[Footnote 27: The “explanation” (_erklärung_) with regard to the new and the old schools of musical composition, which Brahms and Joachim published in 1860, conclusively shows that neither of these artists was “a violent enemy” of Wagner or of his art.] [Sidenote: =Bülow on Rubinstein=] This is plain-speaking, but it should be received with caution, when we call to mind that this writer allows himself the licence at times to make such loose statements as that Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony is twice as long as any symphony preceding it, and especially in view of his over-confident assertion about Rubinstein’s unending symphonies. Some of us do not forget Hans von Bülow’s caustic wit in this matter. “Rubinstein’s works,” he said, “remind me of a journey in Russia. Long stretches of barren and tiresome country, relieved here and there with the oasis of a picturesque and interesting city.” [Sidenote: =H. Davey=] Mr. Henry Davey, in his _Student’s History of Music_, gives his opinion thus:—“There is, however, one German composer who stands out above the rest, and has been sometimes spoken of as if he were really a genius worthy to rank with the greatest. This is Johannes Brahms, born in 1833 at Altona, and introduced to the world by Schumann. He has published more than one hundred works, very clever and, generally, very dry. They are laboured in the bad sense of the word. Brahms with splendid gifts seems to have gone early on the wrong tack, imagining that the more abstruse he made his works the better they would be. Consequently he tangled up his themes with a complication of uneven rhythms, ravelling very ordinary ideas with skeins of harsh counterpoint; in fact, making his works as unpopular as possible, apparently with the idea that if they were unpopular they must necessarily be good.” Another critic,[28] whose words are curiously like those just quoted, says:—“When Brahms writes musically he is usually not profound; and when he writes profoundly, he is, sometimes, not musical.... Take the opening theme (of op. 115): would not anybody without the time direction take it to be a slow scherzo? He has clouded it with his usual uneven rhythms and tangled accompaniments, but that does not atone for the poverty of the theme.” [Footnote 28: _The Overture_ for June 1892; review of Brahms’s op. 115.] [Sidenote: =Schumann=]