'Best of Enemies'

Did Brahms really hate Tchaikovsky's guts? Did Pyotr Ilych despise him in return?

It's kind of odd how orchestras market their programs now -- by theme or image, catch-phrase or gimmick, rather than by the music alone. Totally understandable, and from a marketing standpoint, fascinating. But sometimes odd.

The Rochester Symphony has a program this weekend called "Best of Enemies," built around music by Brahms and Tchaikovsky. The gimmick is that the two giants of late 19th century music mutually detested each other.

Here's an entry from Tchaikovsky's journal, for example, as quoted in a blog associated with Prospect magazine...don't ask why:

"I played over the music of that scoundrel Brahms. What a giftless bastard! It annoys me that this self-inflated mediocrity is hailed as a genius. Why, in comparison with him, Raff [Joseph Joachim Raff, 1822—1882] is a giant, not to speak of Rubinstein [Anton Grigorevich Rubinstein, 1829—1894] who is after all a live and important human being, while Brahms is chaotic and absolutely empty dried-up stuff."

You have to admit, "giftless bastard" is a really good line.

Then there's Brahms, who one biographer says "wasn't noted for his tact." On a quick search I couldn't find anything as toxic as the above quote, but the Rochester orchestra's program notes say Brahms found Tchaikovsky's music "overly emotional without sufficient contrapuntal and structural discipline in his concert works."

Hardly a knockout punch, but Tchaikovsky, a master of self-inflicted wounds, tended to take care of that task himself. And Brahms was right! Tchaikovsky, for all his genius, wasn't exactly Bach when it came to counterpoint, and he wasn't even Brahms when it came to symphonic structure.

I'll let Brahms and Tchaikovsky duke it out on Saturday, with Jere Lantz holding their jackets for them. I just wonder if this pugilistic theme was necessary to get people into the seats.

(For my part, I oughta be at that concert to review it, but have operatic commitments that night. I'll review a Rochester Symphony concert later this season, and for now, I welcome other writers to contribute comments here or for possible publication in the Post-Bulletin.)