The Quartet in C minor for pianoforte and strings, published in the autumn, was produced at Hellmesberger's concert of November 18 by Brahms, Hellmesberger, Bachrich, and Popper, and was played in Hamburg on January 3, 1876, by Levin, Boie, Schmall, and Lee.

This composition must, as the reader is aware,[50] be referred to more than one period of Brahms' activity, and it can hardly be accepted as a representative work of either. Standing about midway, as to date of publication, between his two great series of masterpieces for pianoforte and strings, if it is to be classed amongst either, it must indubitably be reckoned with that of the sixties. Internal no less than external evidence, however, leaves little doubt that it points back to a still earlier date. The master of the seventies has so far succeeded in remodelling the work of early youth as to have given to the world in the quartet an interesting, and, on the whole, a clear, presentment of many noble musical thoughts, but it can hardly be said that he has effected its transformation into a homogeneous or apparently spontaneous work of art. Kalbeck mentions that a memorandum of Brahms assigns the date 1873-74 to the third and fourth movements. This, however, may probably refer only to their final completion. The second movement (the scherzo), which undoubtedly belongs to the period of the pianoforte sonata numbered as Op. 1, is consistently characteristic of the composer at that date. The first and third movements suggest a transition period.

The character of the ideas of the opening allegro with its impressive, deeply serious, first subject, and of the andante with its sustained melodious phrases, seems to give promise of the power which, manifested in a different mood, was reached in the earlier-published companion works. Of the finale it must be said that its themes are lacking in interest and developed mechanically. It may be surmised that the composer's pruning-knife was freely used in the course of his successive revisions of the work, and perhaps not only for the purpose of shortening it, but also for that of thinning out the score. From the circumstance that this is neither so luxuriant in detail nor so thickly instrumented as those of the other two pianoforte quartets, the C minor has, perhaps, the one advantage amongst the three of being the most readily appreciable at first hearing. It must, however, as the author conceives, be rated, as a completed work of art, decidedly below its glorious companions.

The relative popularity attained by the three pianoforte quartets in England may be fairly estimated by comparing the numbers of their respective performances at the Popular Concerts, London. The A major, introduced in January, 1872, was given ten times up to October, 1900, inclusive. The G minor, first performed in January, 1874, was given twenty-six times up to March, 1900. The C minor, first played in November, 1876, was not heard again until December, 1893.

[46] Allgeyers, 'Life of Feuerbach.'

[47] From the article in the _Gegenwart_ already referred to.

[48] Steiner's 'Johannes Brahms.'

[49] Reimann's 'Johannes Brahms,' p. 117.

[50] See Vol. II., pp. 77 and 138.

CHAPTER XVII 1876-1878

Tour in Holland--Third String Quartet--C minor Symphony--First performances--Varying impressions created by the work in Vienna and Leipzig--Brahms and Widmann at Mannheim--Second Symphony--Vienna and Leipzig differ as to its merits.

A journey to Holland early in 1876 brought unmixed gratification to the master. He conducted the Haydn Variations, and played the D minor Concerto at Utrecht on January 22 before an audience which received him with warm greeting, and gave every possible evidence of appreciation of his works. Immense applause followed each movement of the concerto, and at its close, when enthusiasm was at its height, two youthful ladies advanced to the platform, each bearing a cushion on which a wreath was placed, one decorated with ribbons of the Austrian colours (black and yellow), the other with those of Holland (red, white, and blue), which they smilingly presented to the composer. Brahms, not always inclined to receive tributes of the kind with urbanity, entered thoroughly into the happy spirit of this occasion, and showed plainly by his manner of accepting the compliment his pleasure at the charming way in which it had been offered. He was the guest during his several days' stay at Utrecht of Professor and Frau Engelmann, in whose house he at once became at home, dividing his time between walking, talking, playing with the children, making music with his hostess, seeing friends, and was in genial mood throughout the visit. It may be remarked _en passant_ that Brahms in a companionable frame of mind was not accustomed to let his friends off easily. His constitution was so robust, his spirit so active, his interests so numerous, that he liked, and expected others to like, to sit up talking with vivacity until the small hours of the morning, and would rise after about five hours' rest as unwearied and energetic as though he had had what would be for most people a normal amount of repose. It was a matter of course wherever he stayed that the means for making a cup of coffee should be left every night at his disposal for the next morning, and he generally returned from an early walk at about the hour when the household was beginning to stir.

After leaving Holland the master took part as conductor and pianist in concerts at Munster, where he directed the Triumphlied, Mannheim and Wiesbaden, playing the D minor Concerto on each occasion. He was, of course, the guest at Munster of Grimm and his wife. At Mannheim he stayed with his friend the well-known capellmeister Ernst Frank, who in the course of his career was associated as conductor with the musical life of Wurzburg, Vienna, Mannheim, and Hanover. The Wiesbaden concert is still vividly remembered by the present Landgraf of Hesse, who, then a young lad, heard Brahms for the first time on the occasion, and received an impression which laid the foundation of his enduring enthusiasm for the master's art.

Staying in the summer at Sassnitz in the Isle of Rugen, Brahms there completed his third String Quartet in B flat major, and announced the work in September to Professor Engelmann, to whom it is dedicated. It was played in Berlin before a private audience towards the end of October by the Joachim Quartet party, and by the same artists for the first time in public at their concert of October 30 in the hall of the Singakademie, on both occasions from the manuscript. The first concert performance after publication was that of the Hellmesberger party on November 30 in Vienna.

The general remarks offered in the preceding chapter on Brahms' chamber music for strings are to be applied to the Quartet in B flat major. Of its particular characteristics we may note the joyousness of the first movement, and the weird fantastic pathos of the third, in which a special relation is maintained between the viola and first violin. In the theme--of distinguished simplicity--and variations, with which the work closes, we have a concise but beautiful example of the composer's facility in this form.

The String Quartet in B flat was the first of the three composed by Brahms to be heard at the Popular Concerts, London. It was played on Monday, February 19, and Saturday, March 3, 1877, by Joachim, Ries, Straus, and Piatti. The A minor was performed on Monday, October 31, 1881, by Straus, Ries, Zerbini, and Piatti, and the C minor on Monday, December 7, 1855, by Madame Norman-Neruda, Ries, Straus, and Franz Neruda. These (Op. 51, Nos. 1 and 2) were not immediately repeated.

The great event of the year 1876 in the career of Brahms was the appearance of the long looked for symphony. As in the case of the Schicksalslied and the completed Triumphlied, the composer chose to produce his work for the first time at Carlsruhe, preferring, maybe, to test it for his own satisfaction in the comparative privacy of a small audience before submitting it to the searching ordeal of performance in either of the great musical centres of the Continent. The musical life of Carlsruhe had suffered sadly by the departure of Levi in 1872, and it was not until the appointment of Dessoff to the post of court capellmeister, on his resignation of his duties in Vienna in 1875, that the city began to regain some of its former artistic prestige. The performance on November 4, 1876, from the manuscript, of Brahms' first Symphony by the grand ducal orchestra under Dessoff, in the composer's presence, was a musical event that revived the recollections of a brilliant past, and added a new and abiding distinction to the artistic traditions of the small capital.

The work was heard a few days later in Mannheim, and on the 15th of the month in Munich; on both occasions under the composer's direction. Four other performances from the manuscript quickly followed--in Vienna (Gesellschaft), December 17, in Leipzig, January 18, and Breslau, January 23, 1877, in each case under the composer, and in Cambridge, March 8, 1877, under Joachim's direction.

The Symphony in C minor, whose appearance marks the period of Brahms'

achievement in the highest domain of absolute music, and the last that remained to him for conquest, is in the first place remarkable from the fact that it cannot properly be ranged beside the works in the same form produced by either of the two masters who were, chronologically speaking, his immediate predecessors. By its accomplishment, no less than by its aim, it must be regarded as the immediate successor to the symphonies of Beethoven in the same sense as these were the direct descendants of the symphonies of Mozart and Haydn, and it establishes Brahms' right to be accepted in its own domain as the heir, _par excellence_, of one and all of these masters. This alone were much.

Still more important, however, is the fact that our composer has known how to graft upon the symphony form inherited from Beethoven, Mozart, and Haydn, the giant stock of Bach's learning and resource, studied and absorbed by him until they had become a part of his own artistic individuality, in such a manner as to revivify it root and branch, and make it a supple instrument in his hand, not for the mechanical imitation of what had been done before him, but for the 'highest ideal musical expression of his own time.'[51] Few who listen with quickened ears to an adequate performance of the C minor Symphony can be in doubt that whilst in outward form and manner of construction it may be regarded as at once the epitome and the latest result of the past history of classical instrumental art, it is in spirit representative of its own time and even anticipatory of the future; that it not only reflects the soul of the musician, poet, and philosopher, but is suggestive of the higher vision of the prophet. It is this fact, for those who accept it as a fact, that constitutes the highest significance of Brahms' first symphony, and lends a real meaning to Bulow's well-known apophthegm of 'the three B's': Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms.

The shrill, clashing dissonances of the first introduction at once place the listener in the atmosphere of stern grandeur, passion, mystery, that surround, not this or that human life, but existence itself, in its apprehension by human intelligence; and the allegro to which it leads seems to the present writer to present as near an analogy as art can show to the processes of nature, built up as it is--first and second subjects and their treatment--from a few notes; from what one of the Vienna critics called 'mere twigs of thematic material'; from germs which are produced and reproduced, are transformed and reformed, and developed into a great organic whole instinct with noble, living melody.

The solemnly fervent andante sostenuto, the graceful, innocent allegretto with its sufficiently contrasted trio, afford the mind the refreshment of change of tone after the stormy splendour of the first movement; but the note of tragedy is resumed with the first sounds of the wonderful adagio that precedes, and essentially contains, the allegro of the fourth movement. Here, for some twenty-eight bars, the tension of feeling increases till destiny itself seems to be held in suspense; then, with the resolution of a chromatic chord, the horn sounds the unexpected major third of the key in a six-four of the tonic triad, and, continuing its strange, passionate cry, gradually disperses the mists of doubt and apprehension that have held the hearer as in a thrall, and carries him forward to the sublimity of joy that dwells in the final allegro.

'The last movement of your C minor Symphony,' wrote Billroth to Brahms in 1890, fourteen years after its first performance, 'has again lately excited me fearfully. Of what avail is the perfect, clear beauty of the principal subject in its thematically complete form? The horn returns at length with its romantic, impassioned cry as in the introduction, and all palpitates with longing, rapture and supersensuous exaltation and bliss.'

These words were not written by a fantastic dreamer, but by one of the most renowned scientific and practical surgeons and busiest men of his time, and in using them he did not employ a mere rhetorical phrase. The quality of imagination which speaks through Brahms' first symphony is akin to that of the early Sonata in F minor, though it is expressed in the later work with the help of more than twenty years additional study and experience. It is that of a seer of visions, and seems to culminate, in the passage to which Billroth alluded, in an ecstasy of wonder and joy. Brahms undoubtedly rose to the full height of his great powers in this first symphony, which remains unsurpassed in workmanship and sustained loftiness of idea, as well as in regard to the range of emotion to which it appeals.

It goes without saying that the supposed merits and demerits of the work became the subject of heated argument between the partisans and antagonists of the composer's art, the particulars of which would scarcely prove interesting to readers of the present day. In giving some account of the first impressions made by the symphony, we shall quote from those notices only which, whilst they are in themselves not without value, appear to have been written in a candid spirit, and do not offensively betray the influence of party bias. The reputation attaching to Hanslick's name, and the moderation of his style, seem to make it necessary to include something from his report, though he was avowedly a stanch admirer of Brahms' music, and had little liking for that of the New-German school. To balance this, we shall give a few sentences from the _Wiener Zeitung_, a journal to which, as the reader may remember, no suspicion can attach of handling our master's works with an excess of cordiality. It is necessary to explain, for the benefit of such readers as are not familiar with Brahms' large works, that the references to Beethoven's ninth symphony occurring in some of the press notices are occasioned by what has sometimes been described as Brahms' intentional allusion, in the principal theme of his finale, to Beethoven's setting of Schiller's 'Ode to Joy' in the last movement of the great 'ninth.'

The so-called allusion consists, not so much in a similarity of melody in Brahms' theme to that of Beethoven, as in its being written in the same hymn-form and harmonized as plainly as possible. There is no doubt whatever that everyone who listens to Brahms' first symphony thinks immediately, on the entrance of the final allegro, of Beethoven's ninth.

The association passes with the conclusion of the subject; Brahms'

movement develops on its own lines, which do not resemble those of Beethoven.

'In this work,' says Hanslick (_Neue Freie Presse_), 'Brahms' close affinity with Beethoven must become clear to every musician who has not already perceived it. The new symphony displays an energy of will, a logic of musical thought, a greatness of structural power and a mastery of technique such as are possessed by no other living composer. It would be a sorry mistake to attempt to criticize a work so serious and difficult of comprehension immediately after hearing it for the first time. Various listeners may have found the music more or less clear, more or less sympathetic; the one thing that we may speak of as a simple fact, accepted alike by friend and foe, is that no composer has yet approached so nearly to the great works of Beethoven as Brahms in the finale of the C minor Symphony.'

'... Brahms was an important personality, one to be treated most seriously before he wrote the symphony,' we read in the _Wiener Zeitung_; 'to our thinking his position remains just as it was. The strong moral earnestness, the depth and purity of his conception of the world and of life, and the intellectuality, which have always obtained for the esteem of the noble-minded and withheld from him the favour of the masses, are to be found again in this work. None the less, however, are the shadows there which but too easily accompany such lights; the want of inspiriting fancy, the absence of sensuous charm, and a sullen asceticism almost amounting to insipidity. His musical language has lost nothing of its mysterious reticence, of its close conciseness, of the elevation that on the whole distinguishes it, nor has it gained in facility, clearness, or comprehensibility.... So there is nothing that can be admired without reserve, until with sure step, with strong, proud gait that reminds one of the majesty of Beethoven, the finale strides out.

After a bar or two of deeply sorrowful complaint, it braces itself to a turbulent pizzicato of the strings, as a man who would get rid of pain by nerving himself to action.... With the entry of the chorale, the hearer experiences a sensation of brightness as at the rising of the sun after a night of sorrow. The last mists disappear as before the breaking light, and the movement closes in strong, healthy gladness.... Here the arts of music and poetry mingle indissolubly, and the musical, cannot be separated from the poetic, impression. Here is a truly great artistic achievement, the value of which is but slightly prejudiced by the consideration that the "joy" theme has an unmistakable resemblance as of son to father to that of the "ninth" symphony. This movement is worthy of the man who composed the German Requiem.'

Dorffel, of the _Leipziger Nachrichten_, wrote:

'The interest of all present was centred on the new symphony, which, on the whole, justified the great expectations with which it had been awaited. Its effect on the audience was the most intense that has been produced by any new symphony within our remembrance.

Schumann in his time did not attain such.... The composition is to be viewed and measured from the standpoint of Beethoven's ninth, and of Schumann's second, symphony. The aim of the three works is the same. To reach it, Brahms, well-equipped and daring spirit as he is, goes his own way. He is great in attack as his two predecessors, and has the same wide vision over the domain of spiritual-human existence.... As regards uninterrupted energy of creative power, we would give the palm to the first movement. The second, with its fervour and longing, accords with it. To the third we should gladly have listened longer. It supplied a counterpoise of sentiment to what had gone before which had not been maintained long enough when the movement closed. Of the finale we would almost venture to surmise that it gave the composer the most trouble. Here he relinquishes his independence, and flies to Beethoven in order to get new force for his climax. We do not regard the resort to Beethoven as accidental, but believe the composer to have been well aware of it. He came, however, to one over whom he could not prevail.

'A long pause followed the symphony; one, however, that was not long enough in some measure to quiet the exaltation of mind produced by the work. The songs and variations which followed, and which we should have welcomed at another time, were almost tiresome to us. Let the symphony be repeated soon, and, if possible, without other music.'[52]

Louis Ehlert says of the symphony:

'Brahms has a wide-reaching and speculative brain, and is a mixture of the musician of the good old times who heard many voices sounding together within him, whose very cradle cover was embroidered with a contrapuntal pentagram, and of the man of the present day with his variously cultured intellect.... What distinguishes his music from that of all his contemporaries is the mysterious apparition within it of another world--its gentle, pathetic tapping at the heart.

'The first movement of the symphony is, perhaps, the most artistically important of the work.... An inexorable causality proceeds from bar to bar, stayed by no illusion, and softened only by the distant light of a few solitary stars. In the introduction and finale the enigmatical sphinx seems to call to us, "That which ascends from me, mounting upwards to battle and to life, sinks back again within me. Of all life I, the eternal riddle, am the beginning and the end."'

It will be evident from what has been said that whatever the impression to be derived from familiar acquaintance with the symphony, immediate enthusiasm could hardly have been anticipated from any large general public--least of all by Brahms himself; but the presence at most of these first performances of devotees specially qualified for apprehending something of the significance of the work generally secured for it more than a mere _succes d'estime_. The listeners of Munich were the least appreciative. Those of Carlsruhe, Mannheim and Breslau were friendly. At Vienna certain favoured friends were privileged to listen to a private performance of the symphony by Brahms and Ignaz Brull, in the composer's arrangement as a pianoforte duet, at the pianoforte house of his friend Herr Hoffabrikant Friedrich Ehrbar, and went to the concert, therefore, with minds partially prepared for what they were to hear. At Leipzig a note of enthusiasm was perceptible at the crowded public rehearsal which preceded the Gewandhaus concert, owing partly to the fact that Brahms' Leipzig adherents had been strongly reinforced by the advent of friends from outside, some of whom added warmth and prestige to the occasion by their mere presence. The feeling for our master's art which, as we have seen, had been slowly growing amongst a number of Leipzig residents who belonged to no musical 'set,' will have been expressed with added zest and enjoyment when it was found that Frau Schumann and Joachim and Stockhausen had come to hear the symphony, whilst to the support of the von Herzogenbergs, von Holsteins, Theodor Kirchner, and other resident or lately resident friends, was added that of the Grimms from Munster, Dr. Hermann Deiters from Bonn, Professor and Frau Engelmann from Utrecht, Simrock from Berlin, and many other distinguished guests. Enthusiasm is contagious, and already at the rehearsal a success was ensured for the work, though perhaps it was not very warmly helped by the official patrons of the Gewandhaus.

'A regular Brahms party meeting had been organized,' says Bernsdorf in the _Signale_, now as ever inveterate in his own party bias, in which a fairly strong contingent from outside was associated with the resident admirers and champions of the composer. It is therefore a matter of course that the consumption of enthusiasm was enormous, and that the success of the symphony was one exceptional in the annals of the Gewandhaus.'

A large party of friends assembled at supper at the Hotel Hauffe after the concert. Brahms' health was proposed in genial fashion by Stockhausen. 'Hab' ich tausendmal geschworen,'[53] he suddenly sang out, starting to his feet and raising his glass. Needless to say that the toast, which was the more effective from the sense of victory filling the minds of those who had assisted at the evening's triumph, was honoured with the utmost enthusiasm.

The performance of the symphony by the Cambridge University Musical Society was given under special circumstances. Early in the year the university offered the master an honorary degree, acceptance of which would have involved him in a visit to England, since, by one of the university statutes, its degrees may not be conferred _in absentia_.

Brahms was not asked to write a new work for the occasion, a request he would properly have resented, but was merely invited to visit Cambridge for the purpose of receiving the degree, and was so far gratified by the compliment as to hesitate about his answer. Perhaps his mere reluctance to decline the invitation in spite of his dread of English customs and his ignorance of the language, may be accepted as stronger testimony of appreciation than might have been implied in the effusive acceptance of many another man. It may be doubted whether he would in any case have prevailed upon himself to undertake the journey; an indiscreet advertisement, however, inserted in _The Times_ by the Crystal Palace directors, who had heard a rumour of his possible visit, that if he should come he would be asked to conduct one of their Saturday concerts, immediately decided him to decline the University's proffered honour. He acknowledged the invitation by entrusting the MS. score and parts of the symphony to the care of Joachim, who was about starting on his yearly visit to England, for performance at Cambridge.

The programme of March 8 was as follows:

PART I.

W. G. Bennett: Overture, 'The Wood Nymph.'

Beethoven: Concerto for Violin and Orchestra.

Violin, Dr. Joachim.

Brahms: A Song of Destiny.

Bach: Violin Solos, Dr. Joachim.

Joachim: Elegiac Overture (in memory of H. Kleist).

PART II.

Brahms: Symphony in C minor.

The Symphony and the Elegiac Overture, the latter composed by Joachim in acknowledgment of the honorary degree offered him by the University and conferred in the afternoon of March 8, were given under his direction; the remainder of the programme was under that of the society's conductor, C. Villiers Stanford.