Why is he so shit?

Wagners music has no rhythm, its harmony is so stretched out that it is barely audible, it has no counterpoint, no melody ; its qualities are fundamentally negative, --- Wagner is, thus, the perfect example of this degeneracy of music, which is fundamentally a critique of music ; and all critique stems from a lower position, a will to slander that which we cannot attain.

Bait

Nice argument.

Is he?

or Brahms, more to the point given their rivalry

Wagner occupies the possibly singular space between Bach, Mozart and Beethoven, and about the 8 or 9 others like Schubert and Haydn who don't make it to that level. So it's easy for most people, seeing Wagner's enormous creativity and influence, just to rank him as the fourth of the greats.

>which is fundamentally a critique of music ; and all critique stems from a lower position, a will to slander that which we cannot attain.
Ironic how whoever wrote this managed to turn Wagner's music around into a 'critique' of traditional music, and supposed a failure in him to achieve this level of skill. When it was in fact the conservatives who would not cease criticising Wagner's music, and who were unable to compose anything close to its originality. This quote is itself a critique, stemming from a lower position just as all those conservatives, and fundamentally an inversion of Wagner's place in the late romantic era. Wagner was quite comfortable to situate himself in the same tradition of German music as Mozart and Bach.

The quote is basically just propaganda, that is when it's not blatantly wrong. Such as stating that Wagner's music has no counterpoint or rhythm.

can't write for beans. just endless sound

>same tradition of German music as Mozart and Bach.
they're not romantics, so it's hard to see the relation. Beethoven, yes.

>Haydn
mogs everyone on anything using horns

This is your problem, you don't see a German tradition, you have literally no understanding of what is consistent in German classical. You just see most broadly 'classical music' which shows a major flaw. I suppose you don't think there's anything consistent in French or Russian classical either.