'Nevertheless I wish to have the Requiem in my own cupboard again, so send....'[22]

To this note Dietrich returned no answer, and Brahms, becoming impatient, applied for information as to the whereabouts of his work to Joachim, who wrote back that it was in Reinthaler's keeping. Possibly Brahms may have been a little startled at finding that Dietrich, in his eager friendship, had put such an elastic interpretation upon the mention of the Bremen director quoted in our last chapter as to pass over the injunction not to part with the manuscript; but however this may be, he cannot but have been gratified at finding, as the result, that the musician of his own selection had been so impressed by the work as to wish to produce it at the earliest appropriate opportunity in the cathedral of Bremen. It is known to some of Reinthaler's old friends that he suggested the enlargement of the work to the dimensions of an oratorio. That Brahms did not entertain the proposal is matter of history.

The first performance of the Requiem, as originally completed, to be given under Brahms' direction in Bremen Cathedral, was fixed for Good Friday, April 10, 1868. Meanwhile the composer's engagements kept him in Austria. The first three numbers of the new work were to be produced under Herbeck at the Gesellschaft concert of December 1, and a tour arranged with Joachim for the ante-Christmas concert-season included concerts in Vienna, Budapest, and various provincial towns. The journey, which opened at Vienna on November 9, was triumphantly successful.

Joachim performed the great solos of his repertoire by Bach, Tartini, and Spohr, and shorter pieces by Schumann and Paganini, with all of which concert-goers are now familiar, appearing also on his own account in several great orchestral concerts. Brahms played works by Bach, Schumann, Schubert, and some of his own compositions. Together the concert-givers were heard in several of Beethoven's duet Sonatas, Schubert's Fantasia, Op. 159, and Rondo Brilliant, Op. 70, etc.

'When Brahms and Joachim play Beethoven, Bach, Schubert together, the conceptions are like living tone pictures,' says Billroth, who, called to Vienna about a year after his first acquaintance with Brahms at Zurich and settled there for good, had the delight of receiving and hearing his two great artist friends at his house several times during the two months of Joachim's stay.

The Gesellschaft concert of December 1 was devoted to the memory of Schubert, and the three first numbers of the German Requiem formed an appropriate first portion of a programme of which the second half consisted of a selection from Schubert's music to 'Rosamund,' given for the first time in a concert-room. The choruses were, of course, sung by the Singverein, and Dr. Panzer, of the imperial chapel, was responsible for the baritone solo of the Requiem.

The performance of Brahms' movements did not result in a success, though the two first were received with some tokens of approval. At the conclusion of the third an extraordinary scene took place. The now celebrated pedal point,[23] on which the last section of this number is constructed, produced--partly owing to a mistake of the drummer, who drowned the chorus by playing the famous 'D' _forte_ throughout--a condition of nervous tension in a portion of the audience, a longing to be relieved from the monotony of the one dominating sound; and when the composer appeared on the platform in answer to the calls of some of his hearers, unmistakable demonstrations of hostility mingled with the plaudits. It may, indeed, be confidently surmised, and cannot appear surprising, that but few even of those who supported him on this occasion had any clear conception either of the meaning or importance of his work. To Hanslick it appeared

'one of the ripest fruits in the domain of sacred music, developed out of the style of Beethoven's late works.... The harmonic and contrapuntal art learnt by Brahms in the school of Bach, and inspired by him with the living breath of the present, is almost forgotten in the expression of touching lament, increasing to the annihilating death-shudder.'

Of its reception he says:

'It is intelligible that a composition so difficult to understand, and which deals only with ideas of death, is not adapted for popular success and that it does not entirely answer to the demands of a great public. We should have supposed, however, that a presentiment of the greatness and seriousness of the work would have suggested itself even to those who do not like it and would have won their respect. This seems not to have been the case with half a dozen gray-haired fanatics of the old school, who had the rudeness to greet the applauding majority and the composer, as he appeared, with prolonged hissing--a requiem on the decorum and good manners of a Vienna concert-room which astonishes and grieves us.'

Schelle, after reviewing the first number sympathetically and the second almost enthusiastically, continues:

'Unfortunately the third is extremely inferior to it [No. 2]; the text demanded a strong increase of effect which the composer has been incapable of giving. The bass solo is not written gratefully for the voice and there is much that is obtrusively bizarre and unedifying in the chorus.... The movement was a failure....'

Hirsch did not fail to make use of his opportunity in the _Wiener Zeitung_. He speaks of the 'heathenish noise of the kettledrums,' and declares 'in the interest of truth' that the opposition party in the audience had an immense majority.'

The concert is mentioned by Billroth in a letter dated December 24:

'I like Brahms better every time I meet him. Hanslick says, quite rightly, that he has the same fault as Bach and Beethoven; he has too little of the sensuous in his art both as composer and pianist.

I think it is rather an intentional avoidance of everything sensuous as of a fault. His Requiem is so nobly spiritual and so Protestant-Bachish that it was difficult to make it go down here.

The hissing and clapping became really violent; it was a party conflict. In the end the applause conquered.'

It is characteristic of Brahms that his belief in the future of his work was not diminished by the untoward incidents of this occasion. He looked forward to the result of the coming performance in Bremen with a confidence that was even enhanced by the fact that he had gained experience with respect to the instrumentation of the third chorus.

He sent part of his manuscript to Marxsen with a letter from which the following quotation was first published by Sittard in his 'Studien und Charakteristiken':

'I send you some novelties and beg you, if time allows, to write me _one_ or _many_ words about them. I enclose also something from my Requiem and _on this I earnestly beg you to write to me_. It looks rather curious in places and perhaps, in order to spare my manuscript, you would take some music paper and put down useful remarks. _I should like that very much._ The eternal "D" in No. 3.

If I do not use the organ it does not sound. There is much I should like to ask. I hope you have time and some inclination; then you will perceive at once what there is to ask and what to say.'

It is, as Hanslick observed, by no means unintelligible that the first part of the German Requiem was not immediately accepted by the general body of listeners assembled at the Gesellschaft concert of December 1, unprepared as they were for the new and important element underlying its conception. The title chosen by the composer was at the time, and has been occasionally since, demurred to as misleading, on account of the long association of the term Requiem with the ritual of the Roman Church. It should, however, be obvious that by the word 'German'

departure is indicated from the practice of previous composers, which places the composition in a category of its own and gives to its message an applicableness beyond the limitations of creed. Brahms arranged his own words, and by the fact of doing so, by his inspired musical treatment of his texts, and his direct avoidance of giving to his work an association with a particular church service or a familiar musical form, requiem or mass, cantata or oratorio, has preserved in it, whether or not consciously, an element of personal fervour that constitutes part of the secret of its spell.

The texts, culled from various books of the Old and New Testaments and the Apocrypha,[24] have been chosen, with entire absence of so-called doctrinal purpose, as parts of the people's book, of Luther's Bible, the accepted representative to Protestant nations of the highest aspirations of man, and have been so arranged as to present in succession the ascending ideas of sorrow consoled, doubt overcome, death vanquished.

That they open and close with the thought of love is not of necessity to be ascribed solely to the artistic requirements of the work, or the exigencies of its sacred theme. Whoever has studied Brahms' life and works with sympathetic insight will be aware that the suggestion of love triumphant runs through both like a continuous silver thread, and it is open to those who choose, to accept this as indicative of a faith dwelling within him, which was none the less fruitful for good because it knew nothing of the dogma of the Churches.

The opening chorus of the Requiem furnishes the key-note of its spirit:

'_Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted. He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with joy, bearing his sheaves with him. They that sow in tears shall reap in joy._'

What more reassuring prelude could prepare the human soul for encounter with its most dreaded foe than these inspired words, heard in the exquisite setting of consolation by which the composer has illumined their meaning? The tenderness of the benediction, the passion of the anticipation, the recurring mournful calm that dies away in the softest whisper of comfort, place the mind in an attitude of awed suspense which finds its solution in the opening bars of the solemn, mysterious march of the second movement. Here we are surely in the majestic presence of death incarnate, wrapped, however, in a haze of beauty, sorrow, tenderness, compassion, that betoken, not the ruthless enemy of mankind, but a deeply mournful messenger subdued to a Divine purpose. '_Behold, all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass_,' chant the altos and tenors in unison an octave above the basses, something of unearthliness in their tones, with the alternate repetitions of the march; and the delicate, evanescent harmonies of the answering phrase, '_The grass withereth, the flower fadeth_,' strangely deepen the impression of transitoriness conveyed by the text. Relief is given by a middle episode of somewhat more animated character: '_Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath, long patience for it until he receive the early and latter rain. Be ye also patient._' The final ending of the march, which is repeated after the episode, is succeeded by the outburst of a transitional passage--'_God's word endureth for ever_'--leading to the vigorous gladness of the second section of the movement (fugato)--'_And the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away_'--whose ringing, jubilant tones are checked only by the passing shade of sorrow, until it subsides into the more tranquilly happy mood in which the chorus terminates.

In the third number the vision alters. To exaltation succeeds abasement.

We are shown the despondency, that is almost despair, of the soul prostrate before its Lord: '_Lord, make me to know mine end, and the number of my days what it is, that I may know how frail I am_.' The movement opens with a baritone solo, supported by basses, drums, and horn, which seems to crave nothing, hope for nothing. Words and melody are, however, immediately repeated in chorus with plain harmonies that somewhat relieve the first impressive gloom. Then there is a change. The final cadence of the solo[25] becomes, in the chorus, a surprise cadence upon which the baritone re-enters: '_Behold, thou hast made my days as an handbreadth, and mine age is as nothing before thee_.' The tension relaxes, and a note of pleading makes itself felt that is strengthened in the choral repetition of the phrase by the movement of the accompanying instruments. Through despondency, through resignation, through questioning, the soul gradually rises to hope: '_Verily man at his best state is altogether vanity. Surely every man walketh in a vain show, surely they are disquieted in vain; he heapeth up riches, and knoweth not who shall gather them. Now, Lord, what do I wait for?_' The pleading becomes importunity, and the crisis is reached with the reiteration of the last words, first in an increasing agitation, and finally in deliberate, hushed tones that seem to challenge the Lord. The effect that follows is, perhaps, unsurpassed in its pure loveliness throughout the domain of sacred music. With the passage '_My hope is in thee_' all doubt is resolved in a glow of warmth, reconciliation, and trust, and the perfect assurance of faith, '_The souls of the righteous are in God's hand_' becomes the subject of an accompanied choral fugue, constructed from beginning to end upon a tonic pedal point, which establishes the brief inspiration of the transition passage in a protracted expression of unshakable confidence, and forms, not only the climax of the movement, but the first climax of the entire work. In it the soul attains to an elevation of faith from which it does not again falter. Though sorrow may not yet be finally subdued, doubt is conquered, and the fourth number--'_How amiable are thy dwellings, O Lord of Hosts! My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the Lord: my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God. Blessed are they that dwell in thy house; they will be still praising thee_'--is a clear, melodious choral song with a flowing accompaniment, harmonized simply, and with an occasional point of imitation, that expresses simple affection and trust, emphasized towards the close of the movement by the employment of increased contrapuntal resource.

The fifth number, added, as we have said, after the work was first finished, and not essential to its conception as a whole, may have been conceded to some need of contrast felt by the composer on hearing the completed six movements consecutively. It consists of a very beautiful soprano solo with chorus, of rather mystic character, to the words '_And ye now are sorrowful. As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you._'

The sixth chorus opens with a dirge--'_For we have no abiding city, but we seek one to come_'--soon to be interrupted by the baritone solo: '_Behold, I shew you a mystery: we shall not all sleep, but we shall be changed._' The words are repeated by the chorus with a heightening agitation of mysterious expectancy, that leaps suddenly at the clarion call to tumultuous exultation: '_In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed._' The wild agitation is stayed by the quiet message of the solo, '_Then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written_,' and a prolonged half-cadence leads to the re-entry of the chorus in a magnificently-sustained inspiration of triumphant joy: '_Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?_' The glorious movement, after mounting from height to height of power and splendour, suddenly, with an unexpected change of time and key, reaches its climax in a brilliant fugue, that seems, with its passion of never-ending praise, to reopen the door of heaven and to transport the soul of the hearer to the dazzling scene of the throne that is filled with the ineffable presence of God: '_Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive honour and power, for thou hast created all things, and for thy good pleasure they are and were created._'

The great work has now reached its final climax. The imagination of the modern seer, soaring beyond sorrow, doubt, death, has pierced for a moment through the mystery of things and shown us the unspeakable. But the vision is not yet at an end. As in the writing of the Revelation of St. John, so in the inspired music of the German Requiem. After the lightnings and thunders and all the manifold glory of the throne, the voice of the spirit: '_Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord henceforth; Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours, and their works do follow them._' Confident, tender, majestic, the message floats through the seventh movement, a veritable requiem, a true song of peace, and, heard at length in the tones of the benediction with which the work opens, sinks into silence with reiteration of blessing.

It would be an attractive task to analyze the technical means that Brahms has employed to give musical expression to the varied ideas, all rooted in the central one of overruling love, which together form the subject of this exalted work. Whilst he has used the resources of classical art with a power and ease that recall the mastery of Bach and Handel, he has given warmth and life to his creation by availing himself of the harmonic development of musical means to which the genius of Schumann gave such strong stimulus. Wisely conservative, he was also modern in the best sense, nor could the German Requiem have attained the position it has won in the hearts of thousands of men and women to whom it has brought comfort in bereavement or solace in times of mental distress, if he had not understood and shared in the spirit, and answered to it in an idiom, proper to his time. This should not be forgotten in the performance of the great work, which is sometimes given with a cold, formal correctness supposed to be appropriate in the case of classical compositions. Brahms was not a pedant, but a poet and idealist, and the full beauty and fascination of his music is disclosed only when it is interpreted with the insight that is born of enthusiasm and imagination.

The Horn Trio was played in Vienna at the Hellmesberger Quartet concert of December 29 by Brahms, Hellmesberger, and Kleinecke. Kleinecke performed on the natural horn, and the beauty of his tone was remarked on by one or two of the critics. The trio was received not unfavourably, but with the reserve that usually attended the early performances of the composer's works in the imperial capital at this period of his career.

The publications of the year were but two in number--the set of sixteen Waltzes for four hands on the Piano, dedicated to Hanslick; and a book of five Songs for men's four-part Chorus, both issued in the spring by Rieter-Biedermann. Several, at least, of the waltzes date from the Detmold period, and were played by Brahms, and heard by Carl von Meysenbug, at the Hotel Stadt Frankfurt. They are inimitable in their delicate, caressing grace, and possess a charm which perhaps exceeds that of any known examples of their kind. They were performed from the manuscript, as finally arranged for publication, by Frau Schumann and Dietrich at a music party given by the Grand-Duchess of Oldenburg in the autumn of 1866.

Joachim's prolonged visit to Austria came to an end in the second week of the New Year with a farewell dinner given in his honour by Brahms, Billroth, Hanslick, and other friends, and a fortnight later he removed with his family from Hanover to Berlin. His residence was permanently fixed in the Prussian capital in the course of the following year by his acceptance of the post of director of the Royal High School for Music (executive art), which was about to be founded by King William of Prussia (afterwards the German Emperor William I.), as an addition to the State department for Art and Science, and in the planning and practical arrangement of which Joachim actively participated. Under his devoted management, it quickly rose to the high state of prosperity for which it has long been famous, and now, after more than thirty-five years of existence, it still enjoys the high advantage and distinction of his personal labour and influence as director, conductor, and teacher. The occasion of the opening in 1902, by the Emperor William II., of the spacious new buildings of the Royal Schools for Art and Science at Charlottenburg, of which the fine new music school is one, must have seemed to the great veteran musician, as he recalled the modest beginnings of his own special department in 1869, as one that included the crowning of much of the activity of his life.

Brahms quitted Vienna a few weeks after his friend to fulfil a series of concert engagements, most of them arranged with Stockhausen, for the months of February and March, by which he hoped to make his journey to North Germany on the business of the Requiem answer a practical as well as an artistic purpose. He took up his headquarters at his father's house, and it was the last time that he returned from Vienna to Hamburg as to his nominal home. The post of conductor of the Philharmonic had again fallen vacant in 1867 by Stockhausen's resignation, and again, though Brahms did not apply for the appointment, there was a strong conviction amongst his friends that he would accept it if it were offered him. But it was not to be. Admired and loved as he was in Hamburg by an ever-increasing circle of friends, it was by a circle only. He was not popular with the average musician or the general public, and the Philharmonic committee passed him over a second time, electing Julius von Bernuth as Stockhausen's successor. Brahms said little on the subject, but it is fairly certain that the mortification caused him by this repeated slight from the musical officialdom of his native city sufficed to lead him to the determination at which he soon afterwards arrived, to settle permanently in Vienna.

Brahms made several public appearances in Hamburg during the second half of February. He performed, at the Philharmonic concert of the 14th, Beethoven's G major Concerto and Schumann's Etudes Symphoniques, adding to the published version of the latter several variations contained in Schumann's original manuscript. On the same occasion Stockhausen sang Schubert's songs 'Memnon' and 'Geheimniss' to orchestral accompaniments arranged by Brahms, at his request, a year or two previously. The composer was able to spare a few days for Bremen, in order to make Reinthaler's personal acquaintance, though his numerous engagements for March obliged him to leave the work of preparation and rehearsal in the experienced hands of his new friend. He played at the Oldenburg subscription concert of the 4th,[26] and gave concerts with Stockhausen during the same week in Dresden and Berlin, appearing for the first time before the public of either capital. At the second concert in Berlin (March 7) Nos. 3 and 5 of the 'Magelone Romances' were included in the programme. On the 11th the two artists gave a soiree in Hamburg, when Stockhausen introduced Brahms' 'Mailied' and 'Von ewiger Liebe' from the manuscripts, and gave several folk-songs as an encore. At Kiel, where they appeared on the 13th, they made the acquaintance of Lowe, the famous ballad composer, now a man of seventy-two, with whose music Brahms proved to be thoroughly familiar. Their next destination was Copenhagen, where they had arranged to give four concerts. Stockhausen's selection on the first of these occasions included songs by Stradella, Schubert, and Boieldieu, all accompanied by Brahms, who performed as his solos a Toccata and Fugue by Sebastian Bach Andante by Friedemann Bach, two Scarlatti movements, Beethoven's Sonata in E flat, Op. 27, and, of his own compositions, Variations on an original theme and the early Scherzo in E flat minor. Both artists awakened a furore. Stockhausen 'electrified the house'; Brahms was 'enormously applauded,' especially after the performance of his own compositions. The second concert, given within the next few days, was equally successful. The concert-room was crowded, the audience extraordinarily enthusiastic, and the financial result brilliant beyond expectation. Then Brahms committed a _faux pas_, which put an end, so far as he was concerned, to further result of the triumph.

Being asked, at a party given by the Danish composer Niels Gade in his and Stockhausen's honour, if he had visited and admired the great Thorwaldsen Museum, of which the citizens of Copenhagen are so justly proud, he replied in the affirmative, and added that the building and its collection were so fine it was to be regretted they were not in Berlin. This unfortunate remark, made in a circle representative of educated Danish society, where the remembrance of the recent Prussian occupation of Schleswig-Holstein was still sore, produced an effect which the speaker had been far from intending. It was regarded as a deliberate insult to the country in which Brahms had been a feted guest, and was resented so strongly as to make the composer's reappearance on a Copenhagen platform impossible. Pursuing the wisest course open, he embarked on the next boat for Kiel, leaving Stockhausen to make such arrangements as he could for the third advertised concert, and to pursue his success further by associating himself with Joachim, who was about to pay a short visit to the Danish capital.

Arriving at Kiel at a very early hour in the morning, Brahms proceeded to the house of Claus Groth, whose guest he had been on his outward journey, and, walking in the garden until the inmates were astir, was presently greeted by his friend from an upper window. 'Be quick and come out; I have made a heap of money,' he cried in answer, slapping his pocket. Coffee was soon served and a lively talk ensued, but, as no explanation was offered by Brahms of his sudden reappearance, Groth at length began to question him. 'What have you been about that you have, so to say, run away? Stockhausen has not returned, and you have had great success?' And thus brought to the point, the delinquent was obliged to relate his indiscretion. 'Brahms! how could you have said such a thing in a company of Danes!' cried Groth. 'I only meant,'

replied Brahms, 'that it would be better if so fine a work, so many beautiful objects, were in a great centre where many people could see them.' 'But you might have supposed Danes would not put up with such a remark.' 'It did not occur to me,' answered Brahms. 'However,' he added after a moment, 'I have earned so much money I shall not want more for a long time; so the matter is indifferent to me.'

Brahms arrived in Bremen on the first day of April, to remain until after the 10th as the guest of Reinthaler, with whom he soon became intimate. Appreciation of his works had steadily grown in the artistic circles of Bremen since the musical life of the city had been under the leadership of the distinguished artist whose name will remain associated with the first performance of the then complete German Requiem; and the Good Friday concert of this year was anticipated with the interest attaching to an event of unusual importance, the more so as many distinguished visitors from far and near were expected to be present as performers or in the audience. To the gratification of the former members of the Ladies' Choir, Brahms expressed a wish that the old favourite society should be represented in the chorus, and four of the most enthusiastic and trusty of his quondam disciples--Fraulein Garbe, Fraulein Reuter, Fraulein Seebohm, and Fraulein Marie Volckers--answered to his summons, arriving at Bremen in time to take part in the last general rehearsal. The programme of the sacred concert, the proceeds of which were to be devoted to the Bremen musicians' provident fund, included the German Requiem (baritone solo, Stockhausen), between the first and second parts of which, some of the miscellaneous items were placed; movements by Bach and Tartini, and Schumann's Abendlied for violin (Joachim); 'I know that my Redeemer liveth' (Frau Joachim); air for contralto with violin obligato from Bach's 'Matthew Passion' (Frau Joachim and Joachim); and the 'Hallelujah' chorus. Brahms was to conduct his new work, Reinthaler the remaining selections. All the soloists gave their services.

The doors of St. Peter's Cathedral Church opened punctually at six o'clock on Good Friday evening, and during the next hour the visitors, many of them old acquaintances of the reader, streamed to their places.

Frau Reinthaler and Frau Stockhausen were of course present. The Dietrichs, with their friend Fraulein Berninger, came from Oldenburg, the Grimms from Munster. The Hamburg contingent included Minna Volckers, the composer's former pupil and very stanch friend, now grown up into a young lady, and her father, who had invited Jakob Brahms to accompany them as his guest. Max Bruch, Schubring, and young Richard Barth were there. Switzerland was represented by the future publisher of the Requiem, Rieter-Biedermann; England by the enthusiastic John Farmer; and shortly before the time of commencement Frau Schumann walked up the nave on Brahms' arm. She had arranged that her intention of making the journey from Baden-Baden with her daughter Marie should be kept a secret from the composer, and the two ladies surprised him with their greeting at the cathedral door.

No pains had been spared in the preparation of chorus and orchestra, and their difficult tasks were perfectly achieved.

'The impression made by the wonderful, splendidly performed work was quite overpowering,' says Dietrich, 'and it immediately became clear to the listeners that the German Requiem would live as one of the most exalted creations of musical art.'

The composer, the executants, and their friends, to the number of about a hundred, met for supper in the ancient Rathskeller close to the cathedral, and listened afterwards to a short address by Consul Hirschfeld and to about a dozen other speeches.

'It is with great pleasure and justifiable pride,' said Reinthaler, 'that I greet this distinguished assemblage of visitors, some of them gathered to perform, and others to hear, the new work of the composer who is staying in our midst. The circumstance that it has been performed for the first time here in Bremen gives me quite peculiar happiness. It is a great and beautiful--one may say, an epoch-making work, which has filled us who have heard it to-day with pride, since it has inspired in us the conviction that German art has not died out, but that it begins to stir again and will thrive as gloriously as of old.

'A gloomy, anxious period has intervened since our last dear master was carried to the grave;[27] it has almost seemed as though the evening of musical art had fallen upon us; but to-day we are reassured. In the German Requiem we believe that we have a sequel worthy of the achievements of the great masters of the past.

'That I have had the good fortune to contribute towards ensuring a not quite unworthy performance of the work gives me lively satisfaction. Everyone concerned, however, has supported me to this end. Each has brought cheerful good-will to his task, and devoted himself to it with active zeal and unmixed enthusiasm, for each felt it to be an elevating one.

'You will all certainly rejoice with me that the creator of the glorious work is present amongst us and will joyfully raise your glasses to the health of the composer, our Brahms.'

Brahms' answer was characteristically short and to the purpose:

'If I venture to say a few words to-night, I must premise that the gift of oratory is in no wise at my command. There are, however, amongst those present, many to whom I wish to say a word of thanks, many dear friends who have been kind and good to me, and this is especially the case with my friend Reinthaler, who has given himself with such self-sacrifice to the preparation of my Requiem.

I place my collective thanks upon his head therefore, and call for three cheers for his name.'