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Gustav Jenner (1865–1920) is known to historians as Brahms’s only long-term composition student. 1 Following an introduction by a mutual friend, Jenner moved to Vienna in 1888 at Brahms’s invitation and was to reside there for seven years (until two years before Brahms’s death), receiving Brahms’s counsel on matters artistic and professional, before leaving to accept a musical appointment Brahms had helped to arrange. To the end of his life, Jenner remained an outspoken proponent of traditional forms and harmonies and of ‘absolute’ music, conservative values no doubt both attracting him to and reinforced by his studies with Brahms. Scholars have recorded (mostly in German) the basic facts of Jenner’s biography and circumstances surrounding his interactions with Brahms and have noted Brahms’s general aesthetic influence on Jenner, but Jenner’s music itself – numerous songs and choral pieces, piano and chamber works, orchestral writing and other pieces – and particularly its relationship to that of Brahms, has received scant attention. 2 Although Jenner may not rank among history’s most extraordinary or innovative of composers – indeed, he remained strikingly traditional during the era of Schoenberg and Stravinsky – he did manage to achieve a unique status as Brahms’s composition student over a period of some years. Thus further examination of the musical relationship between these two figures should provide insight into not only how Brahms influenced less prominent composers in his circle and of the generation that followed him, but also the extent and nature of Brahms’s direct influence as a teacher.
Given that many readers will be unfamiliar with Jenner, this article begins with a brief overview of his life, studies with Brahms, relevant prose writings and musical output and reception; this is followed by a case study: the first in-depth comparison of Jenner’s only complete orchestral piece, his little-known Serenade in A major (1911–12), with its most obvious precedents, the orchestral serenades of Brahms. Despite obvious stylistic affinities between Jenner and Brahms, it is clear from Jenner’s prose writings that he placed a high value on artistic independence and originality, eschewing slavish imitation. Although a handful of commentators have remarked that in general Jenner’s music was not merely derivative of Brahms, there has been little attempt to explain how Jenner in fact distinguishes himself...