The second question propounded in the headlines of this chapter can be discreetly considered, but it can receive no conclusive answer until time's verdict is rendered. We can weigh the impressions made upon our individual susceptibilities by the qualities of the more prominent candidates for high-priestly honors, and compare these with like individual conceptions of ideal attributes, but the result of our speculations must necessarily partake more of the character of a weather-vane, subject to the caprice of changing conditions, than of a finger-post, giving reliable direction to our anticipations.
Of all the composers of recent times, Brahms attracted the largest following of musicians, and with right, for the volume of his worthy creations is larger than that produced by any of his contemporaries. He wrote a vast number of songs, ensemble pieces for a great variety of instrumental combinations, accompanied and unaccompanied piano-forte pieces, and symphonies, overtures, etc., for the grand orchestra. His work is usually characterized by rich harmonies, melodic voice-leading, transparent form, and a varying amount of spontaneity that at times fails to conceal evident effort. This effort makes itself felt in peculiar and even grotesque harmonic successions and rhythms, and it is traceable through all periods of his career. These, which to me are forced methods, are the only features that individualize Brahms' music. He is greatest when self-forgetful, and these unnatural features bespeak self-consciousness. Schumann, who was, as I said in a previous chapter, Brahms' musical god-father, was a genius with a clearly defined individuality, the complete and natural expression of which obliged him to invent means to supplement those that he had inherited from his predecessors. These invented means were peculiar harmonic compounds and erratic accents. Schumann usually employed these devices with grateful results; for he makes us feel that they are essential to the development of full significance in his tonal schemes. Genius has a magical power over resources and modes, often transforming eccentricities into felicitous, expressive means, and endowing that which would be chaotic in other hands with logical import.