Brahms Studies, Vol. 2 (review)

Brahms Studies. Vol. 2. Edited by David Brodbeck. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, in association with the American Brahms Society, 1998. [xiii, 242 p. ISBN 0-8032-6196-9. $60.]

Like volume 1 of Brahms Studies (1994), this second volume, comprising eight essays by different authors, displays the widest possible variety of historical, analytic, and descriptive approaches. A third volume, also edited by David Brodbeck, is now in preparation.

In the opening essay, "Editing Brahms's Music," George S. Bozarth again debunks the myth that Brahms was always a careful editor of his own music, and he makes a case for the new critical edition of the complete works, now in progress (Neue Ausgabe sämtliche Werke [Munich: G. Henle, 1996-]). He describes some of the failings of the old edition (Sämtliche Werke [Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1926-27; reprint, Ann Arbor, Mich.: J. W. Edwards, 1949]), many of which stem from the editors' overdependence on Brahms's own corrected copies (Handexemplare) of the original editions of his works. Bozarth considers the Romanzen aus Magelone to show that when all the relevant sources are considered, the results are quite different from those commonly accepted. More recent editions of Intermezzo op. 119, no. 1, the organ music, and the D-Minor Piano Concerto also receive detailed critical scrutiny; all display inaccuracies or misguided conclusions that must be corrected in the new edition.

Heather Platt's convincing essay "Hugo Wolf and the Reception of Brahms's Lieder" is grounded in a thorough examination of critical writing about the songs of both composers. Her thesis is that Wolf's opinions about how texts should be set, accepted by later critics as describing the ideal, led to unfair evaluations of Brahms's settings, which were based on an approach more akin to folksong. Brahms has been criticized for many failings: choice of "inferior" texts, faults in declamation, use of strophic settings, avoidance of detailed word painting, and use of unified rather than constantly varied accompaniments. The more innovative features of Brahms's songs have been neglected in criticism that stresses comparison with his instrumental works as exemplars of absolute music, or that uses an "objective," text-based approach, following Wolf's ideas. Platt sees hope, however, in some recent studies that seek to demonstrate the "fusion of text and music" (p. 110) in Brahms's lieder.

Walter Frisch, in " 'Echt symphonisch': On the Historical Context of Brahms's Symphonies," adapts portions of his book Brahms: The Four Symphonies (New York: Schirmer Books, 1996). He provides a history of the concept of the "große Symphonie" and the problem of high expectations and harsh criticism that nearly shut off production of new symphonies by the middle of the nineteenth century. In the next two decades, demands of the progressive camp, which favored descriptive music and expected "spiritual" content, were matched by those of the conservatives for both originality and the highest musical standards. Using contemporary criticism and his own analysis, Frisch provides possible reasons for the lack of success of Max Bruch's First Symphony (1868). He then imagines how the opening Allegro of Brahms's First Symphony might have been received in 1862, when it was composed, rather than at the time of the work's long-delayed completion in 1876; by then, Brahms's reputation was such that the symphony had to be treated with respect.

Historical context is also a focus of Daniel Beller-McKenna's contribution, "Brahms's Motet 'Es ist das Heil uns kommen her' and the 'Innermost Essence of Music.'" The author contends that the composition of the motet in 1860 was linked to the writing of the famous manifesto ("Erklärung") by Brahms and Joseph Joachim. In a detailed analysis of the work, Beller-McKenna finds motivic relationships and development that support stylistic connections to Mozart, in addition to the more obvious links to the baroque, and specifically to Johann Sebastian Bach; he argues that Brahms thus asserted the continuity of German tradition in his own music, in...