Bizet on Berlioz

Genius but no talent

I think one needs to bring the concept of taste in here somewhere. I think the problem with Berlioz is not that he doesn't have talent, the problem is that he doesn't have taste. (And he HECTORS you all the time!!) And his biggest fans—Liszt and Wagner in the first instance—were famously people with no taste at all. (Have you ever heard Liszt's setting of Alles Vergängliche.. at the end of the otherwise rivetting Faust Symphony, with its twelve-note row in the first movement..? It's a complete disaster. It's one of the things that fascinates me about Liszt: how could someone with his wealth of ideas and acute perceptions fuck things up so completely??) In fact, taking it one step further—is it not the case that the Wagnerians generally had no taste? Certainly Richard Strauss had no taste. Bruckner ...? Mahler ...? Mahler certainly had something but was it taste? The only indisputable exception is Wolf, who had perfect taste. And Wolf apparently did not rate Richard Strauss.

While we are on the subject of taste, Mahler lived long enuff to have at least had the opportunity of hearing some Fritz Kreisler. Did he in fact hear any? And what did he think..?

But perhaps one should look further back. One thing that unites all the Wagnerians is their shared reverence for Beethoven, and that might be the key. After all, Hindemith said once `Mit Beethoven fängt die Schweinerei an'. What was Hindemith picking up? I venture to suggest that Beethoven had no taste either. Look at the 9th symphony. The first movement is fantastic (that ostinato, like the first movement of the 7th!) and the scherzo is not bad, and for the slow movement i cannot find enuff superlatives. But the finale! How is the finale not a complete disaster? How could this wonderful man write something so startlingly and unbelievably dire? So crass?

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