What a lot of rot that American lady writes! It is almost amusing to persons of true culture. But she - aware of her ignorance at least - would do better to tackle some simpler and more suitable composer would not she?

Ms Midgette - true to her name - comes up with this starter:


Surely by "romantic" she means "Romantic"? Was he the (as opposed to a) "quintessential 19th-c composer"? In what sense did he represent a "return to classicism", as opposed to merely continuing along well-worn classical pathways (like other composers did, such as Schubert and Schumann)? Furthermore, is the view that he was somehow "reactionary" one that existed "in his day", or merely one that has been contrived by later observers?

It is quite surprising, when one thinks of it, how utterly barren (and disinformative) an otherwise apparently pregnant opening sentence can be!

Baz

The answer to the first question above would be known only - if it is not presumptuous to mention it - by Clara Schumann.

As far as a "return to classicism", this rather assumes that it existed in the first place?  Perhaps she is on about that red herring of Brahms's alleged indebtedness to Schutz, Bach and others... which is not "classical" of course, but represents a solid and respectable continuum of work, at least.  

But "reactionary" he most certainly was, surely?  The hissy fits about Wagner's music, the conscious re-use of chorale-motifs to hammer-home a correctness of German sensibility rooted in "old traditions" he abrogated willy-nilly?  This stubborn streak of undiluted nationalism in his music is what I find least digestible, and most suspect about Brahms.

Shurely "Brahms the Illusionist"?

 Opi      

           

I felt like going for a swim so I phoned up the local swimming pool.

"'Hello", I said, "Is that the local swimming pool?"

She said, "It depends where you're calling from."