Chris Bonds quotes D.F Tovey:

>I have read Hanslick's collected works patiently without discovering
>either in his patronage of Brahms or in his attacks on Wagner, Verdi,
>Bruckner, the early works of Beethoven, Palestrina's Stabat Mater, or any
>other work a little off the average Viennese concert-goer's track in 1880,
>any knowledge of anything whatever.

This only proves how superficially did Tovey read Hanslick's works.  Let's
put something clear:  Hanslick, perhaps, was a fool as a critic (ie:  as
a journalist), but he was well trained in music (at least acceptably well
prepared, if one pay credit to the fact that he studied at the Vienna
Conservatory), and he wrote an interesting and historically important
essay on musical aesthetics ("Von Musikalisch Schonen").  Why did he
attack Wagner and Bruckner, and why did he support Brahms?:  well, you can
understand it when you read his aesthetic works, better than his critical
writings.  He applied --it's true-- his aesthetic thought too rigidly on
the music of his time, and because of this he pronounced unfair and obtuse
judgements about Bruckner and Wagner.  Well:  he was wrong, but that's not
a fair argument for calling him an ignorant.  We can't judge him only for
his unfortunate role of head of the brahmsian party.

>The general and musical culture shown in Hanslick's writings represents
>One of the unlovelier forms of parasitism; that which, having the wealth
>to collect objets d'art and the birth and education to talk amusingly, does
>not itself attempt a stroke of artistic work, does not dream of revising a
>first impression, experiences the fine arts entirely as the pleasures of a
>gentleman, and then pronounces judgement as if the expression of its
>opinion were a benefit and a duty to society.

That's a teenager statement:  what's wrong about experiencing the fine arts
as the pleasures of a gentleman?.  Why should Hanslick "attempt a stroke of
artistic work", when his interest was theoretical?.  With this criterion,
"parasitism" is a term which could be applied to any man who writes on
non-technical subjects of music and pronounces judgements with a minimum
degree of consciousness (ie:  to Wagner, to Strawinsky, to DF Tovey and to
us, the members of this list).

Chris wrote about this quote:

>When Tovey writes about music, it is from the perspective of a practicing
>musician and composer who understands what other composers do on a very
>practical level.

That's a myth.  A composer does not always understands what does another
composer do "on a very practical level".  Actually, it could be said that
the worst enemies of a composer are often his own colleagues.  Check the
judgements of Brahms on the symphonies of Bruckner, or the judgements of
Strawinsky on the music of Berlioz.

Pablo Massa
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