Wagner/Brahms: Music, Culture, and Politics
Wagner/Brahms: Music, Culture, and Politics: A comparative study of two paragons of 19th century German romanticism.
This lecture will explore the relationship between two figures who were arguably the most important German composers of the late nineteenth century. Although early on Wagner and Brahms had several positive interactions and even expressed mutual admiration, the two composers became caught up in a broader culture war, pitted against each other by their respective followers. In this conflict, Wagner was often depicted as modern and progressive and Brahms as backward-looking and conservative. But their musical languages, as well as their cultural and political values, suggest the opposite may be the case.
About the speaker: Walter Frisch is H. Harold Gumm/Harry and Albert von Tilzer Professor of Music at Columbia University in New York, where he has taught since 1982. He has also been a guest professor at the University of Freiburg in Germany, Yale University, Princeton University, and the University of Pennsylvania and has lectured on music throughout the United States, and in England, France, Spain, Germany, and China.
Professor Frisch is a specialist in the music of composers from the Austro-German sphere in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, ranging from Schubert to Schoenberg. He has written numerous articles and two books on Brahms, including Brahms and the Principle of Developing Variation (1984) and Brahms: the Four Symphonies (1996, 2003). He served as editor of the volume Brahms and His World (1990, 2009) and was the founding president of the American Brahms Society in 1983. He is the co-author, with George S. Bozarth, of the Brahms article in the second edition of the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (2000). Professor Frisch’s publications on Schoenberg include the book The Early Works of Arnold Schoenberg, 1893-1908 (1993) and the edited volume Schoenberg and His World (1999). He also edited and contributed to a volume on Schubert’s music, Schubert: Critical and Analytical Studies (1986). His book German Modernism: Music and the Arts (2005) investigates the relationships between music and its cultural context in Austria and Germany during the period 1880-1915.
The event will be followed by a social hour with refreshments. Copies of Prof. Frisch’s books will be available for purchase at the event.
Livestream: the event will be livestreamed (viewable up to 36 hours after the start of the event). WSNY Members receive livestream link automatically by e-mail; no need to pre-register.