Deryk Barker offers as an example of passionate partisanship:

>The pro-Wagner and pro-Brahms factions in 19th century Vienna?...

 ...but also Lanner/Strauss Sr. and, more generally, German v. Italian
romantic opera, e.g. Wagner/Verdi.  Back in those days there didn't exist
as much as exists today to ditsract people from the fascinating pursuit
of controversy over matters of high, or not so high, culture.

Denis Fodor