It may surprise and interest English readers to know that their country was toasted on an occasion so peculiarly representative of German music and musicians. After the various artists who had assisted in the performance and one or two of the other distinguished guests had been duly honoured, John Farmer rose to his feet, and delivered himself of his sentiments in such German as he could command.

'I have come from a city,' he said, 'that is much larger than Bremen, in which there are many fine houses and many rich men. You, however, may be prouder than all the rich men in the big houses, who are, indeed, very unfortunate. They have no such beautiful music as you in Germany. If you were to come to England, and Brahms himself were to come with you, to perform the Requiem, they would not attend the concert, or if they were to attend it they would say, "Is the fellow crazy?" You can have no idea how fortunate you are in being able to understand all this beautiful music. Oh, I have observed and have perceived that each one has followed it with love and the whole energy of his soul! When I return to England, I shall relate what I have seen, and will hope that we may, before long, become as fortunate as yourselves and may be able to understand and perform German music as you do.'

England found its defender in Herr Lehmann, who immediately rose to reply:

'I would venture, nevertheless, to say a word in England's honour.

So many artists have met with an encouraging reception or have found a happy home there; there are so many Englishmen who understand and sympathize with German art and German life, that I would beg leave to propose a glass to the honour of art-loving England.'

The feeling of satisfaction expressed in Reinthaler's speech that the distinction of the first performance of the German Requiem should have fallen to Bremen was generally shared by the musicians and amateurs of the city.

'Reinthaler has, with laudable judgment, concentrated his best powers upon the arrangement of a concert which has given to Bremen a distinctive artistic reputation,' says the critic of the _Bremen Courier_, and the sentiment was expressed practically, as well as verbally, in a communication sent to the composer a few days after his return to Hamburg. The work was repeated on Tuesday, April 28, in the hall of the Union, under Reinthaler's direction, when the baritone solo was sung by Franz Krolop.

It is pleasant to be able to associate with the musical events of 1868--the year which, by virtue of the occurrences now recorded, marked the beginning of a new period in Brahms' outward career and established him in the eyes of the musicians of Europe as the greatest living artist in his own domain--the name of an early friend whose skilled appreciation of his genius had cheered and encouraged him in the dark days of his youth. Frau Dr. Louise Langhans-Japha played the Quintet in F minor for pianoforte and strings at her concert in the Salle Erard, Paris, on March 24, and secured for it a very decided success. It is impossible actually to affirm that the work was heard for the first time in public in its final form on this occasion, but it is the first public performance of which the author has been able to find record.

Brahms stayed on in the north for several weeks after the Good Friday concert at Bremen, and found time to pay another, this time a holiday, visit to the Reinthalers, and to make the acquaintance of many of their friends. He derived particular pleasure from the society of some small playfellows who welcomed him to Frau Reinthaler's nursery, and struck up a special friendship with the eldest daughter of the house, little Henriette. Hearing the child, hardly out of baby years, practising the treble of a little pianoforte duet, he proposed to take the bass, and, amusing himself by striking a wrong note, was promptly rebuked by his colleague. 'You have played a wrong note,' said Misi, stopping short.

'Nun, we must do it again,' returned Brahms penitently, and recommenced.

'You have played another!' cried Misi; nor could the master be pronounced perfect in his part until after two more attempts. He stayed, too, for a few days in Oldenburg, and whilst there made several excursions in the neighbourhood with Dietrich and Reinthaler. Driving one day to Wilhelmshaven, the great northern war-harbour of Germany, he was unusually absent-minded and serious, and mentioned that he had been much struck with Holderlin's poem, 'Hyperion's Song of Destiny,' which he had read in the morning for the first time. After inspecting the harbour and its sights, he withdrew to a distant part of the beach, where he was observed by his friends to be busy with pencil and paper.

He was putting down the first sketches of his now celebrated setting of the work.

Brahms spent the remainder of the year in Germany and Switzerland. After attending the Rhine Festival held the last week of May in Cologne, he settled down for some months at 6, Kessenicherweg, Bonn, in order to be near Dr. Deiters, whom he met daily and admitted to his confidence on the subject of his work. He was occupied with the final preparation of the manuscript of the Requiem for the engraver, and played it through to his friend, who had already studied it from the manuscript, saying, in the course of the just-completed fifth number, '... _I will comfort you as a mother comforts_,' that here he had thought of his mother.[28] He was engaged again, also, with the C minor Pianoforte Quartet, which, as we have seen,[29] has associations with a very much earlier period, and played the sketches to Dr. Deiters, though the work was not finally completed until after the further lapse of several years. The music to Goethe's cantata 'Rinaldo' was in progress, and was finished shortly before he quitted Bonn. Deiters was fortunate enough to have the opportunity of listening, at his own house or in Brahms' rooms, to the composer's interpretation of some of his published works, and to hear his own opinion of many of his songs, which he estimated very variously.

Amongst those of which he thought most highly at this time was the 'Von ewiger Liebe,' published later in the year as No. 1 of Op. 43.

Brahms was in happy summer mood throughout the time of his sojourn on the Rhine. The fondness for dumb pets that always characterized him, though he kept none of his own, was gratified by the confidence of some pigeons that used to fly into his room and come to him to be fed. He invited his father to join him during the last ten days of his stay, and pleased himself by showing him the Rhine country and introducing him to his friend. It was the only year of his life during which there was intimate personal intercourse between himself and Deiters, but the two men remained in correspondence, and the composer frequently sent copies of his new works as they appeared, with an autograph inscription, to the critic whose early appreciation through a period when their personal acquaintance had been of the slightest had awakened in him a strong feeling of regard and esteem. 'I feel under a great debt of obligation to friend Deiters,' he says in the course of a letter to Dietrich written in 1867.

Jakob Brahms was not allowed to return to Hamburg until he had a second time tested his capacity for enjoying the delights of mountain scenery by accompanying his son on a few weeks' journey in Switzerland; but though Johannes made all possible arrangements to spare his father fatigue, it became evident that he was very homesick. 'See, Johannes, here is a little blue flower like that which grows near Hamburg,' he said one day, lagging a little behind after he had walked some distance in silence. An incident of the tour which pleased him, perhaps, better than his pedestrian and driving experiences was the trial, at which he was present, of the new movement of the Requiem, which the composer wished to hear before delivering it for publication. This was arranged for at Zurich by Hegar. Frau Suter-Weber undertook the soprano solo, and orchestra and chorus were supplied by resident musicians. Jakob, on this, as indeed on all occasions, fully appreciated the distinction he derived from being his son's companion; but it is certain that he was much relieved when the day came for him to return to his quiet home and the unembarrassing society of his wife. 'Nu, Line, krigt mi Johannes nit wieder hin' (Now, Lina, Johannes will not get me again), he said, as he settled himself once more in his own chair; and he kept to his determination, though he compromised matters on one or two subsequent occasions by accepting his son's proposal that he should visit the Harz and other districts in Frau Caroline's company.

Of the many pleasant social events of the year, a gathering in the autumn at Dietrich's house in Oldenburg remains for mention. Frau Schumann, her daughter Marie, and Brahms enjoyed their old friends'

hospitality during the last week of October, and the visit was signalized by the first performance from the manuscript, before a private audience, of the Hungarian Dances in their arrangement for four hands on the piano.

'Frau Schumann and Brahms played them with an inspiration and fire that transported everyone present,' says Dietrich.

Frau Schumann gave an evening concert in the hall of the Casino on the 30th, when her programme included her performance with the composer--probably the first before a public audience--of Brahms'

Waltzes.[30]

Brahms and Stockhausen again united their forces in November, and gave several concerts together. At the first of two soirees in Hamburg, Brahms created a furore with some of the Hungarian Dances in their arrangement as solos. The programme included a performance by Stockhausen and his pupil Fraulein Girzik of two of the Duets, Op. 28, the second of which was rapturously encored. Brahms, as usual, accompanied his friend throughout the evening. He was received with acclamation at Bremen on the 30th of the month, when he played the pianoforte part of his A major Quartet at a concert of the excellent resident string quartet party led by Jacobsen, a fine player, and second concertmeister of the Bremen orchestra. On this, as on subsequent visits to Bremen, Brahms stayed, as a matter of course, with the Reinthalers.

Carl Bade, paying one of his frequent morning calls at the Anscharplatz about this time, was startled as he entered the house by the appearance of Jakob, who, coming towards him with finger on lip and laboriously treading on tiptoe, solemnly whispered, 'Hush!...' 'What is it, Brahms?

Who is ill?' returned Bade under his breath, seriously alarmed. 'Hush!'

repeated Jakob as mysteriously as before; '_he is dor_' (he is there); and, opening the door of the corner room, he pushed in the astonished Carl and shut the door behind him without another word, leaving him alone with his son, who was busy weeding out his library in readiness for the despatch of his Hamburg possessions to Vienna. 'See here,' said Johannes, after a kind word of greeting, giving Bade time to recover the composure of which Jakob's strange _coup_ had for a moment robbed him, by pointing to a volume in his hand, 'Kuhnau was a capable musician!'

The relation existing at this time between the elder and younger Brahms, of which mention was made in an early chapter, was well illustrated during the homely 'second breakfast' for which the party soon assembled.

Sociability was rendered impossible, in spite of the persistent efforts of Johannes, by the father's overwhelming consciousness of his son's presence. The awed feeling which possessed Jakob whenever he found himself face to face with the living embodiment of his own miraculous success in life was not unnatural, and can only inspire respect for the memory of the older man, in whose simple humility, rooted in the strongest and most legitimate pride, may, perhaps, be recognised some of the essential qualities which endeared the great composer to all who were privileged to call him friend.

Brahms returned to Vienna in December, and was, of course, present at several concerts given there before and after Christmas by Frau Schumann, who visited Austria after an interval of some years.

The list of publications belonging to this year is an important one, not only because it includes the German Requiem (Rieter-Biedermann), but because it is representative of the master in what may be roughly called the second period of his activity as a composer of songs. From beginning to end of his career he poured forth songs in many different forms--the simple strophic, the 'durchcomponirtes' Lied, the latter necessarily varying in structure with each fresh example.[31] This second period, however, is marked not only by the sure mastery which had long characterized Brahms' works in whatever domain he chose for the exercise of his powers; its spirit is generally distinctive, and is that of the poet's ripe manhood. Youth with its uncertainties is behind, age with its gathering shadows not yet in sight; the composer holds the present in firm grasp, and presents us with exquisite dream-pictures of life and nature, the children of an imagination penetrated with a sense of the beauty, the tenderness, the pathos of existence, and content in the exercise of its ideality. Each of the five books published in 1868 (Op.

43 by Rieter-Biedermann, and Op. 46, 47, 48, 49 by Simrock) contains such wealth of beauty that it is difficult to select either for particular mention. Perhaps the palm should be given to Op. 43, of which 'Von ewiger Liebe' and 'Mainacht' are Nos. 1 and 2; but then, Op. 47 contains 'Botschaft,' and Op. 46 'Die Schale der Vergessenheit.'

Stockhausen, who stayed at Neuenahr in the summer of 1868, came over to Bonn one day, and sang the greater number of these songs from the manuscript, accompanied by the composer, to Deiters. Brahms seemed determined not to publish 'Die Schale der Vergessenheit,' declaring it to be too 'desolate,' but Stockhausen's enthusiasm prevailed to alter his decision. Some of the shorter numbers belong, by date of composition, to an earlier period, as Goethe's 'Die Liebende schreibt,'

the manuscript of which, in the possession of Frau Professor Boie, bears the inscription 'Frl. Marie Volckers in kind remembrance' and the date 1863. The widely popular 'Wiegenlied,' Op. 49, No. 4, was composed for one of Frau Faber's children, and the accompaniment is reminiscent of a folk-song which Brahms heard from Fraulein Bertha Porubszky in the old days of the Hamburg Ladies' Choir. The manuscript bears the inscription 'For Arthur and Bertha Faber for ever happy use. July 1868'; and at the close 'Mit Grazie in infinitum,' and is in the possession of these old friends of the composer.

Now, as ever, Brahms returned with delight to the fresh navete of the folk-song, and numerous examples of his settings of texts obtained from German, Bohemian, Italian sources are to be found in these books, of which 'Sonntag,' Op. 47, No. 3, and 'Am Sonntag Morgen,' Op. 49, No. 1, are perhaps the best known. 'Gold uberwiegt die Liebe' is a touching little lament (No. 4 of Op. 48). The text of 'Von ewiger Liebe' is itself a Wendic folk-song, but the composer's treatment has placed it amongst the finest works of German art in song-form. As a rule, however, Brahms set folk-songs as such, and his treatment of them was direct, and, so to say, unstudied. He has set for a single voice popular texts of more than twenty nationalities besides his own, and, as he found them, as they appealed to him, so he composed them, without attempt either to interfere with the frank naturalness of the words, or to give national colour to his music. Such musical references as he occasionally makes in his songs to the origin of his texts are so unobtrusive as to be hardly noticeable, excepting by a special student of the subject.[32]

'Vergangen ist mir,' Op. 48, No. 6, points back to the tonal system of the Middle Ages. Like 'Sehnsucht,' Op. 14, No. 8, it is composed in the Dorian mode.

The enumeration of the great song publications of 1868 is not yet at an end. The issue by Rieter-Biedermann of Books 3, 4, 5, containing in all nine numbers, of the 'Magelone Romances,' of which the first two books had appeared in 1865, completed a song-cycle which ranks among the few supreme achievements of its class, increasing to the number of four a special group of names which had hitherto included those only of Beethoven, Schubert, and Schumann.

The fifteen 'Magelone Romances' are extremely various in structure, and can hardly be classified categorically under any of the ordinary song-forms. Spitta expresses his sense of their importance by the word 'symphonic.' Brahms' own name 'Romance' sufficiently indicates their nature, however. Some are of great, others of smaller, dimensions. Some consist of several movements, others of one short movement in three sections, of which the last repeats the first; one is bound into a whole by the melody of a refrain. They give vivid expression to a wide range of feelings: chivalric delight, progressive phases of passionate love, the despair of separation, reawakened hope, the confident bliss of reunion, certainty of the sacred power of love. Remembrance of the ideal performances of Stockhausen, to whom the cycle is dedicated, was indubitably present to Brahms' mind as he composed the songs, which, with the exception of Nos. 11 and 13, should be sung by a man. One may read and reread them, hear them and hear them again, but try in vain to decide on a favourite number. Each one places the listener in an enchanted world of noble beauty and romance, and in wealth and individuality of idea the cycle assuredly does not rank last amongst the few works of its kind.

The Songs and Romances Op. 44 mentioned in our first volume in connection with the Ladies' Choir were now also published by Rieter-Biedermann;[33] and Cranz of Hamburg issued the three Songs for six-part Chorus _a capella_, Op. 42, all of great charm. Its five-bar rhythm is an interesting feature of the second number, the lovely 'Vineta.' The text of No. 3, 'Darthula's Grabesgesang,' is a translation from Ossian, and is contained in Herder's 'Stimmen der Volker.'

'Brahms is here,' writes Billroth from Vienna on January 11, 'and is to give concerts with Stockhausen. He is going to bring out a cantata, Rinaldo, in February.... He is enthusiastic about the text because it leaves so much to the composer.'

Goethe wrote his cantata expressly that music might be set to it by Capellmeister Winter, a respectable musician of his day, for the Prince Friedrich of Gotha, the possessor of an agreeable tenor voice, and a good amateur vocalist. It is founded on an episode in Tasso's 'Jerusalem Delivered,' and exhibits the conflict between weakness and strength in the brave knight Rinaldo--a fictitious personage introduced into his poem by Tasso--who is roused from his surrender to the witcheries of Armida by the arrival, at the islet on which he is living with her, of a party of knights, his friends--two only in Tasso's epic, but increased to a chorus by Goethe. The cantata opens at a point where the knights have succeeded in awakening Rinaldo from his dream of happiness, but are unable to nerve him to the resolution of departure. As a final resource, they hold up before him a diamond shield, which reflects his own image in its degeneracy. The shock of what he sees restores him to full consciousness, and he leaves the island in spite of Armida's lamentations, fury, and enchantments, and his own regrets, encouraged and supported by his friends. The final chorus with solo depicts the happy return voyage, and the safe arrival of the ship at the shore of the Holy Land.

Armida does not appear as a _dramatis persona_ in Goethe's work, and Brahms' music is accordingly composed for tenor solo, men's chorus, and orchestra. The poem is short and concise, containing but one dramatic situation, but its very terseness has been advantageous to the composer, for the text has not fettered his imagination by detail, whilst it has supplied him with sufficient material for powerful and contrasted musical presentation in the enchantments of Armida, the storm raised by her to prevent the ship's departure, the calm, persuasive firmness of the knights, the vacillation of Rinaldo (expressed in the first instance in an impassioned scena), his pleadings with his friends, his final awakening and recovery from the intensity of passion. Of all these points Brahms has availed himself with force and warmth of imagination.

Many interesting details of the composition tempt our notice, but we may only stay to direct the reader's attention to the conviction inspired by the choruses of the noble, lovable character of the knights; to the masterly means employed--so simple that only a master would have ventured to restrict himself to them--at the moment when the shield is displayed, which, in their place, convey, without any attempt at tone-painting, but with absolute distinctness, the impression of the friends' gentle determination with the shrinking Rinaldo; to the bright martial movement in which the knights encourage him by reminding him of the flashing lances, the waving pennons, the whole brilliant battle array, of the crusaders' army from which the allurements of Armida have too long detained him. In the final chorus a favourable wind swells the sails of the ship, which rides joyously over the green waves, breaking them into light foam as she passes, whilst Rinaldo and his companions amuse themselves by watching the dolphins at play in the water, and are filled with a light-hearted happiness that, as land is sighted, bursts into exultant shouting of the names of Godfrey and Solyma (Jerusalem).

The work was performed for the first time from the manuscript, under the composer's direction, on February 28, 1869, at a concert of the Akademischer Gesangverein, Vienna. The title-part was sung with great success by Gustav Walter, three hundred students well prepared by Dr.

Eyrich, the society's conductor, were responsible for the choruses, and the orchestral accompaniments were performed by the entire body of instrumentalists of the court opera.

A series of three concerts, given in Vienna in February and March by Brahms and Stockhausen were phenomenally successful. The great baritone had not been heard in the Austrian capital for many years, and all tickets for the first concert were sold immediately after its announcement. Brahms' selection for the series included works by Handel, Bach, Couperin, Gluck, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, some of his own Variations--notably those of the B flat Sextet--and Hungarian Dances; and he accompanied his friend in many of the most celebrated songs of his repertoire. The wonderful performance by the two artists of Brahms'

songs 'Von ewiger Liebe' and 'Mainacht' was one of the choice delights of the first concert. A feature of the second was the performance by Stockhausen and Fraulein Girzik of two of the composer's vocal duets.

The enthusiasm excited by the concert-givers in Vienna was equalled in Budapest, whither they proceeded on March 10, in order to give a similar series; and it was, if possible, exceeded on their final reappearance in Vienna.

These concerts are of peculiar interest in Brahms' career, because the last of them closes the period of his activity as a virtuoso. For fourteen years, from the autumn of 1855 to the spring of 1869, circumstances had obliged, and happily permitted, him to earn his livelihood chiefly by the exercise of his powers as an executive artist; but his reputation as a composer had grown uninterruptedly throughout this time, and with the production of the German Requiem it attained a height that gave him future independence of action. Though years were still to pass before his circumstances became easy, they were not again straitened, and from henceforth he undertook concert-journeys only in the role of a composer, to assist at performances of his own works. The occasions on which he appeared additionally as pianist with one of Beethoven's or Schumann's great compositions became less and less frequent, moreover, as, with passing time, he felt increasingly out of regular practice. Brahms was, in later life, fond of illustrating the fact of his long struggle with poverty by referring to the manuscript of the Requiem. 'The paper is of all sizes and shapes, because at the time I wrote it I never had money enough to buy a stock.' The immediate impression created by the great work was, however, sufficiently widespread and profound to place the composer alone, among the musicians of his day, as the accepted representative of the classical art of Germany, and the prices commanded by his copyrights gradually increased accordingly. No long time elapsed before the German Requiem had made the round of the musical cities of Europe. It was given, for the first time after final completion and publication, at the Leipzig Gewandhaus concert of February 18, 1869, under Reinecke, and was performed in the course of the next few weeks in Basle (twice), Carlsruhe (twice), Munster, Cologne, Hamburg, Zurich, and Weimar, and, later in the year, in Dessau (twice), Chemnitz (twice), Barmen (four choruses only), Magdeburg, Jena, and again twice in Cologne. The complete work was not heard in Vienna until March 5, 1871, when it was given by the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde under the composer's direction, with Frau Wilt and Dr. Krauss as soloists, but achieved no striking success. It was performed on July 7 of the same year (1871) for the first time in England, before an invited audience, at the residence of Sir Henry Thompson. Stockhausen conducted the rehearsals and performance, and sang the baritone solo, Fraulein Anna Regan the soprano solo. The chorus was composed of about thirty good musicians, and the accompaniments were played in their arrangement as a pianoforte duet by Lady Thompson and the veteran musician Cipriani Potter, then in his eightieth year. The first public performance in England which the author has been able to authenticate with precision is that of the Philharmonic Society in St. James's Hall on April 2, 1873, under the direction of W.

G. Cusins, when the soloists were Mlle. Sophie Ferrari and Santley. The work was performed for the first time in Berlin, Munich and St.

Petersburg in the spring, and in Utrecht in June, of the year 1872, and in Paris in 1874.[34]

Probably it was due to the impression created by the German Requiem that the Serenade in D, Op. 11, was performed for the first time in Berlin in November, 1869, at one of the concerts of the Symphony Orchestra under Capellmeister Stern.

'The reception showed that the public is beginning to understand and value the composer Brahms, one of the few living creative artists who are genuine and sincere,' wrote a Berlin critic.

In the earlier part of the same year Louis Brassin played the Handel Variations and Fugue in Munich with very great success. Brassin was one of the first artists to perform the work in public, and that he introduced it to a Munich audience is the more interesting since the musicians of the Bavarian capital had in 1869 shown scant, if any, recognition of our composer's art, which was too progressive for Franz Lachner, and too conservative for von Bulow, the successive leaders, up to that date, of the musical life of the city. The work was played by Bulow in November, 1872, in Carlsruhe, and from that time was heard at his concerts with increasing frequency.

[22] Dietrich.

[23] A pedal point is a sound sustained, according to conditions prescribed by the rules of art, during a succession of varying harmonies of which it need not form an essential part.

[24] Matt. v. 4; Ps. cxxvi. 5, 6; 1 Pet. i. 24; James v. 7; 1 Pet. i.

25; Isa. xxxv. 10; Ps. xxxix. 4-7; Wisd. iii. 1; Ps. lxxxiv. 1, 2, 4; John xvi. 22; Ecclus. li. 27; Isa. lxvi. 13; Heb. xiii. 14; 1 Cor. xv 51-55; Rev. iv. 11; Rev. xiv. 13.

[25] The cadences of music are somewhat analogous to the punctuation of literature. A 'final cadence' has the effect of closing a musical period.

[26] Dated April 4 in Dietrich's 'Recollections.'

[27] Schumann.

[28] Communicated in a letter to the author by Dr. Deiters.

[29] See Vol. I., p. 207.