The Germans of to-day have but little in
common with the Germans of yesterday.
I am not speaking of the general public only, The German public of
to-day are devotees of Brahms and Wagner, and everything of theirs seems
good to them; they have no discrimination, and, while they applaud
Wagner and encore Brahms, they are, in their hearts, not only frivolous,
but sentimental and gross. The most striking thing about this public is
their cult of power since Wagner's death. When listening to the end of
_Die Meistersinger_ I felt how the haughty music of the great march
reflected the spirit of this military nation of shop-keepers, bursting
with rude health and complacent pride.
The most remarkable thing of all is that German artists are gradually
losing the power of understanding their own splendid classics and, in
particular, Beethoven. Strauss, who is very shrewd and knows exactly his
own limitations, does not willingly enter Beethoven's domain, though he
feels his spirit in a much more living way than any of the other German
_Kapellmeister_. At the Strasburg festival he contented himself with
conducting, besides his own symphony, the _Oberon Overture_ and a Mozart
concerto.
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