'I hope also to see, or better still to hear, something new of yours soon. You, too, should remember the above-named symphony beginnings, but not before Henry and Demetrius.[45]

'I always get into a good humour when I write to you. You are a kind of physician for me.

'Adieu.

'Your R. SCHU.'

Some idea of the happy week passed by the three friends in the constant society of their 'master' may be gathered from Moser's charming description in his Life of Joachim. Schumann could not see enough of his beloved young favourites, Joachim and Brahms, and readily extended his cordiality to their companion Grimm. The third subscription concert was a veritable Schumann festival. Joachim conducted the master's fourth symphony, 'evidently with great delight and love,' says the _Hanover Courier_, as well as Beethoven's Pianoforte Concerto in E flat, played by Frau Schumann, and performed Schumann's lately-written Violin Fantasia dedicated to him and first played at Dusseldorf. There were plenty of opportunities for private meetings in Joachim's rooms, in the railway restaurant, and elsewhere, that were unshadowed by any presentiment of an impending catastrophe; for Schumann was unusually bright and communicative, and took pleasure in amusing his young friends with anecdotes of his own early experiences. The hours thus passed were tenderly remembered in after-years by those who had been gladdened by the setting radiance of a light soon to be extinguished.

'What a high festival we have had through the Schumanns' visit,'

writes Brahms, a few days after their departure, to Dietrich in Dusseldorf. 'Everything has seemed alive since. Greet the great ones from me many times.'[46]

A week after their return Schumann wrote:

'_February 6, 1854._

'DEAR JOACHIM,

'We have been at home eight days, and have not yet sent a word to you and your companions. I have, however, frequently written to you with invisible ink.... We have often thought of the past days; may others like them come quickly! The kind royal family, the excellent orchestra, and the two young daemons moving amid the scenes--we shall not soon forget it.

'The cigars are very much to my liking. It seems they were a handshake from Brahms, and, as usual, a very substantial and agreeable one.

'Write to me soon--in words and in tones!

'R. SCHU.'

It is sad to realize that the very day after sending this letter, so free from signs of depression, so bright and healthy in tone, Schumann wrote down his last musical thought, the now well-known Theme in E flat; and that three weeks later he was overtaken by the crisis of his terrible malady. Alarming symptoms declared themselves as the month went on; the master became a prey to attacks of mental agony, and was distressed by illusions, imagining that he constantly heard one or more notes from the impression of which he was unable to rid himself. In the intervals of relief from his sufferings he continued to compose, and wrote several variations on his theme, which he fancied had been brought to him in the night by the spirits of Schubert and Mendelssohn; but his condition gave rise to such grave apprehension that he was constantly watched by his wife in turn with one or another devoted friend. On February 27, however, he managed to leave his house unobserved, and a few moments afterwards had thrown himself into the Rhine. He was rescued by some sailors belonging to a steamboat near, and conveyed to his home in a carriage, but his state continued so distressing that Frau Schumann, herself needing care at the time, was not allowed by the doctors to see him, and he was taken, on March 4, to the private establishment of Dr. Richarz at Endenich, near Bonn.

It would be difficult to describe in exaggerated terms the consternation with which a great part of the musical world, and especially the friends of Schumann's immediate circle, became aware of these overwhelming occurrences. Sorrow for the great master, love for the indulgent friend, alarmed sympathy for the stricken wife, kept the younger of his disciples in a state of restless agitation, which seems to have found its principal relief in the writing of letters of excited inquiry to Dietrich, the only one of their number on the scene of the catastrophe.

'Never in my life has anything so moved and deeply shaken me,'

wrote Theodor Kirchner, 'as the dreadful occurrence with our honoured, beloved Schumann.... We should all be terribly lonely without him, and as regards myself, all pleasure in my own endeavours would be gone.'

'Pray send me an exact description of the whole catastrophe _as quickly as possible_,' so ran Naumann's letter, 'especially if there is any hope of Schumann's complete restoration, how his unhappy wife has borne this cruel stroke of fate, and how you are yourself. I repeat my request for _immediate_ news.'

To the friends in Hanover, who had so lately seen Schumann in apparent enjoyment of unwonted health both of body and mind, the tidings, of which they first became informed through a paragraph in the _Cologne Gazette_, seemed too sudden and tragic to be credible.

'DEAR DIETRICH--'Joachim dashed off--

'If you have any feeling of friendship for Brahms and me, relieve our anxiety, and write word instantly whether Schumann is really as ill as the paper says, and let us know at once of any change in his condition. It is too grievous to be in uncertainty about the life of someone to whom we are bound with our best powers. I can scarcely wait for the hour that will bring me tidings of him. I am quite beside myself with dread.

'Write soon.

'Your J. JOACHIM.'

It was impossible, however, to wait for an answer, and no letter could have appeased the desire of the affectionate young musicians to be on the spot; so Brahms, having no fixed duties to detain him, started immediately for Dusseldorf, and Joachim hoped to follow, if only for a couple of days. On March 3 Johannes sent his report:

'DEAREST JOSEPH,

'Do come on Saturday; it comforts Frau Schumann to see certain dear faces.

'Schumann's condition seems to be improved. The physicians have hope, but no one is allowed to see him.

'I have already been with Frau Schumann. She wept very much, but was very glad to see me and to be able to expect you.

'We expect you on Sunday morning, and Grimm on Wednesday.

'Your 'JOHANNES.'[47]

'To my great relief,' wrote Dietrich a fortnight later to Naumann, 'Brahms came at once after hearing the dreadful news. Grimm is also here. Joachim was here for two days, and is coming again in a few weeks.'

At the end of the letter he adds:

'Brahms has written a quite wonderful trio, and is a man to be taken in every respect as a pattern. With all his depth, he is healthy, fresh, and lively, entirely untouched by modern morbidness.'

It now became the cherished duty of the young men to do what in them lay to support and comfort the sorely-tried wife in her desolation. Nothing, perhaps, could have helped and soothed her so much as the feeling that the tie which primarily bound them to her was that of their devotion to her husband, the knowledge that they mourned with her in a common grief, and that their sympathy was touched by their personal sense of what she had lost. Never, indeed, was more loyal sympathy offered for the consolation of sorrow, and it had its reward. After the first terrible days had been lived through, a calm and self-possession returned to the illustrious lady, which heightened, if possible, the young artists'

admiration of her. The news from Endenich improved towards the end of the month, and on April 1 even became reassuring. The patient was now passing his time walking, or quietly sleeping, undisturbed by fits of anxiety or delusions of hearing; was gentle towards his attendant, had conversed a little with him, and had even made a joke appropriate to the day. Frau Schumann summoned up courage to look with hope to the future, and allowed herself to be persuaded to resume some of her ordinary avocations. The short remainder of the musical season was, indeed, passed in necessary retirement; but the great pianist found solace in quietly studying her husband's compositions anew with Dietrich, Brahms, Grimm, and others of the circle, playing his great orchestral and choral works with them on the pianoforte, and listening in turn to their performances. Dietrich writes in March:

'Yesterday and the day before she went through the whole of Schumann's "Faust" music with us. We are with her every day, and it is impossible for me to think of leaving at present.'

Frau Schumann found congenial occupation in the summer in writing a set of variations on the theme of her husband's Album-Blatt, Op. 99, No. 1:

[Music: etc.]

--which itself refers to the composer's early work, Op. 5, Variations on a theme by Clara Wieck, and a touching memorial of Brahms' efforts to assist in diverting her mind from its burden of sorrow exists in his treatment of the same theme in his Variations for the pianoforte on a theme of Robert Schumann, Op. 9, dedicated to Frau Clara Schumann. This work was begun during the period of Frau Schumann's convalescence after the birth of her seventh child on June 11. Each new variation was brought to her as it was completed. Grimm, who remained at Dusseldorf during these months in close companionship with Johannes, christened the work 'Trost-Einsamkeit' (Consolation in loneliness), and remembered it as such ever afterwards. It tells plainly enough the story of the young composer's thoughts. It is full of references to Schumann and his wife--notably in the ninth variation, which contains note for note reminiscences of Schumann's Album-Blatt, Op. 99, No. 2, and in the tenth, in which the first four bars of Clara Wieck's original theme

[Music: etc.]

are introduced by diminution into the middle voice:

[Music]

The work is astounding in its evidence of the mastery already achieved by the young composer over the technique of variation form, in which he uses the complicated resources of contrapuntal science with absolute playfulness. For one illustration of this the reader may again be referred to the tenth variation, in which the original bass of Schumann's theme is used as the melody of the upper part and its inversion as the bass part, whilst the original melody (quoted on p.

159) is imitated by diminution in the middle part.

[Music: etc.]

We must resist the temptation to linger over the many interesting details of this noble work, as the aim of our pages is not a technical one; but we may note in passing that, of the sixteen variations which it contains, five are written in keys varying from that of the theme, a circumstance which again brings it into a certain association with Schumann.[48] Brahms, in his five other independent sets of variations for pianoforte, nearly follows the practice of the earlier masters, who confined themselves to the major and minor modes of one key.

Johannes had meanwhile, according to custom, sent the completed manuscript of his trio to Marxsen, and had speedily received it back again with his master's critical remarks. These he acknowledged on June 28 in a letter from which the following brief extracts are taken, sending Marxsen, at the same time, a collection of short pieces written at odds and ends of time, which he proposed to call 'Leaves from the Journal of a Musician, published by the Young Kreisler.'

'Let me thank you very much for having vouchsafed such a long letter, such a detailed examination to my trio. I will write about the proposed little alterations when I send you the printed copy. I have allowed the trio to lie in order to accustom myself to them.'

Asking Marxsen if he considers the pianoforte pieces worth publishing, he adds as to the proposed title: 'What do you think of it? Doesn't it please you? I must confess I should be sorry to strike it out.'[49] It must be presumed that Marxsen's opinion, coinciding with that of some of the young colleagues to whom the pieces were also shown, was unfavourable, for they did not see the light. We shall, however, meet with one or two of them in a few concert-programmes before long, and one will be found to have a particular interest for English readers.

The B major Trio, published in 1854 by Breitkopf and Hartel as Op. 8, which remained for many years but little known, has, with its beautiful youthful qualities, long since become dear to those who have yielded their hearts to the spell of Brahms' music. The composer's fertile fancy has betrayed him, in the first allegro, into some episodical writing which somewhat clouds the distinctness of outline, and impedes the listener in his appreciation of the distinguished beauties of the movement, and there are places in the finale where a certain disappointment succeeds to the conviction inspired by the impetuous opening subject; but in wealth of material, in the rare beauty of its principal themes, and in noble sincerity of expression, the trio occupies a distinguished place even amongst the examples of Brahms'

maturity. The scherzo with its trio are already masterly both in conception and treatment, and in the adagio we have promise of the deeply impressive slow movements which were moulded in ever-increasing perfection of structure by the composer's ripening genius. That Brahms retained an affection for this child of his young imagination is shown by his having published a revised edition of the work so late in his career as the year 1891. We must confess our preference for the original version, which is consistently representative of the composer as he was when he wrote it. The later one does not appear to us to have solved the difficulty of successfully applying to a work of art the process of grafting, upon the fresh, lovable immaturity of twenty-one, the practised but less mobile experience of fifty-seven.

The trio was performed for the first time in public, to the lasting musical distinction of America, on November 27, 1855, at William Mason's concert of chamber music in Dodsworth's Hall, New York, by the concert-giver, Theodor Thomas, and Carl Bergmann, to whom, therefore, belongs the honour of having inaugurated the public performances of Brahms' great series of works of this class. It was played, for the second time, at Breslau on December 18 of the same year. Many years elapsed before it was heard in England.