Brahms on Draeseke

[Alan Howe]

On page 64 of his study Brahms' Symphonies, David Hurwitz writes of Draeseke's 3rd Symphony that it was 'a popular work in its day that Brahms knew and admired'.

I have always wondered what Brahms thought of Draeseke's music, but have never seen chapter and verse - and in fact Hurwitz's assertion is unattributed. Can anyone throw any light on this matter? Eric?

[eschiss1]

Well, no published edition of Brahms' letters seem to contain any mention of Draeseke at all, far as I can tell, unless I'm just doing a very poor search... it may be one of those "traditions" that's grown up.

(I see in passing - at least, from Google &c - that Hurwitz refers to the Draeseke as "portentously-named", etc. Ah, another of those studies.)

[Alan Howe]

I suspect that Hurwitz's source might be the notes accompanying the first recording of the Tragica, reproduced here:
http://www.draeseke.org/discs/spaethnotes.htm
The notes include the description "portentous". Hmm...

Of course, this is no source at all. Once again, there is no documentation - merely assertion.

[Alan Howe]

Another webpage says something similar:
<<Throughout his life, Draeseke's music was held in high regard and even Johannes Brahms once remarked that the "orchestral works of Anton Bruckner and Felix Draeseke represent the only serious challenges to his own symphonies.">>
http://www.interlude.hk/front/felix-draeseke/
Once again, however, there is no indication of the source of the quote.

[eschiss1]

Interlude.hk also claims to be a quote- one I can't find anywhere else at all. Curious...

Spaethnotes- hrm, if it's from those notes, I have this odd suspicion it or something similar could be from Roeder's (largely? spurious) Draeseke biography, but I haven't read it, and maybe someone else here has.

[chill319]

orchestral works of Anton Bruckner and Felix Draeseke represent the only serious challenges to his own symphonies

The quote does smack of the spurious -- which of course doesn't mean it _is_ spurious. Yet does it not seem odd or at least rather inconsistent that Brahms would ignore completely Dvorak -- particularly the latter's D minor symphony-- a composer he championed? Also, pigeon-hole-ing works by other symphonists as "challenges" sounds more like Hanslick talking than like Brahms. Consider Brahms's better attested response to Mahler's second symphony. It demonstrated his appreciation of musical diversity in the realm of symphonies.
Somewhat off-topic but related: during the 1887-88 season, von Bülow conducted Beethoven 6, Beethoven 9, Schubert 9, Raff 3, Draeseke 3, Bruch 3, and Gernsheim (number not known to me). That is one measure of who was then considered successful in (what Dahlhaus called) the monumental style.

[Alan Howe]

Yes, the quote may be the work of Roeder, Draeseke's Nazi biographer. That might explain the exclusion of any mention of Dvorak...

[eschiss1]

Hrm. I find it hard to believe offhand that Hanslick would say something even offhand positive about Draeseke, but it could happen.

(I see that Nicodé is one of the conductor-composers who programmed it during Draeseke's lifetime, though, in 1895. Hrm! During Brahms' lifetime also, true.)
Ah well. Again, absent (linear, uncircular) evidence, yes...

[chill319]

...sounds more like Hanslick talking ...

I was thinking of Hanslick not so much as an individual as an emblem for the culture warriors (or, war-of-wordiers) on his side of the New Music divide (though I didn't make that at all clear).

I've lately dipped into an 1888 volume on the core symphonic repertory as seen from the vantage-point of a U.S. critic. What most interests me (because I think he passes on then-conventional received knowledge) is his description of Brahms symphonic style, particularly with respect to the fairly recent symphony 4. Anyone who followed the symphonic lead of Schumann and Mendelssohn he saw as conservative. What seemed alarming about Brahms's conservatism was that even Mendelssohn's and Schumann's models were too modern for him -- Brahms was delving back to Beethoven's symphonies and even to Bach (finale of symphony 4) for his models! Is this Progress? And on top of that, he was putting into his symphonies music of the utmost seriousness, music that hardly entertained at all. The term used several times to describe Brahms's symphonies is that they are "scientific" (which, even through there was no term 'musicological' then, I think is not equivalent to 'musicological' but adds to it 'utmost seriousness').

As it happens, the first three Draeseke symphonies find an equally original rapprochement between Beethoven's symphonic manner and post-Chopin, post-Lohengrin compositional exploration, essentially skipping over Mendelssohn and Schumann. Similarly, excluding the Schumannesque F-minor symphony, Bruckner (as we all know) likewise hearkens back to Beethoven while adding up-to-the-minute harmonic progressions. In short, whoever made up that quote, they revealed some insight in it, even if the opinion expressed is not Brahms's own.

[Alan Howe]

I've lately dipped into an 1888 volume on the core symphonic repertory as seen from the vantage-point of a U.S. critic.

I'd be interested to know what volume that is.

The term used several times to describe Brahms's symphonies is that they are "scientific"...

I wonder if that actually means 'intellectual' or even 'cerebral'?

[John H White]

In my youth, I personally found Brahms's symphonies and most of his other works, apart from the Academic Festival Overture, much harder to get on with than those of Beethoven, Schubert etc. Maybe his style was too "modern" for me at that time!

[Rainolf]

In one of the publications of the Draeseke Society there was written, that the only secure remark Brahms made about Draeseke was related only to Draeseke's engagement in 1893, not to his music. (I don't have the book here now, but can look after the quotation, if you want.)

[Alan Howe]

That would be very helpful, Rainolf. Thanks!

[Rainolf]

Here are the facts, Martella Gutierrez-Denhoff pointed out in her article "Felix Draeseke und Johannes Brahms" in volume 5 of the publications of the International Draeseke Society (page 148):

According to her, there is no statement by Brahms known about Draesekes Music. For Erich Roeder's words, that Brahms more than once had called Draeseke his "Mitsymphoniker" (Co-Symphonist), no source was found. Gutierrez-Denhoff then quotes the only line in Brahms' known letters, that mentiones Draeseke:

"Haussmann (Cellist) is engaged [...] that's nice and truly enjoyable. But Draeseke is engaged [with Frida Neuhaus] and Bruckner [with Ida Buhz] - it's to be hoped that such stupidity will be prevented." (last words in original: "vor solcher Dummheit ist hoffentlich gesichert.") Brahms wrote this on 16th May 1894.

Erich Roeder and Hermann Stephani were both active in national socialist culture politics and had an interest to present Draeseke and Brahms as teutonic warriors, who both fought against the tendencies of naturalism and impressionism in the "epoch of refined sensuality of sound". (What would Draeseke have said to this, Draeseke the great master of orchestral refinement!)

[Rainolf]

A kind of substitute for the missing words of Brahms about Draesekes Music maybee could be found in Brahms' judgement about the early Symphony op. 12 by Richard Strauss.

>>Strauss records that Brahms considered the piece "quite good" but the great composer went on, "Young man, take a good look at Schubert's dances and aim for simple, eight-bar melodies. [...] There is far too much thematic interplay in your symphony. This interweaving of themes based on a common triad merely for the sake of rhythmic contrast is pointless."<<

"http://www.musikmph.de/musical_scores/vorworte/245.html"

If Brahms knew Draeseke's Tragica ("interweaving of themes" in the last movement), he maybee thought of this work in a similar way.