Certain later, inflated (schwulstig) and dull productions of R. Schumann, which simply require to be played smoothly (glatt herunter gespielt) are confounded with Beethoven; and an attempt is made to show that they agree in spirit with the rarest, boldest and most profound achievements of German music!  Thus Schumann’s shallow bombast is made to pass for the equivalent of the inexpressible purport of Beethoven—­but always with the reservation that strenuous eccentricity such as Beethoven’s is hardly admissible; whereas, vapid emptiness (das gleichgiltig Nichtssagende) is right and proper:  a point at which Schumann properly played, and Beethoven improperly rendered, are perhaps comparable without much fear of misunderstanding!  Thus these singular defenders of musical chastity stand towards our great classical music in the position of eunuchs in the Grand-Turk’s Harem; and by the same token German Philistinism is ready to entrust them with the care of music in the family—­since it is plain that anything ambiguous is not likely to proceed from that quarter.

But now what becomes of our great and glorious German music?  It is the fate of our music that really concerns us.  We have little reason to grieve if, after a century of wondrous productivity, nothing particular happens to come to light for some little time.  But there is every reason to beware of suspicious persons who set themselves up as the trustees and conservators of the “true German spirit” of our inheritance.

Regarded as individuals, there is not much to blame in these musicians; most of them compose very well.  Herr Johannes Brahms once had the kindness to play a composition of his own to me—­a piece with very serious variations—­which I thought excellent, and from which I gathered that he was impervious to a joke.  His performance of other pianoforte music at a concert gave me less pleasure.  I even thought it impertinent that the friends of this gentleman professed themselves unable to attribute anything beyond “extraordinary technical power” to “Liszt and his school,” whilst the execution of Herr Brahms appeared so painfully dry, inflexible and wooden.  I should have liked to see Herr Brahms’ technique annointed with a little of the oil of Liszt’s school; an ointment which does not seem to issue spontaneously from the keyboard, but is evidently got from a more aetherial region than that of mere “technique.”  To all appearances, however, this was a very respectable phenomenon; only it remains doubtful how such a phenomenon could be set up in a natural way as the Messiah, or, at least, the Messiah’s most beloved disciple; unless, indeed, an affected enthusiasm for mediaeval wood-carvings should have induced us to accept those stiff wooden figures for the ideals of ecclesiastical sanctity.  In any case we must protest against any presentation of our great warm-hearted Beethoven in the guise of such sanctity.  If they cannot bring out the difference between Beethoven, whom they do not comprehend and therefore pervert, and Schumann, who, for very simple reasons, is incomprehensible, they shall, at least, not be permitted to assume that no difference exists.