen
und kann Sie nur nachtraglich um Absolution bitten. Ich
gebe Ihnen nicht nur das Recht, sondern ich bitte Sie
ausdriicklich darum, mir in dem zweiten Artikel das
Theoretische-dummer Ausdruck, aber ich arbeite seit 14
Stunde zu schreiben, das Sie diesmal allzu locker streiften
und das ich tilgte. . . . Herzlich freue ich mich unserer
Verbindung und meine, Sie sollten hier herkommen, wo
es noch nicht einmal einen Hanslick giebt u. die
Musikkritik einfach zum Bejammem ist" (unpublished let-
ter dated 11 October 1892, located in the Oswald Jonas
Memorial Collection, Box 11, Folder 42).
ing of critical agenda and analytical strategy KEVIN C.
KARNES
found in these essays. When assessed against Schenker's
the prevailing view of late-nineteenth-century Reviews of
Brahms
critical culture, it may seem unexpected for a
critic, much less for Schenker, to draw on Wag-
nerian ideas about musical structure and mean-
ing in orderto demonstrate the effectiveness of
Brahms's music. But the diversity of interests,
backgrounds, and artistic sympathies of these
figures suggests precisely the opposite. Their
enthusiasm implies that Schenker's thinking
about these issues was not unique, and that his
approach to Brahms's music was not particu-
larly controversial. Although he seems to have
articulated his ideas in a way that was found to
be unusually compelling by some, Schenker's
conception of musical processes and their emo-
tional significance resonated with the thinking
of many others before and after the turn of the
century. This conception did not insist on an
unbridgeable aesthetic gulf existing between
Brahms's music and Wagner's aesthetics, but
rather considered both to be important-and,
at least to some extent, universal-expressions
of a common ideal of musical expressiveness.
Undeniably, sharp differences of aesthetic and
critical opinion did exist in Schenker's Vienna.
But Schenker's reviews remind us once again
that the situation was not, as Kufferathwould
have us believe, as neatly polarized as black
and white, or Brahmsianand Wagnerian.Look-
ing at the matter closely, we find that the criti-
cal climate of that time and place was remark-
ably complex. This very complexity as a O
topic itself merits further study.
93