The audience hated 'The Rites of Spring' when it was first performed because it sounded unlike anything they had heard before in the setting of classical orchestral music performance - the same analogy could be applied to Dylan when he first 'went electric'. The audience response was hostile in the extreme.
But no one denied that Stravinski and Dylan had/have talent - it's just that the audience expected them to display these talents in a more listener-friendly manner and were ill-prepared for such revolutionary behaviour.
The difference is that Wolf doesn't have the innate talent to be able to take such risks - he is setting out to alienate his audience (whom he sees as puritanical snobs hung-up on 19th-century poetry???) and that's pretty much his manifesto as an artist. It's all about being a misunderstood maverick who counts being loathed by the mainstream as his validation rather than making an artistic statement that has some aesthetic legitimacy.
H
