In a word, musical Vienna was Beethovenosquo. Schubert had his partisans, and there was a Schumann faction, pushing, eager, and dictatorial ; but Brahms had made no mark to speak of, and the believers in Wagner formed so small a minority in musical circles that, but for the greater noisiness of their utterances and wildness of their appearance, their existence as a party would hardly have obtained any recognition by the "craft." Wagner — surprising as the fact may seem, viewed by the light of recent demonstrations indulged in by Vienna apropos of the great composer's death — was decidedly at a discount in the Austrian capital even as lately as fifteen years -ago.