“BRAHMINISM” REVISITED
fig. 6-5 Alban Berg and Anton Webern, spring 1912.
It is certainly possible to view this as a “purely” musical advance, without justification on expressionist or spiritual grounds. In that case it would be a maximalization of the sort of contrapuntally saturated textures we have found in Brahms (particularly in his chamber music), textures that had already become an object of virtual fetish worship on the part of “Brahmin” critics and music lovers. Motivic saturation could also be seen as a historical advance from the point of view of the New German School, recalling their insistence that the general tendency in music history was toward the integration of form and content, with Wagner’s “endless melody,” a musical texture in which everything was “thematic” (that is, based on meaning-bearing leitmotifs) setting the standard. Once again Schoenberg could be seen as the synthesizer of the Brahms-Wagner antithesis, which gave him a special importance within a historical narrative based on “dialectics.” (But see the epilogue to this chapter for a critique of this historical claim.)
- Citation (MLA):
- Richard Taruskin. "Chapter 6 Inner Occurrences (Transcendentalism, III)." The Oxford History of Western Music. Oxford University Press. New York, USA. n.d. Web. 21 May. 2025. <https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume4/actrade-9780195384840-div1-006016.xml>.
- Citation (APA):
- Taruskin, R. (n.d.). Chapter 6 Inner Occurrences (Transcendentalism, III). In Oxford University Press, Music in the Early Twentieth Century. New York, USA. Retrieved 21 May. 2025, from https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume4/actrade-9780195384840-div1-006016.xml
- Citation (Chicago):
- Richard Taruskin. "Chapter 6 Inner Occurrences (Transcendentalism, III)." In Music in the Early Twentieth Century, Oxford University Press. (New York, USA, n.d.). Retrieved 21 May. 2025, from https://www.oxfordwesternmusic.com/view/Volume4/actrade-9780195384840-div1-006016.xml
