had advised several conductors not to perform his Symphonic Poems. His entire line of thought was incorrect, and all of his compositions were to be withdrawn. The opposition of the press meant that Liszt wanted to sever his connections with the public. However Liszt had also himself to blame for such opposition. Throughout the 1850s, in a manner until then unparalleled in music history, Liszt himself and his friends had, in more than half a dozen journals, bombarded the contemporary public with huge quantities of articles, many of them in aggressive polemical style, in favour of their intended transformation of art. In addition there were books, such as Hans von Bronsart's Musikalische Pflichten ("Musical Duties"), (Leipzig 1858), where adversaries of Liszt and his circle were accused of ill-will, unfairness and slander. After this it should not have been surprising that similar reactions were evoked from the opposite side. Conservative reaction See article War of the Romantics for fuller discussion. The ideals of Liszt prompted Johannes Brahms to publish in 1860 a Manifesto condemning the partisanship of the Neue Zeitschrift towards Liszt. Other signatories to the manifesto were to include Joseph Joachim and Ferdinand Hiller. This evoked a war of words named by music historians the War of the Romantics, and marked a decisive split in opinions which persisted throughout the century, and is still reflected to some extent today in the concepts of 'classical music' and 'modern music'. Objections of Berlioz If the "New German School" was to be imagined as a group of artists with similar aims, joining Liszt with Wagner was already problematic; but there was still a further problem, regarding Berlioz. Berlioz very decidedly declared in spring 1860, following the concerts given by Wagner at the Parisian Théâtre Italien, that he himself had nothing to do with Wagner's style and ideology. All those who had claimed that he was representative of a joint school together with Wagner were calumniators. In contrast to Brahms and Joachim in their "Manifesto", Berlioz gave a detailed list of critical points as well as a list of principles he supported. He made use of the term "musique de l'avenir" (music of the future), as a poke against Wagner. Berlioz's polemic against Wagner is instanced by the following: "Wagner maintains the motto of the witches in Macbeth: 'fair is foul and foul is fair.' " Others of Berlioz' points were in congruence with