Having promised to arrange a meeting between Frau Dustmann of the imperial opera and Groth, Brahms came to the poet's hotel one morning, and entering the room where he was lying in bed with a bad feverish cold, exclaimed delightedly: 'Come to me this evening, the Dustmann will sing to you.' 'But you see I am ill,' returned Groth testily. 'You will be astonished,' continued Brahms, whose boast it was that he had never in his life been really ill, '_there_ is a singer, _there_ is an artist; _she_ will please you!' 'Ah, my dear fellow, I really cannot come,'

pleaded the other, 'Johann has just put a cold compress on, I am so miserable!' 'She is very seldom free just now; she cannot come another day.' 'Surely you see how miserable I am. How I should like to come, but I cannot,' persisted Groth. Then Brahms turned to go. 'You are a Philistine!' he declared angrily as he left the room.[47]

The ante-Christmas season of 1873, signalized on its immediate opening by the performance of the String Quartet in A minor at Berlin, already referred to, was further rendered distinctive in Brahms' career by the first performance from the manuscript of the Variations for Orchestra on a theme by Haydn, which took place at the Vienna Philharmonic of November 2 under Dessoff's direction. The masterly and attractive work consists, as most amateurs are aware, of eight variations and a finale on the 'Chorale St. Antoni.' The composer adheres almost entirely to Haydn's harmonies in the giving out of the theme. The variations are constructed on the principle often observable in his works in this form; they constitute, as it were, a series of little movements each woven more or less appreciably from the matter of the chorale, but each with a character of its own and complete in itself, while the entire composition is gathered together and rounded into a whole by the finale.

Brahms' vivid and original imagination of tone-effect is very clearly discernible throughout the work, and is especially illustrated in it by his original and effective employment of the double bassoon.

The variations were received by the crowded audience, and reviewed by the press, with warm welcome and with grateful appreciation of their beauty and perfection, if with some trace of disappointment that he who 'held the sceptre' in the domain of music for the chamber and the concert-room, and must of all living musicians be pre-eminently qualified for the composition of a symphony, should be the very man to refrain from writing one. Brahms, however, was well aware of the gigantic difficulty of the task that lay before him in the writing of a symphony that should successfully encounter that ordeal of comparison with the greatest works of its class which had become inevitable by the fact of his acknowledged supremacy in other forms. The ultimate cause of his delay and the pledge of his future victory are alike to be found in the nature of his artistic convictions, which, holding him loyal to the traditions of the past masters of instrumental music, made it impossible to him to seek novelty by compromising with modern methods. Brahms elected to wait until, with the gradual ripening of his powers to full maturity, he should feel, not only that he had something of his own to say in the highest domain of pure music, but that he had mastered the power of expressing it in a manner true to himself. Had he never felt assured on these two points it is certain that no symphony of his would ever have been made public, no matter to what sum of months the hours might amount which he had devoted to the study and practice of writing for the orchestra. Having now given a sign of his whereabouts he again drew a veil over the course of his artistic development, and, appearing before the public during the next three years only on ground which he had already made his own, revealed no more upward stages of his achievement until he at length stood victoriously before the world on its summit.

The variations were performed for the second time on December 10 under Levi in Munich.

The Gesellschaft season opened under Brahms' direction on November 9, with Beethoven's Overture, Op. 115, and Handel's 'Alexander's Feast.' A varied programme was given at the second concert of December 7:

1. Schubert: Overture to Fierrebras.

2. Schubert: Aria for Tenor (written in 1821 for introduction into Herold's Opera 'Zauberglocken' at the Karnthnerthor Theater, Vienna; unpublished). Herr Gustav Walter.

3. Volkmann: Concertstuck for Pianoforte and Orchestra.

Pianoforte, Herr Smetansky.

4. (_a_) Joh. Rud. Ahle (1662)} Unaccompanied Choruses.

(_b_) J. S. Bach }

5. Bach: Cantata, 'Nun ist das Heil,' for double Chorus, Orchestra and Organ.

6. Jac. Gallus: Unaccompanied Chorus, 'Ecce Quomodo.'

7. Beethoven: Choral Fantasia for Pianoforte (Smetansky), Orchestra, and Chorus.

The publications of the year, all issued in the autumn, were, in addition to the String Quartets, the version for two Pianofortes of the Haydn Variations (Op. 56_b_), by Simrock, and a set of eight Songs (Op.

59), by Rieter-Biedermann. Of these, four are set to texts by Claus Groth, which include 'Rain-songs' and the lovely 'Dein blaues Auge halt so still.' The Variations for Orchestra were published by Simrock in 1874.

Brahms was at this time quite immersed in his various kinds of work.

'I am so enormously occupied that I see my best friends only very rarely and by accident,' he wrote in December to the present author.

It had now become his custom to decline invitations for the Christmas festival, and to spend it, partly at the open-air Christmas market, where he made himself happy by purchasing gifts for the poor children whom he found crowding round the tempting wares, and partly at home, where he would look in for half an hour at the family party gathered in front of his landlady's Christmas-tree; no doubt contributing his share to the surprises of Christmas Eve, the 'sacred evening' when, throughout the length and breadth of Germany and Austria, innumerable trees are lighted up at about the same hour, and the great exchange takes place of presents to which, in many cases, the preparation and savings of a year have been consecrated. A New Year's present of a special kind received by Brahms this winter was the Maximilian Order for Art and Science conferred on him by King Ludwig II. of Bavaria.

The year 1874 was unusually full of movement and varied excitement for our composer. From January onwards he was besieged with invitations, many of which he accepted, to conduct his works at concerts and festivals in North Germany, the Rhine, Switzerland, and was obliged to reply in the negative to Dietrich's request, received in the beginning of spring, that he would include Oldenburg in his arrangements.

'DEAR FRIEND,

'I am more than sorry, but you are too late! I have already promised so much, and shall not be coming to your neighbourhood!

'If you had written earlier I could have arranged with Hanover, Bremen, etc., for, _seriously_, I should be too glad to go to you again....'

The third Gesellschaft concert of the season (1873-74) took place on January 25. That the performances under Brahms would be above criticism had become by this time almost a foregone conclusion, and, beyond recording the great success achieved by Goldmark's 'Hymn of Spring,' it is only necessary to give the programme of the occasion:

1. Rheinberger: Prelude to the Opera 'The Seven Ravens.'

2. Goldmark: 'Fruhlings Hymne' (May musings, from the Swedish of Geijer), for Contralto solo, Chorus, and Orchestra. (First performance, under the composer's direction.)

3. Mozart: 'Davidde Penitente,' Cantata for Soli, Chorus, and Orchestra.

A few days later Brahms left Vienna to fulfil a group of engagements in Leipzig, a circumstance which in itself affords some indication of the rapid strides by which his career had lately been advancing towards the full sunshine of success that was to flood the latter portion of his path through life.

The relations between Brahms and the city which owed its brilliant reputation as a musical centre to Mendelssohn's influence had been at no time really sympathetic. The attitude of expectant toleration that had been more or less adopted towards him by both its extreme parties after his first visit in 1853 had resulted on the one hand from Schumann's essay, and on the other, from the confidence felt by the Weimarites and expressed by Liszt that his 'new paths' must eventually bring him into close touch with themselves. Gradually, however, it, became clear how mistaken was the belief that the young musician would drift towards acceptance of the extreme new tendencies, whilst the originality of his musical thoughts and of his manner of expressing them was abhorrent to the inflexible conservatism that had come to represent the traditions of the Gewandhaus. If, moreover, there is every reason to surmise that Mendelssohn himself had no hearty appreciation of Schumann's genius, it is equally probable that neither Rietz, who conducted the Gewandhaus concerts from 1848 to 1860, nor Reinecke, who succeeded him, was in very warm sympathy with that of Brahms, and the predilections of the public followed those of their accredited guides.

Brahms' works were, it is true, generally given at the orchestral or chamber concerts of the Gewandhaus soon after publication, but, excepting the Triumphlied, with its special appeal to the patriotic sentiment of the great German people, they met with but scanty response from an audience little accustomed to the exertion of trying to follow the expression of a new and original artistic individuality. That Reinecke was by no means an ideal conductor of them naturally resulted from the fact that by training, by conviction, and by practice, he was attached to a rigidly formal school of modern musical thought, and it can surprise no one that he should have been unable entirely to realize the deeper and richer utterances of Schumann's young prophet. Brahms'

chamber music fared differently in the hands of David, who was almost alone amongst the authorities of the Gewandhaus in his sympathy for the composer's genius. To these considerations it must be added that not only the pianist, but the composer Rubinstein, had, as we indicated in an early chapter, an enthusiastic following amongst the typical Leipzig public who were disposed to resent any claim to recognition that might threaten to rival that of their favourite.

In spite, however, of the fact that Brahms was no party man, in Leipzig, as in almost every other city where his music was heard, it struck a root, imperceptible at first, but growing deeper and stronger and more extended with every year that went by. The attention bestowed on it by Brendel's society has been frequently referred to in these pages; it was cultivated, also, by Riedel's celebrated choir. A more representative illustration, however, of a certain mysterious power inherent in Brahms'

works of finding their way sooner or later, and not seldom it is sooner, to the heart, in spite of their intellectuality, their difficulty, their reserve, is furnished by the case of two sisters, daughters of the head of one of the great bookselling houses of Leipzig. The Fraulein Weigand did not live in a musical 'set,' nor were they personally acquainted with Brahms or his friends, but not long after their first casual introduction to his music in the middle of the sixties, when they were young girls, the appearance of each of his new works had come to be an event in their lives. 'You from Leipzig!' exclaimed Hermann Levi, with whom the sisters had a passing acquaintance in the summer of 1871. It was not until three months before the composer's death that these ladies had any personal communication with him. Then, hearing of his hopeless illness, they resolved to address him for the first and last time, and in January, 1897, they wrote to him telling how they had always loved his music and followed his career. No one who really knew him will doubt the pleasure that the letter gave to the dying master. In answer he sent his photograph with his autograph, 'Johannes Brahms,' and the inscription, 'To the two sisters as a little token of heart-felt thanks for their so kind account.'

Of the professional critics of Leipzig, Bernsdorf of the Signale remained to the last irreconcilable to Brahms' art; but, on the other hand, Dorffel of the _Leipziger Nachrichten_ watched the appearance of his works with profound interest and reviewed them with extreme sympathy and acumen. There was during the sixties no influential 'Brahms'

community in musical Leipzig, no active 'Brahms' propaganda in the houses of wealthy amateurs. Such occasional admirers as the composer may have had in this circle were to be met in the drawing-room of the lady introduced to the reader in an early chapter as Hedwig Salamon, since married to the composer Franz von Holstein. At the beginning of the seventies, however, a few well-known residents were to be found who had a strong bond of union in their common sympathy with Brahms' genius. Of these, in addition to the von Holsteins, may be particularly mentioned Philipp Spitta, now remembered in all parts of the musical world as the author of the standard Bach Biography, Alfred Volkland, Herr Astor, of the firm of Rieter-Biedermann, and later on its head, and the distinguished composer Heinrich von Herzogenberg, who settled in Leipzig in 1872 on his marriage with Elisabeth von Stockhausen. This lady, endowed in an extraordinary degree with beauty, goodness, intellectual and artistic gifts, domestic qualities, and any other imaginable graces and perfections, soon came to be numbered with her husband amongst the ardent devotees of Brahms' art. It will be convenient to mention here also that Theodor Kirchner settled in Leipzig in 1875, the year in which Spitta accepted a call to Berlin.

All these circumstances put together seem to explain the master's visit to Leipzig, where he had made no public appearance since the Gewandhaus concert of November 26, 1860, when he and Joachim had conducted each other's Hungarian Concerto and Serenade in A major without success.

Brahms was now to conduct a performance of 'Rinaldo' at a concert of the University Choral Society at the Gewandhaus on February 3, and the Haydn Variations, three Hungarian Dances, and the 'Rhapsody' (solo, Frau Joachim) at the Gewandhaus subscription concert of February 5. His presence in Leipzig was further welcomed by the performance of the G minor Pianoforte Quartet at the Gewandhaus chamber concert of February 1, and by the performance of a Brahms programme by the _Allgemeiner Musikverein_ on January 30. On January 17 one of the string quartets had been performed at the Gewandhaus concert by David and his party.

The moment when Brahms stepped on to the Gewandhaus platform, the acknowledged representative, in at least two domains of musical art, of the greatest masters who had preceded him, must have been one of quiet satisfaction to himself if he cast a thought backward to the evening, more than thirteen years ago, when he had last appeared in the same hall, and, not for the first time, unsuccessfully sought the suffrages of the same public. Even now, however, though he was received with the respect due to a musician of his great standing, he was not to taste the enjoyment of feeling that he had aroused the enthusiasm, hardly that he had awakened the sympathy, of his audience. The Gewandhaus public, rarely demonstrative, preserved its special attitude of coldness and reserve towards him, and though he may have enjoyed the society of his personal friends, he was probably glad to find himself back again in the genial atmosphere of his surroundings in Vienna, where, in spite of the survival of a hostile attitude in certain organs of the press, his ground had become practically his own.

The Haydn Variations were performed in February or March at Breslau (twice), Aachen and Munster, under the respective conductors of the subscription concerts, and on March 13 the composer assisted, but with little success, in the performance of a Brahms programme at an Academy concert, Munich, under Levi, conducting the new work, and playing the solo of the D minor Concerto. In spite of Levi's continued efforts the musical circles of Munich remained indifferent to the master's music.

The Haydn Variations were heard for the first time in London at the Philharmonic concert of May 24, 1875, under W. G. Cusins.

The programmes performed at the two 'extra' concerts of the Vienna Gesellschaft were: On March 2--

1. Schubert: _Kyrie_ and _Credo_ from the Mass in B flat.

(Unpublished; first performance.)

2. Schumann: Music to 'Manfred.'

On March 31--Handel's 'Solomon.'

'We can only thank the conductor for bringing this work forward; the performance was ideal,' says one of the critics in his notice of the oratorio.

The last concert of the season, on April 19, presented a varied programme:

1. Haydn: Symphony in E flat major.

2. A. Dietrich: Concerto for Violin (Violin, Herr Lauterbach).

3. J. Brahms: Schicksalslied.

4. J. Rietz: Arioso for Violin with organ accompaniment.

5. J. S. Bach: Pastorale for Orchestra from the Christmas Oratorio.

6. Handel: Last Chorus from the first part of 'Solomon.'