Submitted by Jack Kelso, Nov 15, 2007 04:33

I have to smile (smirk?!) a little when I read (many, not all!) articles on Brahms, which note influences from Bach through Haydn and Mozart, Beethoven, etc. ---and not a word about the strongest of all on Brahms' style: Schumann.

Brahms himself admitted that Schumann was his ideal, that he always strove to write works that were in keeping with Schumann's high-quality masterworks. Schumann's over-the-top article about Brahms was intended to agrivate the Liszt-Wagner group, as well as advertise a new candidate to continue on with the classical traditions of Beethoven, Schubert, (Mendelssohn) and himself.

Later, Hans von Bülow's urban legend comments on "Beethoven's 10th", "the three B's" and "Beethoven's successor", all intending to over-praise Brahms to the detriment of the Liszt-Wagner camp, were motivated by love and sex: Wagner "stole" Bülow's wife, Cosima. Liszt sided with Wagner.

Unfortunately, much of this had the side-effect of damaging Schumann's reputation----and allowing the upcoming (super-)Brahmsians the opportunity of "adjusting" music history through the elimination of Schumann in his central historical context and placing him with Mendelssohn as a relatively minor figure of early Romanticism.

Thus, for the Brahmsians Brahms became "Beethoven's Successor" with his appropriated Schumann style.

There is no question that the Brahms symphonies are among the finest after (and including!) Beethoven. Of course, those of Schumann, Bruckner, Tschaikowsky, Franck can be regarded in the same breath of individuality and power of expression. No single composer can be regarded as "Beethoven's successor", as if Beethoven would even need "a successor".

More recent and objective musicology has been bent on re-adjusting the record and dispelling the nonsense about Schumann's "poor" orchestration, "weak" late works and the idea that he was a "conservative"! Then there came the "re-discovery" of the great Schumann dramatic works (e.g., "Paradies und die Peri", "Faust", etc.) and other large choral compositions (Mass in C, Requiem, etc.) so that opinions of Schumann's greatness had to be completely re-evaluated and his works analyzed anew in a far different light.

Today, it is logical to regard Brahms as Schumann's successor---but does Schumann really need one?

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