The Prelude to 'Tristan und Isolde' reminds one of the old Italian painting of a martyr whose intestines are slowly unwound from his body on a reel.

—Eduard Hanslick on Wagner, 1868.

(And dude on Bruckner: "It is not impossible that the future belongs to this traumverwirrten Katzenjammerstil ["nightmarish hangover style"], a future which we therefore do not envy.")