Throughout the second half of the
century the banner of a true musical process was upheld; the personal
meeting of the youthful Brahms with the declining Schumann is
wonderfully significant, viewed as a symbol of this passing of the
classic mantle. And the symphonies of Gustav Mahler seem an assurance of
present tendencies. The influence of Bach, revived early in the century,
grew steadily as a latent leaven.
Nevertheless in the prevailing taste and temper of present German
music, in the spirit of the most popular works, as those of Richard
Strauss (who seems to have sold his poetic birthright), the aftermath of
this wave is felt, and not least in the acclaim of the barren symphonies
of a Bruckner. It is well known that Bruckner, who paid a personal
homage to Wagner, became a political figure in the partisan dispute,
when he was put forth as the antagonist of Brahms in the symphony. His
present vogue is due to this association and to his frank adoption of
Wagner idiom in his later works, as well as, more generally, to the
lowered taste in Germany.
In all this division of musical dialect, in the shattering of the
classic tower among the diverse tongues of many peoples, what is to be
the harvest? The full symbol of a Babel does not hold for the tonal art.
Music is, in its nature, a single language for the world, as its
alphabet rests on ideal elements. It has no national limits, like prose
or poetry; its home is the whole world; its idiom the blended song of
all nations.
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