War of the Romantics

The "War of the Romantics" is a term used by some music historians to describe the schism among prominent musicians in the second half of the 19th century. Musical structure, the limits of chromatic harmony, and program music versus absolute music were the principal areas of contention. The opposing parties crystallized during the 1850s. The most prominent members of the conservative circle were Johannes Brahms, Joseph Joachim, Clara Schumann, and the Leipzig Conservatoire, which had been founded by Felix Mendelssohn. Their opponents, the radical progressives mainly from Weimar, were represented by Franz Liszt and the members of the so-called New German School (German: Neudeutsche Schule), and by Richard Wagner. The controversy was German and Central European in origin; musicians from France, Italy, and Russia were only marginally involved.

Clara Schumann, Joseph Joachim and Johannes Brahms were early key members of a conservative group of musicians. This core of supporters maintained the artistic legacy of Robert Schumann, Clara's husband, who had died in 1856.^{[citation needed]}

While Robert Schumann had been a progressive critic and editor of the influential music periodical Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, which he had founded in 1834, he was never a true admirer of Liszt. Initially, Schumann maintained artistically fruitful friendships and cordial correspondence with the emerging vanguard of radical romantics — Liszt in particular — as well as with musical conservatives such as Mendelssohn and Gade. He praised Liszt's piano playing in Neue Zeitschrift and reviewed his Leipzig concerts in 1840 favorably. However, as Lisztomania swept through Europe after 1842, both he and Clara believed that Liszt had become self-deluded. After Schumann sold the Neue Zeitschrift to Franz Brendel in 1845, it became an enthusiastic supporter of Liszt and his circle. It also openly diminished Mendelssohn and other conservative composers. Though the final break between Liszt and the Schumanns would not come until 1848, the editorial turn that Neue Zeitschrift had taken would color their relations for the rest of their lives. While Liszt remained cordial and at times generous on a professional level toward the Schumanns, they became openly hostile to him.

Clara Schumann had long been the more conservative aesthete in the Schumann marriage. She perceived the editorial change in Neue Zeitschrift as a slight against her husband's legacy.^{[citation needed]} The young Brahms, who had been very close to the Schumanns during Robert's decline, also took up the cause. Joachim, who was a friend of both Clara and Brahms, joined them in his opposition to Liszt and the New German School. A child prodigy, Joachim at 17 had become professor of violin at the Leipzig Conservatory, where he forged close ties with Mendelssohn, the Schumanns and Ferdinand David. Two years later, he became concertmaster of the Weimar Court Orchestra under Liszt's direction. His three years in Weimar left him with poor impressions of Liszt's conducting and compositions. His opinion of Liszt's music and that of the rest of the New German School was reinforced by his correspondence with Brahms and Clara.

Brahms's personal experience with Liszt had been limited to a single visit to Weimar in 1853, when he presented some of his compositions to a group that included Liszt, Peter Cornelius and Joachim Raff. After Liszt played some of Brahms's work, he performed his own B-minor Piano Sonata. Brahms was impressed neither with Liszt's music nor with that of most of the rest of the New German School. The exception was Wagner.

The critic Eduard Hanslick was very influential on the conservatives' behalf, as his view of music as "form moving in sound" meshed with their own. Associated with them at one time or another were Heinrich von Herzogenberg, Friedrich Gernsheim, Robert Fuchs, and Karl Goldmark, among others.

The key figure on the Weimar ("New German") side was Franz Liszt. The other leading composer of the group was Richard Wagner. Other notable figures siding with Liszt were the critic Richard Pohl and composers Felix Draeseke, Julius Reubke, Karl Klindworth, William Mason and Peter Cornelius. The composer and pianist Hans von Bülow initially supported the Liszt-Wagner side until his wife, Liszt's daughter Cosima, left him for Wagner; he then switched his allegiance to Brahms. It was Bülow who called Brahms the third of the Three Bs and dubbed that composer's First Symphony "The Tenth," after Beethoven's nine. Pohl, brought by Liszt to serve as Weimar's unofficial critic-in-residence, championed Liszt, Berlioz and Wagner in print. He also took Eduard Hanslick to task for claiming music could not be programmatic.

There were several attempts, with Liszt at the centre, to create a lasting and formal society. The Neu-Weimar-Verein was one attempt to form a club. It lasted a few years and published minutes of their meetings. The Tonkünstler-Versammlung (Congress of Musical Artists), which first met in Leipzig in June 1859, was a more successful attempt at forming an organization. (See New German School.) It eventually led to the founding in 1861 of the Allgemeiner Deutscher Musikverein (ADMV), the 'United German Musical Union', which espoused Liszt's musical enthusiasms.