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The War of the Romantics is a term that has been used by music historians among others to describe some of the disagreements among musicians of the 19th century, about how musical works should go and where music should be going. Some of the more important of these disagreements were about the nature of musical structure, about absolute versus program music, and the limits of harmony. As the "opposing camps" crystallized during the 1850s, one camp centered around Berlin and Leipzig and around, particularly, Johannes Brahms, and both Robert and Clara Schumann; the other party organized in Weimar around Franz Liszt, and in exile at the time, Richard Wagner.
The opposed circles
Other key figures on the Weimar/New German side of the divide are critic Richard Pohl, and composers Richard Wagner, Felix Draeseke (these two if not more at some point critics as well,) Julius Reubke, Felix Draeseke, Karl Klindworth, Hans von Bülow, William Mason, Peter Cornelius and briefly Anton Rubinstein and Joachim Raff. They (more or less) formed the Society of Murls (Murl - Mohr/Kerl, related to a saying popular at the time and meaning someone who wasn't with nor likely to be with the musical Philistines. The b minor sonata, besides its dedication to Schumann, also has the inscription written, Für die Murlbiblothek.) The Neu‐Weimar‐Verein was a more formal attempt to form a club, which lasted a few years and had minutes. The Tonkunster‐Versammlung (Congress of Musical Artists,) which first met in Leipzig in June 1859, was a more fruitful attempt.
Robert Schumann (until his death in 1856,) Clara Schumann, Joseph Joachim and Johannes Brahms were the key, and best-known, members of the Leipzig‐based school. Associated with them at one time or another were Heinrich von Herzogenberg, Friedrich Gernsheim, Robert Fuchs, Karl Goldmark, among others. Schumann was a critic — and a progressive critic, fighting with the imaginary or symbolic Band of David against the Philistines — only a few years before and for the same Neue Zeitschrift für Musik that now, under Franz Brendel's editorship, was apparently favoring the music and performances of Liszt, his pupils, and his friends. Eduard Hanslick as critic was very influential on their behalf. (An occasion of Liszt and Hanslick playing two‐piano music, after the 'War' was thoroughly underway, was a source of a perhaps bittersweet remark by Liszt wishing it could represent the union of art and criticism...)
One of the central points of disagreement concerned form and forms — very generally speaking, Liszt's "circle", and Liszt himself in composing, were perceived as preferring to write in new styles and new forms, while the Leipzig/Berlin school was regarded as preferring the forms used by the classic masters (and codified by musicologists of the early 19th century.) The increasing use of various kinds of program music (explicitly pictorial and simply suggestive) by the Weimar school, and Liszt's invention of the symphonic poem reinforced this perception, as did his motto that new wine required new bottles, though exceptions were not always minor.
Hanslick was led, first by the publication of Liszt's first symphonic poems and then even more and further by his Faust Symphony, to publish a statement of principles, that music did not and could not represent anything outside itself — not only not realistic impressions after the manner of Hector Berlioz, but even impressions and feelings (sometimes inspired by places and events, as in the case of Beethoven's Sixth Symphony, and as Wagner suggested was Liszt's intention with his symphonic poems also ("Open Letter on Liszt's Symphonic Poems", 1857, Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik April 10 1857, originated as a letter, Feb 15 1857 to Princess Marie von Sayn-Wittgenstein, Caroline's daughter and Liszt's effective — and treated-as — adoptive daughter, see Walker, p 231 note, paperback edition. Liszt's prefaces to the works seem to back this view up, as well.)
The Manifesto
One significant event of many was the signing of a Manifesto against the perceived bias of the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik. This effort, whose authors were unknown, received at first four signatures among them Brahms and Joachim, though more were canvassed and eventually more were obtained. Before the later signatories could put their names to the document, however, it found its way into the editorial offices of the Berliner Musik‐Zeitung Echo, and from there was leaked to the Neue Zeitschrift itself, which parodied it on May 4 1860. Two days later (Walker, p 350) it made its official appearance in the Berliner Musik‐Zeitung Echo with more than twenty signatures, including Woldemar Bargiel, Albert Dietrich, Carl Reinecke, and Ferdinand Hiller.
The "war" was fought with compositions and with words, with reputations, with scenes — staged catcalls at a concert to show your dislike of the chosen conductor — with slights — holding the anniversary celebration of the Neue Zeitscrift in Schumann's birthplace Zwickau and neglecting to invite members of the opposing party (including Clara) living there — if as a general rule, not with anything more dangerous. As seen from one side, it pit Brahms' increasingly effective and economical sonata form — say — against Liszt works with no form at all; as seen from the other, it put works in which — to paraphrase again the motto above, this time into an expression used by Cedric Thorpe Davie — musical form best fit musical content — against works which reused old forms without any understanding of their growth and reason. The 20th century brought a diversity of music against which the conflicts of the 19th seem like so many shades of the same color against a rainbow, and often, as Arnold Schoenberg lamented, criticism was (pardon) one‐note** in the face of a whirlwind of styles, experimentation, returns‐to, but the War of the Romantics, the writing it left and the events we know, provide a very useful insight into the time and its creative artists for all of that.
As to the victor of this metaphorical war, classical works written in the 20th century were either so far away from the questions addressed for either side to be relevant — Robert Ashley's works for light come to mind as an extreme case of music for which these concerns have no relevance, but there might be pieces even more so before not so very long... — or often benefited from the thoughts and works of both. Nikolai Medtner acquired the nickname the Russian Brahms (mostly for his sure handling of sonata form, actually — his teacher Taneev saying that he was born with it) but wrote a half-hour, one‐movement sonata, op. 25/2 in e, with the internal form of a sonata exposition followed by a fantasy.
*He did take Anton Rubinstein to task — Murlship lacks in him still — for his (over‐??)use of older forms, and this might be considered somewhat inconsistent since some of the other members of his circle wrote works in standard forms. Draeseke's published symphonies, for example — the early one Liszt might have known at that time is lost — are in four movements, and the first two symphonies are reasonably "standard" in progression, though the third and fourth at least have substantial surprises; but they are of later date — while his piano sonata, with its use of cyclic form — and unusual first movement with funeral march at the center, not to mention its motto chord sequence opening, another passage which returns in the finale — declared its Weimaresque loyalties.
**Schoenberg's essay — About Music Criticism — published in Style and Idea, page 194, translated by Leo Black, pub. Balmont Music Publishers 1975, paperback edition ISBN 0-520-05294-3, 1984 — remarked that while earlier critics had at least been able to discuss "the problem of whether it is effective or admissible" to reverse the order of the inner movements of a sonata structure, or to have an unusual key sequence in a work (e.g. Brahms' 2nd cello sonata, with slow movement a semitone above the main key,) these problems entirely passed modern critics by; critics could only harp on harmony, tonality, harmony. In this respect even the new profession of criticism — and in the mid‐1800s professional music criticism (in newspapers, often by non‐musicians, that is, as is the habit today) was very new — may have been marginally better. (Or not.)
Some background information, and a brief quote or two, for this article comes from
- Alan Walker, Franz Liszt: The Weimar Years, ISBN 0801497213, Cornell University Press 1993. pp.338 – 367 is entitled and covers specifically The War of the Romantics but it is a theme elsewhere.
Book
- Another book referred to in the article is
- Cedric Thorpe-Davie, Musical Structure and Design, ISBN 0486216292, Dover Publications, 1995. Still available from some retail outlets.
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