Eduard Hanslick (September 11, 1825 – August 6, 1904) was a German writer on music, perhaps the most influential music critic of the 19th century. September 11 is the 254th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (255th in leap years). ... 1825 was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ... August 6 is the 218th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (219th in leap years), with 147 days remaining. ... 1904 (MCMIV) was a leap year starting on a Friday (link will take you to calendar). ...

Hanslick was born in Prague, the son of a music teacher from a German family in Bohemia and one of his piano pupils, the daughter of a Jewish banker. At the age of 18 Hanslick went to study music with Tomášek, one of Prague's most important musicians. He also studied law at Prague University and obtained a degree in that field, but his amateur study of music eventually led to writing music criticism for small town newspapers, then the Wiener Musik-Zeitung and eventually the Neue freie Presse, where he was music critic until retirement. An unpaid lectureship at the University of Vienna led to a full professorship (from 1870) and later a doctorate in honoris causa. Hanslick often served on juries for musical competitions and held a post at the Austrian Ministry of Culture and fulfilled other administrative roles. He retired after writing his memoirs, but still wrote articles on the most important premières of the day, up to his death 1904 in Baden. Prague (Czech: Praha, see also other names) is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. ... The Charles University of Prague (also simply University of Prague; Czech: Univerzita Karlova; Latin: Universitas Carolina) is the oldest and most prestigious Czech university and among the oldest universities in Europe, being founded in 1340s (for the exact year, see below). ... University of Vienna, main building, seen from Beethovens apartment The University of Vienna (German: Universität Wien) in Austria was founded in 1365 by Rudolph IV and hence named Alma mater Rudolphina. ... 1870 was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ... Baden bei Wien, a city in Lower Austria, 26 kilometres South of Vienna. ...

Hanslick's tastes were conservative; in his memoirs he said that for him musical history really began with Mozart and culminated in Beethoven, Schumann and Brahms. He is best known today for his critical advocacy of the music of Brahms and rejection of the music of Wagner, an episode in 19th century music history sometimes called the War of the Romantics. The critic Richard Pohl, of the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, represented the other side, the progressive composers of the "Music of the Future", which also included Liszt. They idolized Wagner, and in some of their more hyperbolic writings assigned him a semi-divine status; conversely, many of them despised Brahms. Being a close friend of Brahms from 1862, Hanslick possibly had some influence on Brahms's music, often getting to hear new music before it was publicly premièred. Although Hanslick recognized Wagner's genius, and an early article on Tannhäuser had drawn a favourable reaction from the composer, he saw Wagner's reliance on dramatics and word-painting as inimical to the nature of music, which he thought is expressive solely by virtue of its form, 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. It is sometimes claimed that Wagner caricatured Hanslick in his opera Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg as the carping critic Beckmesser and that this demonstrates that Wagner's anti-Semitism could infect his musical works (it is said that Wagner originally wanted to name the character Hans Lick); such claims are the subject of hot controversy. Ludwig van Beethoven by Carl Jäger (Date unknown). ... Robert Schumann (June 8, 1810 – July 29, 1856) was a German composer and pianist. ... Johannes Brahms Johannes Brahms (May 7, 1833 – April 3, 1897) was a German composer of Romantic music, who predominantly lived in Vienna, Austria. ... Richard Wagner Wilhelm Richard Wagner (May 22, 1813 in Leipzig[1] – February 13, 1883 in Venice[2]) was an influential German composer, conductor, music theorist, and essayist, primarily known for his operas (or music dramas as he later came to call them). ... Alternative meaning: Nineteenth Century (periodical) (18th century — 19th century — 20th century — more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 19th century was that century which lasted from 1801-1900 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar. ... The War of the Romantics is a term that has been used by music historians among others to describe some of the disagreements among musicians of the 19th century, about how musical works should go and where music should be going. ... Richard Pohl (September 12, 1826–December 17, 1896) was a German music critic, writer, poet, and amateur composer. ... Franz Liszt (Hungarian: Liszt Ferenc) (October 22, 1811 – July 31, 1886) was a Hungarian virtuoso pianist and composer. ... 1862 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... In the Venusberg by John Collier, 1901: a gilded setting that is distinctly Italian quattrocento. ... 1854 was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (The Master Singers of Nuremberg) is an opera in three acts, written and composed by Richard Wagner. ... The Eternal Jew: 1937 German poster. ...

See also

• Adelaide (Beethoven)

Adelaide is a song for solo voice and piano by Ludwig van Beethoven. ...

External link

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Eduard Hanslick