American Master: A Portrait of John Adams

I have heard and seen the Carter, it's available on the net somewhere I believe. Not a medium he seemed comfortable in. An odd choice at that point in his career.

As you know, Neil McGowan, I am no musician, so my views on music and opera can and arguably should be discounted by everyone reading The Third. Richard Wagner may be completely right!

Nevertheless, in my opinion, some of the greatest composers of all time, for example Johann Sebastian Bach, have never written an opera. Ludwig van Beethoven struggled to write one, 'Fidelio', and it happens to be one of my favourites.

My view would therefore be that whether a composer writes an opera or not is neither here nor there. What really matters is the quality of the music. As a scientist, of course, I struggle to work out how to measure the quality of music, or indeed, any art. Any clues, ahinton?

The case of Bach is an interesting one.

Most studies of his working methods confirm that he was obliged to work flat-out to keep pace with the rapacious demands of his religious employers. There was only one public opera-house in German-speaking countries at the time - the Goosemarket Theatre in distant Hamburg. It seems quite likely that Bach would not have bothered writing works for which he saw no chance of performance.

However, private opera houses existed, and Telemann, Hasse and Graun were active in producing German & Italian operas for these theatres.

However, Bach did indeed write theatrical works, even if they are not titled 'operas'. Both the Coffee Cantata and the Peasant Cantata seem intended for some kind of staged performance - most probably by the Student Musical Societies which flourished at the time. Despite this, JS Bach himself seems to have taken a great interest in opera. CPE Bach tells us that his father's music library - which was acquired at the personal cost of copying all the works in it by hand - contained operas by Vivaldi, Telemann, Landi and Hasse.

The obvious foil to Bach in this respect is Handel - who saw there was no future in Germany for an operatic composer, packed his bags and left. He never returned.

Isn't unusual that the composers who were based in stern Protestant countries mostly failed to write operas? Amsterdam is often said to have been the most advanced city in C17th Europe - yet it produced nothing in the way of opera at all, whilst Purcell, Lully, Cavalli and Monteverdi, Duron and Literes were all hard at it in Britain, France, Italy and Spain.

It's interesting to speculate whether this was because the society of C17th Germany or Holland was intolerant - or at least indifferent - to opera, or whether it produced composers who were emotionally incapable of writing it?

That's certainly true in today's laisser-faire world, especially if composers have other income (teaching, grants & endowments, etc) which enables them to pick and choose.

My point is that in earlier eras this luxury was not always available. Brahms couldn't afford to write operas - his patrons would have spurned him. Wagner couldn't afford not to.

Perhaps I've explained my point badly

Brahms was taken-up by the newly-enfranchised Middle Classes in Germany, who were full of anti-Catholic, proto-Nationalist fervour. Which was the chicken, and which the egg, is unclear. But the result was that Brahms went off digging-up old German ecclesiastical music - to bolster Germany's claims to be just as good as the Catholics and their Palestrina etc. In lockstep with the new Germany's anti-Catholic purges (all Catholics were removed from their jobs in governmental administration) Brahms produced his 'German Requiem' - a substitute for the Catholic Requiem. Note that he called it a German Requiem - placing its nationalist credentials on a higher plane than the work's religious content.

When I say Brahms 'could not afford' to write German opera - I mean that he would have been deserted by his middle-class supporters. Brahms always played to the gallery, writing what would please his small-minded nationalist fan-club. These were meat-and-potatoes people who wouldn't have gone near an opera-house any more than they would have gone near a synagogue.

Was there some kind of philosophical disagreement between them?

The fallout between Wagner and Brahms is one of the most legendary disputes in musical history. However, to say it happened between the two men themselves is slightly incorrect - it was rather an idealogical clash between their supporters. The situation was hugely inflamed by the influential music critic Hanslick, who wrote unashamedly in favour of Brahms, and lambasted Wagner at every opportunity.

The situation became so inflammatory that when Wagner came to write DIE MEISTERSINGER, he originally intended to name the oafish "Marker' of the Prize Song Competition Hans Lick. Wagner was warned off such an overt sleight by his closer colleagues, and eventually the Marker was instead named 'Beckmesser' ('Backstabber').

The pro-Wagnerian symphonist and church organist Bruckner became unwillingly embroiled in this oafish quarrel. On hearing that Bruckner supported Wagner, Hanslick made it his business to have all performances of Bruckner's works wrecked or prevented. In fact throughout his lifetime Bruckner never managed to get a single of his works professionally published, and such performances as were achieved were mostly given by amateurs only. (The exception was his Requiem, which was published by an association devoted to religious choral works).

Much more could be written on this topic, and indeed much of it was motivated by political, rather than musical machinations. However, I would instead refer you to the (very) extensive information available on the internet. Things have still to calm down, and a great deal of what you will find written today retains its flame-laden and viciously-argued rhetoric.

A user on the r3ok forum, for example, spent two days gathering evidence against me, and quoting it in absurd postings... when he began to suspect that my feelings towards Brahms and his music were less than worshipful

One hundred years later, the influential Italian composer and pedagogue Busoni was giving lessons in pre-WW2 Berlin to young composers. His Brahmsian hatred of Wagner was so fierce that he would not even refer to the composer by name - preferring to call him 'that man', or at best 'Herr W'.

Indeed so.

Another argument in support of the idea that opera is the summit of achievement in music

I tend to feel that a good story, like 'Tristan und Isolde', for example, can add to the music, Sydney Grew. Of course, you can enjoy Richard Wagner's masterpiece without understanding a word of what is being sung. But nevertheless, surely an understanding of the drama can add to our appreciation of the music?

Curiously, the first time I saw 'Tristan', Sydney Grew, I went blind, in the sense that I did not know anything about the opera, the music or the story behind it. I loved it. The second time I saw it, also at English National Opera (ENO), I had done a lot of research on the opera, the music and the story behind it. I understood almost everything that was going on on stage. Nevertheless, I liked it far less, if only because the music was not quite as good.

So in this specific sense, the story can be irrelevant to my personal enjoyment of the opera! Does this put me more in the Brahms camp than the Wagner camp, Sydney Grew?