[Footnote A:  In literature this movement is most marked, as may be seen by contrasting the tone of Goethe with that of Sudermann; by noting the decadence from the stories of a Chamisseau and Immermann to those of a Gottfried Keller; from the novels of Freytag to the latest of Frenssen and Arthur Schnitzler; from the poems of Heine to those of Hoffmansthal, author of the text of Strauss’ later operas.

Or, contrast merely the two typical dramas of love, Goethe’s “Faust” and Wagner’s “Tristan and Isolde.”]

In the musical art even of Germany the triumph was never complete.  The famous feud of Brahms and Wagner partisans marked the alignment of the classical and radical traditions.  Throughout the second half of the century the banner of a true musical process was upheld; the personal meeting of the youthful Brahms with the declining Schumann is wonderfully significant, viewed as a symbol of this passing of the classic mantle.  And the symphonies of Gustav Mahler seem an assurance of present tendencies.  The influence of Bach, revived early in the century, grew steadily as a latent leaven.

Nevertheless in the prevailing taste and temper of present German music, in the spirit of the most popular works, as those of Richard Strauss (who seems to have sold his poetic birthright), the aftermath of this wave is felt, and not least in the acclaim of the barren symphonies of a Bruckner.  It is well known that Bruckner, who paid a personal homage to Wagner, became a political figure in the partisan dispute, when he was put forth as the antagonist of Brahms in the symphony.  His present vogue is due to this association and to his frank adoption of Wagner idiom in his later works, as well as, more generally, to the lowered taste in Germany.

In all this division of musical dialect, in the shattering of the classic tower among the diverse tongues of many peoples, what is to be the harvest?  The full symbol of a Babel does not hold for the tonal art.  Music is, in its nature, a single language for the world, as its alphabet rests on ideal elements.  It has no national limits, like prose or poetry; its home is the whole world; its idiom the blended song of all nations.

In such a view there is less hope in the older than in the newer world.  No single, limited song of one nation can in the future achieve a second climax of the art.  It is by the actual mingling of them all that the fairest flower and fruit must come.  The very absence of one prevailing native song, held a reproach to America, is in reality her strength; for hers is the common heritage of all strains of song.  And it may be her destiny to lead in the glorious merging of them all.

CHAPTER II

BERLIOZ AND LISZT