Interwoven throughout the essay are Schoenberg’s own ideas about the nature of music, and regarding music’s progression from Bach to his own time. For any wishing to understand his points in such detail, the essay is worth seeking out. Schoenberg annotates his points with many musical examples. Schoenberg sets out “to prove that Brahms, the classicist, the academician, was a great innovator in the realm of musical language, that, in fact, he was a great progressive.” This is a wide-ranging essay of uneasy organization, ostensibly dealing with a false characterization of Brahms as more backward-looking than his contemporaries, particularly Wagner. ![]() ![]() Schoenberg’s essay is a version of his lecture, given on the event of Brahms’ 100th birthday, then substantially revised on the 50th anniversary of Brahms’ death.
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