10 Insults aimed at other composers by Tchaikovsky

Public Domain, via Wikimedia commons

Tchaikovsky could apparently be quite acerbic aboout other composers. Here are a set of 10 from him.

1. “I like playing Bach because it is entertaining to play a good fugue, but I do not acknowledge in him (as others do) a great genius.”  – Tchaikovsky about Bach
2. “Handel is only fourth rate. He is not even interesting.” – Tchaikovsky about Handel
3. “And so what is Beethoven to me? I bow before the greatness of some of his works - but I do not love Beethoven.”  – Tchaikovsky about Beethoven.
4. “He can’t compose a single note without someone’s help.” – Tchaikovsky about Borodin
5. “Mussorgsky’s idiom is narrow, his artistic instinct is entirely absent ... He likes what is coarse, unpolished, and ugly.” – Tchaikovsky about Mussorgsky
6. “Rimsky-Korsakov is a very great talent ... [But] he was a member of that circle which believed itself to be destined to create a new Russian music ... They all fell into despair and took up a different path. Rimsky-Korsakov is the only one among them who realised that their path was a dead end ... He suddenly threw himself into the study of classical counterpoint and strict fugue. ... He has written dozens of fugues and counterpoints, and now his music is completely weighed down by this academic baggage. ....”
7. “I have played over the music of that scoundrel Brahms. What a giftless bastard! ... What would I say to [Brahms]? … I would have to tell him this: ‘Herr Brahms! I consider you to be a very untalented person, full of pretensions but utterly devoid of creative inspiration. I rate you very poorly and indeed I simply look down upon you.’” – Tchaikovsky about Brahms
8. “The Fourth Symphony is the last of the series, and at the same time the least in value. It has not that overwhelming power, that searching pathos, which strikes us in the first two symphonies. The sum-total of its beauties cannot unfortunately redeem that great fault which prevails in all works of Schumann, considered especially as a symphonic writer. This fault would be called by painters a lack of colour; it is a pallor, a dryness — I may almost say harshness — of orchestration. Without entering into technical details, I may explain to my readers that the art of instrumentation (i.e. the distribution of a work among the various instruments) consists in understanding how to employ alternately the individual groups of instruments; how to blend them appropriately; how to economise strong effects, and also in the intelligent use of colouring - that is to say, the application of timbre to musical ideas. This knowledge Schumann has not acquired. His orchestra works continuously; all the instruments take part in the exposition and development of his ideas. They are not used in detachments; there is no contrast between them (and contrasting effects are inexhaustible in orchestration); most of the time they mingle in a continuous roar, often spoiling the best parts of the work. As regards instrumentation, Schumann not only stands on a lower level than such masters as Berlioz, Mendelssohn, Meyerbeer, and Wagner, but he cannot even be compared with many second-rate composers who have borrowed his best inspirations.” – Tchaikovsky about Schumann
9. “Such an astounding lack of talent has never before been united to such pretentiousness.” – Tchaikovsky about Richard Strauss
10. “I’ve been to the theatre a few times and heard Wagner’s Walküre, from which I carried away memories of two or three glorious minutes and a whole ocean of boredom and utter emptiness. ... After the last notes of Götterdämmerung, I felt as though I had been let out of prison.” – Tchaikovsky about Wagner

(Also "As for Liszt, he is an old hypocrite who lavishes the most exaggerated praises on any piece of music submitted to his august judgment. He is naturally kind. He is one of the rare famous artists who has never been envious or tempted to hinder [others]...")