Extracts From A Schimpflexikon: One Of A Series

I played over the music of that scoundrel Brahms. What a giftless bastard! It annoys me that this self-inflated mediocrity is hailed as a genius. Why, in comparison with him, [Joseph Joachim] Raff is a giant, not to speak of [Anton Grigorevich] Rubenstein, who is after all a live and important human being, while Brahms is chaotic and absolutely empty dried-up stuff.

—Diary entry by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, 9 October 1886.

(From Nicolas Slonimsky's, Lexicon of Musical Invective)