The Neglected "Innovation" Of "Tradition"

For a long time,Johannes Brahms,the 19 century German composer,had been referred as a traditionalist,the last classism composer and a die-hard conservative,until Arnold Schoenberg pointed out,Brahms is actually an innovator regarding to composing instead of one only looking backwards.Schoenberg believed,Brahms had made historic achievement as a composer,in whose works “developing variation” is adopted as a daring innovative move.Even though this skill could trace back to Classical Period,or even Baroque Period,Brahms developed it to an unprecedented height.Schoenberg's words draw great interest from the author,who started from Schoenberg's comments in studying Brahms' Third Symphony,in order to demonstrate how this principle was flexibly used in practical composition.This article consists of introduction,conclusion and 3 chapters.The introduction part mainly expounds author's purpose of picking this topic as well as the studies relative to this topic at home and abroad.The first chapter is the background introduction,including the composer's biographic sketch,the proposition and development of “developing variation”.In chapter two,the first section introduces the creation background of Brahms' Third Symphony,and in the second section author produces a detailed analytic report on each movement in terms with “developing variation”.The third chapter is based on the foundation of previous chapter's report,which is the classification and conclusion of the principle of “developing variation” used in Brahms' Third Symphony.The conclusion part is a summary of the whole thesis.The author hopes that this article could shatter audience's “conservative” impression of Brahms,through detailed analysis on his Third Symphony in the angel of “developing variation”.It tries to conclude the application feature of Brahms' “developing variation”,get deeper understanding of this principle and hopes it could provide reference value to our composition,teaching,and academic study in the future.