Reading Music Criticism beyond the Fin-de-siecle Vienna Paradigm

Abstract

, ten days after the work's belated Viennese premiere. The advertisement, in the form of a flyer, was produced by the publisher of the symphony, Albert J. Gutmann, and featured a series of brief quotations from reviews of performances, including the recent Viennese performance and concerts in Leipzig, Frankfurt, Munich, and Berlin (see Figure 1). 1 The divergent views expressed in the quotations Gutmann selected, which highlight the disagreements between the combative responses of leading Viennese critics and the generally more positive reception of the symphony in Germany, reflect the divided state of opinion concerning the merits of Bruckner's music at the time. The contrast between the praise, which is fine but generally reasonable, and the sharply dismissive negative criticism is striking, as are Eduard Hanslick's statement that he found the work "unnaturally inflated, morbid, and pernicious" ("unnatürlich aufgeblasen, krankhaft und verderblich") and Gustav Dömpke's declaration that "Bruckner composes like a drunkard" ("Bruckner componirt wie ein Betrunkener"). These may seem odd choices for inclusion in a promotional flyer, but this was no April Fools joke. Gutmann clearly regarded them as an effective means of generating publicity for one of his products. He apparently succeeded in creating a succès de scandale; in Ernst Decsey's melodramatic reminiscence, the advertisement "had the effect of a cymbal crash." 2 Recalling the event in his memoirs, Gutmann seemed pleased to have provoked an "enormous sensation" that provided "the occasion for further polemics" (see Table 1 for this and the following quotations). Other comments about Gutmann's advertisement indicate that it was understood as part of a larger argument about Bruckner. Max Kalbeck, one of the composer's strongest critics, responded two days later in Die Presse, dismissing Gutmann's effort as a ploy. The promptness of

Form and Orbital Tonality in the Finale of Bruckner's Seventh Symphony

“…Remote as the Seventh now seems from such barbed commentary, complaints of irrationality, heterogeneity, incompetence and incoherence have endured, notwithstanding attempts at rebuttal; as Benjamin Korstvedt notes, in Great Britain and the United States especially, ‘prevalent views of Bruckner remain tinged by presumptions traceable to criticisms from the 1880s and 1890s’ (, p. 192). In the analytical discourse, the technical issues Dömpke raised (albeit crudely) are far from settled.…”

“…In a penetrating analysis of fin‐de‐siècle Viennese Bruckner criticism, Korstvedt carefully re‐contextualises the claims of irrationality evidenced in Dömpke's review, exposing the discursive extremism into which liberal journalism often lapsed as a response to cultural anxieties compelling a kind of Freudian ‘narcissism of small differences’ and reframing the distinction between Brahmsian and Brucknerian musical logic in terms of the secular and sacred ends to which they worked, rather than the means they employed (Korstvedt ).…”

“…This mixed reception was interestingly turned to Bruckner's advantage by his publisher Albert Gutmann, who on 1 April 1886 published an advertisement for the work in the Neue freie Presse , which included both positive and negative responses. On this subject see Korstvedt (), pp. 156–9.…”