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PhilGoetz comments on The mystery of Brahms - Less Wrong
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To be fair, if there is a mystery at all, then this only pushes it one step further: Schumann wasn't any more radically innovative than Brahms and yet was extremely influential and is still regarded as a composer of the first rank.
I'm not familiar with Schumann. Googling music theory forums indicates he's respected today mainly for his compositions for piano, while his symphonies are held in low regard. I'm now listening to his piano concerto in A minor, finished in 1845. I'm not very familiar with the 1830s or 1840s, but it doesn't sound anything like music from the 1820s or earlier.
I don't think music like this could have been written before Schumann. The piano necessary to play it didn't exist. Some key moments in the development of the piano:
The music forums say Liszt and Ravel's works required the double escapement, and some say Chopin's did, while one argues Chopin's pianos didn't have it. No word on Schumann.
Is it very weird of me to find extremely odd the combination of
I mean, it's not as if Schumann is obscure or third-rate; he was, as you say, enormously influential in shaping critical opinion and he was a composer of the first rank (yes, especially for piano, but it's not like no one plays his symphonies any more). Doesn't being "not familiar with Schumann" strike you as a disqualification for telling us what the "main criterion for artistic greatness" was (in the context of music) in the mid-to-late 19th century? I mean, what business have you saying such things when you're "not familiar" with someone who was both central in deciding "artistic greatness" then, and one of the leading exemplars of "artistic greatness" then?
I'm aware that this sounds rude, and I'm sorry about that. But there does seem to be something of a disconnect between your willingness to complain of how little artistic success for 19th-century musicians had to do with quality, and there being at least one really big hole in your knowledge of that period.
No, it is not at all weird for you to think along those lines. It is merely incorrect.
Seconding all of gjm's criticisms, and adding another point.
The sostenuto (middle) pedal was invented in 1844. The sustain (right) pedal has been around roughly as long as the piano itself, since piano technique is pretty much unthinkable without it.
That's true, and these technical developments were crucial for 19th century piano music, but keep in mind that harmonic language and musical form are quite independent from this and are highly relevant domains of innovation and creativity.
In any case, I'm not quite sure what the point is that you're trying to make.