Lord! Liszt, nothing daunted because he
couldn't shake out an honest throw of a tune from his technical
dice-box, built his music on so-called themes, claiming that in this
matter he derived from Bach. Not so. Bach's themes were subjects for
fugal treatment; Liszt's, for symphonic. The parallel is not fair.
Besides, Daddy Liszt had no melodic invention. Bach had. Witness his
chorals, his masses, his oratorios! But the Berlioz ball had to be kept
a-rolling; the formula was too easy; so Liszt named his poems, named his
notes, put dog-collars on his harmonies--and yet no one whistled after
them. Is it any wonder?

Tchaikovsky studied Liszt with one eye; the other he kept on Bellini and
the Italians. What might have happened if he had been one-eyed I cannot
pretend to say. In love with lush, sensuous melody, attracted by the
gorgeous pyrotechnical effects in Berlioz and Liszt and the pomposities
of Meyerbeer, this Russian, who began study too late and being too lazy
to work hard, manufactured a number of symphonic poems. To them he gave
strained, fantastic names--names meaningless and pretty--and, as he was
short-winded contrapuntally, he wrote his so-called instrumental poems
shorter than Liszt's. He had no symphonic talent, he substituted Italian
tunes for dignified themes, and when the development section came he
plastered on more sentimental melodies. His sentiment is hectic, is
unhealthy, is morbid. Tchaikovsky either raves or whines like the people
in a Russian novel. I think the fellow was a bit touched in the upper
story; that is, I did until I heard the compositions of R. Strauss, of
Munich. What misfit music for such a joyous name, a name evocative of
all that is gay, refined, witty, sparkling, and spontaneous in music!
After Mozart give me Strauss--Johann, however, not Richard!

No longer the wheezings, gaspings, and short-breathed phrases of Liszt;
no longer the evil sensuality, loose construction, formlessness, and
drunken peasant dances of Tchaikovsky; but a blending of Wagner, Brahms,
Liszt--and the classics. Oh, Strauss, Richard, knows his business! He is
a skilled writer. He has his chamber-music moments, his lyric outbursts;
his early songs are sometimes singable; it is his perverse, vile orgies
of orchestral music that I speak of. No sane man ever erected such a mad
architectural scheme. He should be penned behind the bars of his own mad
music. He has no melody. He loves ugly noises. He writes to distrac