Inhalt
From the IntroductionOur modern concept of Johannes Brahms as a composer owes much to Arnold Schoenberg's essay "Brahms the Progressive" . . . Brahms, as we have come to know him through Schoenberg, is a harbinger of modernism . . . We are disinclined to appreciate the extent to which Brahms's identity as a German (both to himself and to his audience) affected his music, and the degree to which that German identity was integrally connected to religious issues . . . We prefer to see Brahms as a representative of the good and noble in German musical art in distinction to Wagner, whose ideology dovetails too neatly with -- and was so eagerly embraced along with his music by -- the National Socialists. The critical tradition has found no better way to salvage Brahms the German than to downplay his Germanness, but in doing so, we risk losing sight of the spirituality and nationalism that his music conveys.