“If it is art, it is not for all,” he later wrote, “and if it is for all, it is not art.” Did the split between the composer and his public come about as the result of such ferocious attitudes? Or were they a rational response to the public’s irrational vitriol? These questions admit no ready answers. Both sides of the dispute bore some degree of responsibility for the unsightly outcome. Fin-de-siècle Vienna offers the depressing spectacle of artists and audiences washing their hands of each other, giving up on the dream of common ground.
