Page "Eduard Hanslick" Paragraph 6

Being a close friend of Brahms from 1862, Hanslick possibly had some influence on Brahms's composing, often getting to hear new music before it was published.

Hanslick saw Wagner's reliance on dramatics and word-painting as inimical to the nature of music, which he thought to be expressive solely by virtue of its form, and not through any extra-musical associations.

The theoretical framework of Hanslick's criticism is expounded in his book of 1854, Vom Musikalisch-Schönen ( On the Musically Beautiful ), which started as an attack on the Wagnerian aesthetic and established itself as an influential text, subsequently going through many editions and translations in several languages.

Other targets for Hanslick's heavy criticism were Anton Bruckner and Hugo Wolf.

Of Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto, he accused composer and soloist Adolph Brodsky of putting the audience " through hell " with music " which stinks to the ear "; he was also lukewarm towards the same composer's Sixth Symphony.