# Music as a medium, Music as an end.



## Richannes Wrahms (Jan 6, 2014)

I came across this quote:

_"Whereas for Wagner music was a medium through which to express his many ideas, for Brahms it was an end in and of itself."_ Irving Peeves.

What do you folks think of this?


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

Is this just a variation of program versus absolute music?


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Some dualities presented in quotes are not accurate or plain fanciful. Sounds like part fluff and part the obvious to me. Music was an end for both of them. Wagner did convey some ideas through his operas. 

I can come up with a quote that's similarly inaccurate. Beethoven's music exemplified Humanity with all its weaknesses, Haydn's exemplified the Perfect Human.

Or this, which I sort of got from Dr. David Wright. Britten's music is perverse and Vaughan Williams' noble as was their respective characters.


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## EmperorOfIceCream (Jan 3, 2020)

I don’t fully agree with that quote. Yes, Wagner loved to theorize (and polemicize), but he composed since childhood, long before he was writing about his Gesamtkunstwerk. The quote is a little reductive, but there is necessarily some truth as opera is forced to have ideas through being a literary and theatrical work in addition to a musical one.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

I think there's something to this, but less than Peeves may think. He is making assumptions and simplifying things, perhaps for the sake of a nice-sounding aphorism. I'm not sure what he means when he says that Wagner wanted to express "ideas," but since Wagner was composing operas it seems inevitable that his music was shaped in part by the need to set words and express theatrical action. A composer of songs or choral music has a similar task, and Brahms wrote both of those. Is Peeves assuming that "music" is something separate from what it expresses, and that composing music"for its own sake" means putting sounds together purely for the sake of making abstract patterns without regard for whether they relate to life or convey anything to the listener? If that is NOT what he means, I'd say the distinction he's making is somewhat artificial. Does Brahms's _Tragic __Overture_ convey less in terms of "ideas" than the _Siegfried Idyll?_ Does the _German Requiem_ convey fewer "ideas" than _Lohengrin_?


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

Richannes Wrahms said:


> _"Whereas for Wagner music was a medium through which to express his many ideas, for Brahms it was an end in and of itself."_ Irving Peeves.


well, as always, someone said something... but why should anyone bother?

even though he may have a point here, the choice presented is not where music divides.

so both ways are possible, given the composer is enough skilled to write high quality music scores.


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

what concerns Brahms, take for example 'Hungarian Dances' - a piece that celebrates the creation of Hungarians as a nation within Austria empire; this is not only an idea expressed through music, it is an ideology put forward for a new state which has emerged as part of another one.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

It means he liked Brahms and not Wagner, something not unusual all these years later.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

I listen to and love Wagner. Like Brahms, he was one of the very greatest composers. His music has been used for propaganda but the many who revere and love his music are not listening to it to get a dose of ideology. They are listening to the music and watching powerful drama that deals with universal themes. I don't know where Wagner's musical ideas came from, or those of Brahms, but it is clear to me that the end was music (combined with drama in Wagner's case).

The matter of whether either saw music as merely a vehicle for something concerns their motivation rather than the music that flowed from them.


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## annaw (May 4, 2019)

larold said:


> It means he liked Brahms and not Wagner, something not unusual all these years later.


Honestly, if that was so, I'm somewhat puzzled. I'm not sure whether saying that Brahms didn't use music to express his ideas, which the quote through contrasting seems to communicate, is really a huge compliment. I might be living in a naive illusion, but I think that for a composer to be as good as Brahms, there must be something more to it than simply coming up with nice tunes and harmonies. Claiming such could even be seen as diminishing the importance of music and Brahms in contrast to great writers and, indeed, Wagner who all had a lot to say. As has been discussed before, the ideas music conveys are often much more abstract than those which can be expressed using words. I'm quite sure Wagner communicated such more abstract ideas as well (otherwise, why didn't he simply write plays?) and gave music a dramatic momentum through introducing the concept of leitmotifs. The expressivity of music is truly such a wonder itself that I suppose Brahms didn't want to go without using it.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

JAS said:


> Is this just a variation of program versus absolute music?


Well, absolute music versus programmatic and texted music - while failing to note, as Woodduck points out, that Brahms wrote both kinds.

Who's Irving Peeves?


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

I think that most classical music, especially in the Romantic era and after, always has "ideas" in it: _real_ ideas, not just abstract musical ideas. People are always trying to hide this obvious fact, or underplay it.
Shostakovich is a good example; people are always wondering what his music means in terms of him being a Communist, or it it contained ideas which were pro or con. The ideas are there, it's just a question of "was he being sarcastic or not?"

As far as Brahms and Wagner, we know that Brahms was not concerned with "big" ideas like Wagner was; if anything, Brahms' "ideas" are about unrequited love and the vagaries of emotion. Let's stop pretending we don't know what the quote means.



Woodduck said:


> ...since Wagner was composing operas it seems inevitable that his music was shaped in part by the need to set words and express theatrical action. A composer of songs or choral music has a similar task, and Brahms wrote both of those.


True, but I don't think that's what the point of the quote is. _Peeves is making a distinction of personalities. _Wagner had all sorts of ideas he wanted to convey, about love, religion, God, Man, mythology, philosophy, and all the rest. He saw himself as more than "just" a composer; he saw himself as a multifaceted genius and thinker.

Brahms? He was worried about Beethoven's shadow, why he couldn't get laid, and personal stuff.



> Does Brahms's _Tragic __Overture_ convey less in terms of "ideas" than the _Siegfried Idyll?_ Does the _German Requiem_ convey fewer "ideas" than _Lohengrin_?


Yes. Both convey emotion, but Wagner's music has plenty of outside resonances.



annaw said:


> I'm quite sure Wagner communicated such more abstract ideas as well (otherwise, why didn't he simply write plays?) and gave music a dramatic momentum through introducing the concept of leitmotifs.


Yes, but music was just a medium for Wagner to convey his ideas, true to operatic procedure. Brahms didn't write operas; his music was its own end, not a medium for conveying other ideas. For Brahms the music WAS the "idea," and this was usually based on feelings.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

................


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## annaw (May 4, 2019)

millionrainbows said:


> As far as Brahms and Wagner, we know that Brahms was not concerned with "big" ideas like Wagner was; if anything, Brahms' "ideas" are about unrequited love and the vagaries of emotion. Let's stop pretending we don't know what the quote means.


But do we actually know there was nothing more to his music than "unrequited love and the vagaries of emotion"? I don't think his knowledge was limited to only these things.



> True, but I don't think that's what the point of the quote is. _Peeves is making a distinction of personalities. _Wagner had all sorts of ideas he wanted to convey, about love, religion, God, Man, mythology, philosophy, and all the rest. He saw himself as more than "just" a composer; he saw himself as a multifaceted genius and thinker.
> Brahms? He was worried about Beethoven's shadow, why he couldn't get laid, and personal stuff.


I more or less agree with what you say about Wagner but, again, isn't this quite a brutal simplification of Brahms' character? I understand that you might knowingly emphasise his personal life but this doesn't mean he wasn't interested in anything else or that nothing besides his personal life wasn't worth enough to influence his compositions.



> Yes, but music was just a medium for Wagner to convey his ideas, true to operatic procedure. Brahms didn't write operas; his music was its own end, not a medium for conveying *other ideas*. For Brahms the music WAS the "*idea*," and this was usually based on feelings.


Waaait, what is "idea" and what are "other ideas"? Btw, are you taking into account Wagner's non-operatic compositions and Brahms' vocal ones (then I know what we are discussing)?

I don't necessarily disagree with your idea but I don't think the quote explains it the way one would find appropriate. I'm not sure whether such idea could even be communicated using one quote.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

millionrainbows said:


> I think that most classical music, especially in the Romantic era and after, always has "ideas" in it: _real_ ideas, not just abstract musical ideas. People are always trying to hide this obvious fact, or underplay it.
> Shostakovich is a good example; people are always wondering what his music means in terms of him being a Communist, or it it contained ideas which were pro or con. The ideas are there, it's just a question of "was he being sarcastic or not?"
> 
> As far as Brahms and Wagner, we know that Brahms was not concerned with "big" ideas like Wagner was; if anything, Brahms' "ideas" are about unrequited love and the vagaries of emotion. Let's stop pretending we don't know what the quote means.
> ...


I don't deny that having to set texts and dramatic action to music means that Wagner's musical procedures were, on the whole, more motivated by extramusical ideas than Brahms's. My objection is to the extremism and implied exclusivity of Peeves' statement, and now I must object to the extremism of yours. "Music was just a medium for Wagner to convey his ideas, true to operatic procedure" is an overstatement, and makes a sharp distinction between "operatic ideas" and more abstract and intangible expressive goals that doesn't hold up well. It's also worth noting that the music Wagner fills his operas with is extremely diverse in intent and form; some of it is meant to describe very specific emotions and actions of his dramatis personae, but in every opera there are considerable stretches that constitute "absolute" music of masterly, self-justifying construction capable of standing alongside other orchestral works of the Romantic period, and not fundamentally dissimilar in expressive intent. Being inspired by "ideas" won't get a composer very far if he can't come up with a form that works, and the many overtures, preludes and interludes from Wagner's operas are, in that respect, as good as it gets. I'm sure innumerable people have enjoyed them without knowing what their operas were about.

You do begin by saying that "most classical music, especially in the Romantic era and after, always has 'ideas' in it: _real_ ideas, not just abstract musical ideas." If that's the case, I don't see that it matters whether those ideas are "big," as you say Wagner's are, or "small," as you evidently think those of Brahms are. Brahms was overtly concerned with defending "classical" principles of "absolute" music, as represented in the aesthetic philosophy of Hanslick, against the Berlioz-Liszt-Wagner trend toward programmatic music and the relaxation or rejection of traditional formal ideas. But can you really say what other "ideas" lay behind, or accompanied, his musical inspiration? I find works such as his first and third symphonies, to name just two works that come immediately to mind, highly suggestive of implicit dramatic narratives.


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## Coach G (Apr 22, 2020)

Richannes Wrahms said:


> I came across this quote:
> 
> _"Whereas for Wagner music was a medium through which to express his many ideas, for Brahms it was an end in and of itself."_ Irving Peeves.
> 
> What do you folks think of this?


I see Wagner as a story-teller. Of course, as a composer of operas, Wagner had to have been as interested in non-musical art forms that go along with opera: acting, lyrics (he wrote the librettos himself), story-line, plot development, costumes, set design, staging and so forth. Like Scriabin, Wagner was looking for some Grand Unifying Theory that would unite all the arts and ideas of the world into one universal truth.

I see Brahms more as a craftsman, a fine German craftsman; and a musician's musician. When I listen to the way Brahms builds his music through many layers, I'm reminded of some antique handmade German clock with intricate and beautiful wood-working and fine precision, very heavy and sturdy.

That doesn't mean that there isn't some overlap. Wagner was a great musical craftsman in his own rite, and Brahms music is not devoid of the human element. Brahms' two _Sonatas for Cello and Piano_ demonstrate a profound heart-felt feeling (I think one of them was composed to the memory of the composer's mother). They each sought their own musical truth in different ways.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Late in life Wagner described his operas as "deeds of music made visible." He did not call them "deeds of drama made audible." His ideas about musical drama, as found in his prose work "Oper und Drama," where he discusses the role of music in opera mainly as a means of expressing the text, underwent something of a transformation as his musical style and technique developed. It's clear both from his statements and from the nature of the music itself that he was increasingly consumed with the possibilities of music "for its own sake," even as he sought an integration of carefully crafted musical form with the needs of drama. We need only observe the constant play of diverse forms in the score of _Parsifal_ - forms both "free" and "strict" - to see how far he was able to go as a "pure" musician while illuminating words and actions in specific ways.

Many composers have proved their great skill in creating strong and original musical structures regardless of the degree to which they were inspired by "ideas." Symphonies by Beethoven, Sibelius and Mahler come to mind. It's interesting to know what, besides images of sound and structure, were in composers' heads as they worked, but in the end successful music is just that. I suspect many composers have chosen to make this point by keeping their "programs" secret.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

EdwardBast said:


> Well, absolute music versus programmatic and texted music - while failing to note, as Woodduck points out, that Brahms wrote both kinds.
> 
> Who's Irving Peeves?


Peevee's Playhouse?


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

millionrainbows said:


> Brahms? He was worried about Beethoven's shadow, why he couldn't get laid, and personal stuff.


Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm guessing you've never read even a cursory biography of Brahms. You have no idea about whether or not he could or did get laid.

For composers, musical ideas are real ideas.


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## Tikoo Tuba (Oct 15, 2018)

EdwardBast said:


> For composers, musical ideas are real ideas.


The composer is a musical idea , and it just stands there whether or not it claims self-awareness .


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## Ich muss Caligari werden (Jul 15, 2020)

This _is_ a most interesting discussion. While I admire the thought and insight on display in this thread, I cannot help but wonder to what extent "Brahms vs. Wagner" - a heavyweight prize fight that never occurred - is affecting and rendering suspect, even moot, any comparisons based on supposed oppositions between those two. Just to set the stage, difference and imagined conflict are implicit in Mr. Peeve's quote, despite the fact that both composers had a profound - if grudging - respect for each other's extraordinary talents. Both were complex artists whose achievements are more colorful than the attempts to strait jacket them in b&w. Humankind loves a kerfuffle, music historians perhaps more than many in their misguided effort to spice-up the story of CM and make "Brahms vs. Wagner" more than it was. Also, it's worth noting that Brahms _did_ seriously consider writing an opera, even eyeing a text of Turgenev's; that he did not pursue it (_this is my conjecture only _), may have been an awareness that opera production was antithetical to his reclusive ways. FWIW, I checked _JStor_; _Google Books_, _Internet Archive_ and _Hathi _ and found no trace of Mr. Peeves. One wonders if his first name might be Pet...


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Woodduck said:


> I don't deny that having to set texts and dramatic action to music means that Wagner's musical procedures were, on the whole, more motivated by extramusical ideas than Brahms's. My objection is to the extremism and implied exclusivity of Peeves' statement, and now I must object to the extremism of yours. "Music was just a medium for Wagner to convey his ideas, true to operatic procedure" is an overstatement, and makes a sharp distinction between "operatic ideas" and more abstract and intangible expressive goals that doesn't hold up well.


Yes, I'm exaggerating on purpose, so readers will see the differences in Wagner vs. Brahms, not the similarities, or defense of either composer.



> You do begin by saying that "most classical music, especially in the Romantic era and after, always has 'ideas' in it: _real_ ideas, not just abstract musical ideas." If that's the case, I don't see that it matters whether those ideas are "big," as you say Wagner's are, or "small," as you evidently think those of Brahms are.


Yes, but again, I am trying to draw a _distinction,_ as was presented by the OP quote.



> Brahms was overtly concerned with defending "classical" principles of "absolute" music, as represented in the aesthetic philosophy of Hanslick, against the Berlioz-Liszt-Wagner trend toward programmatic music and the relaxation or rejection of traditional formal ideas.


That's a good case for the distinction.



> But can you really say what other "ideas" lay behind, or accompanied, his musical inspiration? I find works such as his first and third symphonies, to name just two works that come immediately to mind, highly suggestive of implicit dramatic narratives.


But that's not what I'm trying to do in my posts here.



Ich muss Caligari werden said:


> While I admire the thought and insight on display in this thread, I cannot help but wonder to what extent "Brahms vs. Wagner" - a heavyweight prize fight that never occurred - is affecting and rendering suspect, even moot, any comparisons based on supposed oppositions between those two. Just to set the stage, difference and imagined conflict are implicit in Mr. Peeve's quote, despite the fact that both composers had a profound - if grudging - respect for each other's extraordinary talents. Both were complex artists whose achievements are more colorful than the attempts to strait jacket them in b&w. Humankind loves a kerfuffle, music historians perhaps more than many in their misguided effort to spice-up the story of CM and make "Brahms vs. Wagner" more than it was. Also, it's worth noting that Brahms _did_ seriously consider writing an opera, even eyeing a text of Turgenev's; that he did not pursue it (_this is my conjecture only _), may have been an awareness that opera production was antithetical to his reclusive ways.


True, the Peeves quote might be simplistic, but it's a good aphorism, and is food for thought. I'm just playing "devil's advocate" here, for the sake of discussion. And I _really do_ think that this is a useful distinction.


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

millionrainbows said:


> the Peeves quote might be simplistic,


not merely that, but also deluding, attempting to establish a fake dichotomy.


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## Ich muss Caligari werden (Jul 15, 2020)

millionrainbows said:


> True, the Peeves quote might be simplistic, but it's a good aphorism, and is food for thought. I'm just playing "devil's advocate" here, for the sake of discussion. And I _really do_ think that this is a useful distinction.


My view: it's an interesting distinction; how useful it is I think is clouded by over a century of exaggerated "Brahms vs. Wagner" hype. Perhaps it would be more illuminating to compare/contrast both composers' methods of working, compositional techniques, etc.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Ich muss Caligari werden said:


> My view: it's an interesting distinction; how useful it is I think is clouded by over a century of exaggerated "Brahms vs. Wagner" hype. Perhaps it would be more illuminating to compare/contrast both composers' methods of working, compositional techniques, etc.


Hindsight is 20/20; I'm just working with the thread material as it is presented.



Zhdanov said:


> not merely that, but also deluding, attempting to establish a fake dichotomy.


Yes, your "Hungarian Dances" hypothesis _was_ compelling. In the end, you're right with the times: what we need now, above all, is unity. We must forget our differences, and focus on our similarities. It's the unifying, compassionate, and sane thing to do.
"Brahms' ideas _do_ matter," now more than ever. Let us never forget what he did for Hungary.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

Go back and read the quote; he essentially said Wagner used music to express ideas and Brahms' music was an end in itself.

I would for the most part agree with this though Brahms clearly had some ideas in mind with some of his music -- examples being his requiem being about Germans and not religion, his alto rhapsody being an extension of his own unfulfilled longing, and hit late clarinet music being something a friend could play. 

But his compositions are far more often absolute music compared to Wagner's which are more often programmatic. I think the same comparison would apply to Brahms and Tchaikovsky, another of his peers.

It also tells you something about the person that said it. It suggests to me he liked the music of Brahms and probably didn't like Wagner..that Brahms typically got to it and Wagner often tried to say something beyond music.


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## Tikoo Tuba (Oct 15, 2018)

Composers who say something beyond music are precocious . Ever been to an art exhibit that features an
artist's statement of intent taped to the wall ? ha , who cares ?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Isn't this comparison meaningful only if we're comparing more or less self-sufficient, non-vocal works? Any music set to words is automatically concerned with expressing "ideas." What we have, in Wagner's case, is a handful of overtures, preludes and interludes, and one free-standing orchestral (or chamber, in the original scoring) work, the _Siegfried Idyll._ For the sake of argument we could also consider the youthful _Symphony in C,_ which is rather pleasant but atypical, and the occasional potboiler like the _Philadelphia Centennial March_ (not as bad as its reputation would have it). There are also some piano works of variable interest. We know, too, that he was planning to have another go at symphony-writing in old age, and he spoke to Liszt about ideas for the "metamorphosis" of themes, which suggests something vaguely Sibelian and seems like an "absolute" music sort of concern. At any rate, it should be clear that Wagner was not uninterested in music "for its own sake" despite his preoccupation with opera, which, given the ambitious nature of his music dramas and the fact that they were created without any collaboration, understandably consumed most of his creative time.

Parallel to this, Brahms wrote a very large quantity of songs and choral music, including the hybrid _Alto Rhapsody_ and the little-known cantata, _Rinaldo,_ which show him very much concerned with expressing "ideas" through music. In this he was more typical of his era than he's sometimes felt to be.

_Rinaldo_ is interesting and worth a spin. It's as near as we'll get to an opera by Brahms.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Tikoo Tuba said:


> Composers who say something beyond music are precocious . Ever been to an art exhibit that features an
> artist's statement of intent taped to the wall ? ha , who cares ?


Didn't Brahms do this sort of thing? I really know next not nothing about Brahms but wasn't he always going on about things like "free and lonely" "free and happy" and encoding the mottos into the music in some way ? There's even a piece of music called it I think.

And presumably the Tragic Overture and 4th symphony are supposed to be explorations of the idea of tragedy.

And then there's that piano piece he wrote which quotes the dies irae pretty explicitly - study of death in music maybe.

There's another way Brahms was an ideas man maybe. You could say that things like the third piano sonata and the first couple of symphonies are explorations of the way the ideas of the past- esp Beethoven - can be integrated in the culture of the now, the present. Brahms's now of course. Maybe this is a major feature of Brahms's music as a whole, I think he was obsessed with the past. Brahms was a sort of postmodern composer.


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## annaw (May 4, 2019)

Tikoo Tuba said:


> Composers who say something beyond music are precocious . Ever been to an art exhibit that features an
> artist's statement of *intent taped to the wall* ? ha , who cares ?


Ha, if Wagner only did so! When Wagner expressed his ideas through his operas, he certainly didn't always make the meaning evident from the surface. His ideas are hidden deep in the libretti and music and they are far from being always easy to grasp, see, and comprehend. It's usually quite the opposite, in my opinion. I'm fairly sure that despite the number of books that have been published about Wagner, we still have lots of things we don't notice in his works or which we don't interpret correctly.

I agree with Woodduck that this distinction doesn't make sense when we compare operatic works of Wagner to non-vocal works of Brahms. I wouldn't call an operatic composer any worse than a non-operatic simply because he expressed ideas which were beyond music. That seems to be quite inevitable with dramatic music such as operatic.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Mandryka said:


> Didn't Brahms do this sort of thing?...presumably the Tragic Overture and 4th symphony are supposed to be explorations of the idea of tragedy.


Yes, perhaps that's why it's called the Tragic Overture; at least I hope that's the reason.



> And then there's that piano piece he wrote which quotes the dies irae pretty explicitly - study of death in music maybe. There's another way Brahms was an ideas man maybe. You could say that things like the third piano sonata and the first couple of symphonies are explorations of the way the ideas of the past- esp Beethoven - can be integrated in the culture of the now, the present. Brahms's now of course. Maybe this is a major feature of Brahms's music as a whole, I think he was obsessed with the past. Brahms was a sort of postmodern composer.


And I suppose that Beethoven's Ninth had something to do with the idea of "nine-ness?" But seriously, take the Pastoral as a good example of the relevance of "ideas" in supposedly otherwise 'absolute' music.

The OP post did not imply that Brahms was 'devoid of ideas,' did it? It merely contrasted him with Wagner, whose entire output is full of ideas, many of which are discussed at great length in this forum. Religion, the symbolic significance of characters, what his views on religion were, etc. Even his effect on the future Germany.

By contrast, Brahms plays it very close to the vest. I mean, we had to literally _dissect_ his German Requiem to show that it was not really a proper Mass, and that Brahms was a Humanist. With Wagner, it is _obvious_ that he had some concern with religious ideas.

I tend to agree with the quote in the OP, and it makes a good point worth discussing.

_"Whereas for Wagner music was a medium through which to express his many ideas, for Brahms it was an end in and of itself." Irving Peeves.
_


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

*OP:*
Makes sense. Brahms and Beethoven were perfectionists putting forth only the best final products they could, destroying the rest. Wagner, Tchaikovsky or Mozart on the other hand wanted to get their ideas out there and move on to more music. It's basically just the equivalent of saying quantity vs quality, there's no real difference between the two. In fact people just easily *discredit* the 'quantity' type of composers like Wagner and Tchaikovsky because there's more they have to_ sift through _while listening, but in the process they miss the fact that they have the overall better output. Likewise is the case for Mozart vs Beethoven imo, people often miss the tell that Mozart captured the big picture better, but they have to spend more time figuring it out. Something like Beethoven's symphonies are quite influential to most people initially, so it's easy to get swept away by popularity without digging deeper. I think Beethoven's symphonies are performed 2x as much as any of Mozart's works, or something like that. I'm not sure this says much in favor of Beethoven but it does make him higher rated due to impatience.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

millionrainbows said:


> Yes, perhaps that's why it's called the Tragic Overture; at least I hope that's the reason.
> 
> And I suppose that Beethoven's Ninth had something to do with the idea of "nine-ness?" But seriously, take the Pastoral as a good example of the relevance of "ideas" in supposedly otherwise 'absolute' music.
> 
> ...


So are there any pieces of purely instrumental music which are rich in ideas in the same way as The Ring? And are there any operas which are not Wagnerian which are rich in ideas in the same way as The Ring? I'm tempted to say no to both questions - because of the librettos Wagner chose, and the relation of text and music he invented. But I'm not sure.

To some extent setting a myth is always going to make for something rich because the story is open to non literal interpretation. But it's more than that: the text/music relation in Wagner, the simultaneous commentary of the orchestra on the action, brings an extra layer of meaning. Die schöne Magelone is rich in meaning - but it's not like The Ring.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Here's what some people consider as the ultimate goal Wagner wanted to achieve through music:



NLAdriaan said:


> You can't whitewash Wagner as if he didn't have anything to do with the ultra nationalist German movements that gave birth to the national socialists.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Richannes Wrahms said:


> I came across this quote:
> 
> _"Whereas for Wagner music was a medium through which to express his many ideas, for Brahms it was an end in and of itself."_ Irving Peeves.
> 
> What do you folks think of this?


Perhaps for Brahms, the music spoke ideas inexpressible in words. Which is a reason for musical art, isn't it?


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

i for one see no reason for guessing. Brahms does tell about things, in plain language. 1st symphony 1st part clearly portrays a genocide, mass murder, troops marching into combat, led by the pounding timpani, and then - a funeral march, with "danse macabre" to it all:


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

SONNET CLV said:


> Perhaps for Brahms, the music spoke ideas inexpressible in words. Which is a reason for musical art, isn't it?


In this case, let's say "ideas are ideas," for the sake of comparison, and because that's what Irving Peeves obviously intended (by contrasting ideas with music).


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## Coach G (Apr 22, 2020)

It's obvious to me that Wagner was the kind of artist who thought in very big terms. Like JRR Tolkien, Frank Baum, Walt Disney, George Lucas, Stan Lee, or JK Rowling: Wagner created his own reality, his own universe. Other composers who thought along those were Alexander Scriabin who had plans to create some kind of all-encompassing super work of art that would unite all the arts, and Charles Ives was probably on a similar track with his "Universe Symphony" that never came to fruition. I read somewhere that length and breadth of Mahler's symphonies point to an attempt to transform the symphony into a whole universe of sound and meaning. Whether or not you like Wagner's music or consider him a scoundrel of a man, you have to give credit to anyone who has the audacity, the ambition, the work ethic to create their own universe.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

Coach G said:


> It's obvious to me that Wagner was the kind of artist who thought in very big terms. Like JRR Tolkien, Frank Baum, Walt Disney, George Lucas, Stan Lee, or JK Rowling: Wagner created his own reality, his own universe. Other composers who thought along those were Alexander Scriabin who had plans to create some kind of all-encompassing super work of art that would unite all the arts, and Charles Ives was probably on a similar track with his "Universe Symphony" that never came to fruition. I read somewhere that length and breadth of Mahler's symphonies point to an attempt to transform the symphony into a whole universe of sound and meaning. Whether or not you like Wagner's music or consider him a scoundrel of a man, you have to give credit to anyone who has the audacity, the ambition, the work ethic to create their own universe.


Yes, I see what you mean. Somehow I can't picture "Brahms World."


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