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.
"Return to classicism" certainly is a gross over-simplification of what Brahms was up to. He was by no means the first composer to draw upon earlier models (in a certain sense, all composers do that), but in terms of degree, his engagement with materials, motifs, technical procedures, from early music (of which he was one of the first composers to really study in intense detail) was quite unprecedented.
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.
Well, a handful of works such as
Triumphlied (which is hardly typical) apart, I don't really see what makes Brahms, who also drew heavily upon French and Italian musical traditions (his keyboard writing alludes frequently to Couperin, for example), such a nationalist, certainly not in comparison with Wagner, who was so deeply immersed in Teutonic mythology and the like. He did sign the manifesto against the music of Wagner and Liszt, but that was in 1860, when Brahms was only 27; afterwards he took little part in the 'War of the Romantics', which was primarily fought by Hanslick (who of course was Jewish, so hardly an echt-Teuton) and others (though in private correspondence Brahms did rant from time to time about Bruckner). And the other side were hardly any more dignified in their behaviour and polemics.
Which works do you particularly have in mind in terms of the use of chorale-motifs? What is much more common in Brahms's work is the use of motifs and themes derived from German folk song (but also
Zigeunermelodien and other folk sources).
