He was also early a friend of
old Anton Bruckner, whose music we do not know in France, neither his
eight symphonies, nor his _Te Deum_, nor his masses, nor his cantatas,
nor anything else of his fertile work. Bruckner had a sweet and modest
character, and an endearing, if rather childish, personality. He was
rather crushed all his life by the Brahms party; but, like Franck in
France, he gathered round him new and original talent to fight the
academic art of his time.
[Footnote 184: Joseph Schalk was one of the founders of the
_Wagner-Verein_ at Vienna, and devoted his life to propagating the cult
of Bruckner (who called him his "_Herr Generalissimus_ "), and to
fighting for Wolf.]
But of all these influences, the strongest was that of Wagner. Wagner
came to Vienna in 1875 to conduct _Tannhaeuser_ and _Lohengrin_. There
was then among the younger people a fever of enthusiasm similar to that
which _Werther_ had caused a century before. Wolf saw Wagner. He tells
us about it in his letters to his parents. I will quote his own words,
and though they make one smile, one loves the impulsive devotion of his
youth; and they make one feel, too, that a man who inspires such an
affection, and who can do so much good by a little sympathy, is to blame
when he does not befriend others--above all if he has suffered, like
Wagner, from loneliness and the want of a helping hand.
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