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In the last third of the 19th century Brahms and Bruckner were regarded as antipodes. Is this perception really true to the historical reality or had their contemporaries overestimated the «dimension of their distance», as argued later? Both wrote autonomously conceived music, both held on to traditional forms, and both rejected program music. To find an answer to this question, part I tries to elucidate Brahms’ relation to Bruckner in its biographic, historical, artistic and art-theoretical aspects. At the center of the second part, whose subject is Brahms’ early work, is the question whether Brahms was indeed an autonomously working composer. The topic of the third part is a taboo of Bruckner research: Bruckner’s relation to program music. «The second and third part of the study achieve new insights. With a consistent analysis of biographic data and, simultaneously, a careful scrutiny of musical facts (increased experience in assessing the music of the 19th century), Floros gains convincing interpretations.» (Friedrich Heller about the German edition of the book) «The book is the result of Floros’s intensive study of Mahler, during which he found hitherto undiscovered clues to the interpretation of Brahms’s and Bruckner’s work. Most of the borrowings discussed confirm differences between the two composers in both ideologies and musical heritage. Long thought to be ‘absolute’ music, Bruckner’s compositions carry significant semantic meaning when the composer desired.» (Musical Borrowing) Translated by Ernest Bernhardt-Kabisch
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Brahms and Bruckner as Artistic Antipodes Constantin Floros Brahms and Bruckner as Artistic Antipodes Studies in Musical Semantics Translated by Ernest Bernhardt-Kabisch Bibliographic Information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available in the internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de. Cover image: Johannes Brahms, 1862. Published with kind permission of the Brahms Institute, Lübeck Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Floros, Constantin, author. [Brahms und Bruckner. English] Brahms and Bruckner as artistic antipodes : studies in musical semantics / Constantin Floros ; translated by Ernest Bernhardt-Kabisch. – 1st edition. pages cm Originally published: Brahms und Bruckner : Studien zur musikalischen Exegetik / Constantin Floros. Wiesbaden : Breitkopf & Härtel, 1980. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-3-631-66034-8 1. Brahms, Johannes, 1833-1897–Criticism and interpretation. 2. Bruckner, Anton, 1824-1896–Criticism and interpretation. 3. Music–Germany–19th century–History and criticism. 4. Music–Philosophy and aesthetics. I. Bernhardt-Kabisch, Ernest, 1934-translator. II. Title. ML3845.F5513 2015 780.92´2–dc23 2014046738 ISBN 978-3-631-66034-8 (Print) E-ISBN 978-3-653-05390-6 (E-Book) DOI 10.3726/ 978-3-653-05390-6 © for the English edition: Peter Lang GmbH Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften Frankfurt am Main 2015 All rights reserved. © for all other languages: Breitkopf & Härtel PL Academic Research is an Imprint of Peter Lang GmbH. Peter Lang – Frankfurt am Main ∙ Bern ∙ Bruxelles ∙ New York ∙ Oxford ∙ Warszawa ∙ Wien All parts of this publication are protected by copyright. Any utilisation outside the strict limits of the copyright law, without the permission of the publisher, is forbidden and liable to prosecution. This applies in particular to reproductions, translations, microfilming, and storage and processing in electronic retrieval systems. This publication has been peer reviewed. www.peterlang.com Table of Contents Foreword...............................................................................................9 Part One: Brahms and Bruckner: A R