The concert attracted a great audience, which included prominent musicians from various parts of the United Kingdom. The impression created by the symphony was profound, and, following that of the German Requiem and of the great chamber music compositions and songs which had now for some years been finding their way to the hearts of music lovers in this country, formed, as Stanford says, 'an imperishable keystone to Brahms' fame amongst Britons.'[54] The new work was performed in London a few weeks later at the Philharmonic concert of April 16, under W. G.

Cusins.

Probably Brahms' Vienna friends and admirers little dreamed how near they had been at this time to losing their favourite. The position of municipal music-director at Dusseldorf was pressed on his acceptance in the autumn of 1876, and he was sufficiently tempted by it to be characteristically unable to decide on a negative answer. He was, indeed, so long in coming to a final resolution, that the Dusseldorf authorities had every reason to feel persuaded they had secured him for the opening of the year 1877. At the last moment he wrote: 'I cannot make up my mind to it.' This seems to have been the last occasion on which he entertained the idea of binding himself to the performance of fixed duties, though it has been surmised that he might have consented at a somewhat later period to associate himself with a high class for composition at the conservatoire of the Vienna 'Gesellschaft,' if he had been approached by the principal, Josef Hellmesberger, on the subject of forming one.

Certain incidents belonging to the autumn of 1877, related by Widmann in his Brahms' 'Recollections,' show that at this time, when the master had successfully proved his powers in every form of composition for the concert-room, the old desire to try his hand at writing for the stage revived within him. Brahms and Widmann met at Mannheim, and were present at the production, on September 30, of Gotz's unfinished opera, 'Francesca di Rimini,' under Frank. In the course of a long _tete-a-tete_, held on their return to their hotel after the performance, Brahms clearly explained his views on the subject of opera texts, 'letting it be seen,' says Widmann, 'that any resolution he might have formed against composing an opera might give way were he to find himself in possession of a libretto really to his liking.'

The convictions professed on this occasion by the composer may be traced to an attitude of mind similar to that to which we referred on recording his conversation with Bulthaupt. Strange as it may appear, they have a fundamental kinship with those which led Wagner to embark on his career as a musico-dramatic reformer, though the methods proposed by Brahms were not only much more drastic than those pursued by Wagner, but ran, as Widmann has observed, directly in the opposite direction from that taken by the development of modern art as represented by this master.

'The composition of music to the entire drama seemed to Brahms unnecessary and even mischievous. Only the culminating points and those parts of the action should be set for which music would be an inherently suitable medium of expression. The librettist would thus gain space and freedom for the dramatic development of his subject, whilst the composer would be at liberty to devote himself solely to the purposes of his art which would be best served if he were able to concentrate his energies on a definite situation such as a jubilant _ensemble_.'

From this it would appear that the incongruity essential to the very existence of what is generally understood as Opera, as distinct from the early German Singspiel, was so strongly felt by Brahms as to seem to him incompatible with dramatic truth, and to be absolutely prohibitive in his own case of the dramatic exercise of his art. The matter is, however, susceptible of another explanation.

It is clear that Brahms, when contemplating the composition of an opera, was bound by the necessities of his position to seek the attainment of dramatic truth in a direction other than that in which Wagner had led the way with such triumphant result. Every circumstance in the careers of the two men, and not least the representative position achieved by each in his own sphere, precluded the possibility that Brahms should run the risk of appearing to seek to emulate Wagner on his own ground, though it would be difficult to believe that he at no time cast longing thoughts towards the logical, consistent, rich means of artistic effect offered by the Melos.[55] No one can doubt that if he had been in a position, and had chosen, to use it, he would have employed it in his own way and for his own original purposes and effects. The skill with which he might have handled it in opera is to some small extent indicated in the Rhapsody (Goethe's 'Harzreise'), where the method of the two first sections is very much that of the Melos, whilst the prayer, affording an opportunity 'inherently suitable for musical expression,' reverts to the rhythmical melody of musical tradition. That Brahms had a respect almost amounting to veneration for Wagner's powers is matter of common knowledge. Though he was never present at a Bayreuth performance, he had studied Wagner's scores exhaustively, and, in the sense of his intimate acquaintance with them, was accustomed to call himself the 'best of all Wagnerians.' An anecdote related by Richard Heuberger,[56] to whom the master gave informal instruction in composition for a time from early in 1878, is highly illustrative in this connection. Heuberger says:

'... Continuing his corrections, Brahms did not confine himself to remarks on the composition itself, but considered the handwriting also worthy of his notice. He pointed out that I had not placed crotchet under crotchet, and that this impaired the legibility of the manuscript; he advised me to be particular to slur the groups of notes with exactness.... "Look here," he said, fetching from the next room Wagner's autograph score of "Tannhauser," which he opened at the long B major movement of the second act; "Wagner has taken pains to place each of the five sharps exactly in its place on _every_ line of _every_ page, and in spite of all this precision the writing is easy and flowing. If _such_ a man can write so neatly, you must do so too." He turned over the entire movement and pointed reproachfully to almost every sharp. I felt continually smaller, especially as Brahms talked himself into a kind of didactic wrathfulness. I was struck completely dumb, however, when, on my remarking that Wagner must be held chiefly responsible for the confusion prevailing in the heads of us young people, Brahms cried as though he had been stung, "_Nonsense_; the _misunderstood_ Wagner has done it. Those understand _nothing_ of the real Wagner who are led astray by him. Wagner's is one of the clearest heads that ever existed in the world!"'

That Brahms was aware that the resolution to compose an opera would place him in a net of difficulties that might practically be summed up in the one word 'Wagner' is no mere conjecture. Fraulein Anna Ettlinger, an intimate friend of Levi and Allgeyer, who knew Brahms well both at Carlsruhe and Munich, relates in an article on Levi, that Brahms answered a question put to him in Munich in the course of the seventies, as to why he had written no opera by saying, 'Beside Wagner it is impossible.' It may fairly be concluded that Brahms, in the late seventies, merely 'coquetted,' as Widmann expresses it, with the idea of composing for the stage, though no doubt with considerable regret.[57]

It cannot be said that the subjects he proposed to Widmann appear happy, but his suggestions must not be taken too seriously.

'He recommended to me Gozzi's magical farces and fabled comedies, especially "King Stag" and "The Ravens." He was also interested in "The Open Secret," and preferred Gozzi's lighter arrangement of the piece to Calderon's more formal original.... After reading "King Stag" carefully through several times, I was not only seized with a certain hopelessness as to whether I could ever succeed in making a rational, poetical opera text out of this mad farce, but disturbed by the anxiety as to whether, even if it were successfully adapted, it could really interest a modern theatre-going public.... I found myself continually thinking that such an opera, even though Brahms had composed for it the most beautiful, glorious music, as would undoubtedly have been the case, could not be regarded as essentially anything else than a sort of second "Zauberflote," and thus as a retrogression in the development of operatic art.'[58]

Nothing, in short, resulted from the talk between Brahms and Widmann, and the suitable libretto was, as we know, never found. This is, perhaps, little to be regretted. Not, indeed, because the composer lacked the dramatic instinct necessary for the successful composition of opera. No one who has heard him quote a few lines from a classical play can doubt that he possessed this qualification in an eminent degree, and his sensitiveness to dramatic effect was matter for frequent comment by those who accompanied him to the theatre. It is, however, difficult to imagine that Brahms could have been content to compose music to a purely comic text, or, indeed, to one that did not contain elements of deep pathos; whilst a quasi-comic opera, in which allegory lay hidden, must almost certainly have been found, as Widmann perceived, unsuitable to modern taste. On the other hand, Brahms' constitutional shyness and reticence, fostered through long years of varied experience until they became invincible, must, we believe, have proved obstacles to the successful completion of a serious opera in any practicable meaning of the word, even if they had allowed him to attempt one. They are more or less traceable in the libretto difficulty; in his suggestion of 'King Stag,' which he recommended especially on account of its fun, 'accompanied throughout by the most pathetic earnestness'; in other words, because the earnestness is covered by the fun. It is difficult to imagine the man who habitually veiled the tenderness of his nature behind a playful saying or an abrupt manner, who did not allow himself to inquire about the possibilities of passionate feeling that might lie dormant within him, coming out of his reserve to use the strong play of emotion as the immediate and capital medium for his effects. The energy of feeling, the deeply pathetic beauty which vitalize the master's purely instrumental music, are surrounded and protected by an intellectual atmosphere which, on a first hearing of his larger works, sometimes seems to amount to austerity, and to repel rather than attract. His love-songs--those of them which are not folk-songs--are for the most part dreamings of an ideal, and not the ideal of a man who could lay his heart bare on the theatre boards. Not wholly fanciful is the association in which Brahms, in a letter to Widmann, jokingly placed his two life renunciations, of the composition of an opera and of marriage. The extracts from favourite authors entered by Johannes during the early fifties in the little manuscript books described by Kalbeck, the passages found in 'The young Kreisler's treasure-chest, March, 1854,' remain significant not only of the young musician of twenty, but also of the master of forty, fifty, sixty years, and the quotation from Friedrich v. Sallet might probably stand as the true history of Brahms'

inner life.

'One generally finds the highest degree of what is called _openness_ in the most frivolous and thoughtless persons; of that which is called _reserve_, in the deepest, richest and truest minds. And, indeed, I am glad to be communicative, and like a full, free flow of conversation during the clinking of cups; whatever noble thought may have occurred to me should not have been gained for myself, but, if possible, for the world. Nevertheless, there is in the mind a holy of holies. I would not bring that forth which shines brightly there, hidden away in the inmost recess, to glimmer vainly and childishly in the universal light of day. Let it remain there in sacred night. I dare not even tell it in barren words to my friend, however noble, not even to my beloved (if I had one). To what purpose? I might use one single misleading expression, the other might misunderstand one single expression, and my divine image, reflected from a concave mirror, become a distortion, common or trivial, or even deformed and ridiculous.... To analyze and describe the sacred within us is a shameless desecration. If the other has a spiritual eye that is worthy to perceive, he may quietly await one of those blissful moments when the curtain of mists breaks and a swift, comprehensive glance into the sanctuary of the temple is allowed to the worthy one, and in such moments is celebrated the high festival of friendship as of love. For myself, I dare reveal nothing of it in words save in poetry. There I may do so, for it happens in some divine way that is incomprehensible to me....'[59]

We have henceforth, therefore, only to observe the unwearied energy with which Brahms, during the succeeding years, added one work after another to the list of his compositions in each and every branch of serious music for the chamber and the concert-room: songs, vocal duets, choral works and instrumental solos accompanied and unaccompanied, concerted music for solo instruments, symphonies. The publications of the year 1877 were the Symphony and the four sets of Songs, Op. 69, 70, 71, 72, twenty-four songs in all, some of the texts of which are by Carl Candidus, Carl Lemke, Gottfried Keller, etc., and others imitations of folk-songs of various nationalities. Dr. Deiters says of them in his 'Johannes Brahms':

'As it seems to us, the composer identifies himself here more and more closely with classical form and achieves ever purer refinement of his material. Turn where one will (we mention for instance "Des Liebsten Schwur" from Op. 69) there can be no hesitation in counting these songs with the best to be found of their kind. Again we are constantly reminded of Franz Schubert, whose wealth of melody is revived, whilst in conciseness of construction, in conscious mastery of form, he is here greatly surpassed.'

Heuberger gives a pleasant glimpse of Brahms co-operating in a festival performance arranged for December, 1877, by the Academic Choral Society of Vienna in honour of its distinguished honorary member, Billroth.

Invited by Heuberger, Dr. Eyrich's successor as conductor of the society, to take part in the proceedings, the master at once promised to conduct two of his choruses, 'Ich schnell mein Horn' and 'Lied vom Herrn von Falkenstein,' as arranged for the occasion for men's voices by Heuberger, and, on his appearance at the last rehearsal to go through the well-prepared compositions, was greeted with a hurricane of welcome by the over two hundred students who formed the choir. At the festival performance next day

'Brahms joined in the students' songs as lustily as his rough, broken voice would permit. He had, as he told me, a very good soprano voice as a boy, but had spoilt it by singing too much during its mutation period.'

Of another occasion, a party at Billroth's house, when choruses by Brahms and Goldmark were to be performed, Heuberger relates:

'By Brahms' suggestion I directed the preliminary practices which took place at the houses of some of his friends, the Osers and others. The day before the party Brahms and Goldmark came to the last rehearsal. The so-reputed cross-grained Brahms now conducted his "Marienlieder" and other works without much alteration of the nuances that I had practised. Goldmark, on the contrary, who was as much liked in private life as he was dreaded at rehearsal, studied indefatigably on and on.'[60]

The publication of Brahms' first Symphony in C minor was almost immediately followed by the appearance of a second one in D major, completed during the summer months of 1877 at the beloved Lichtenthal.

It was, like the earlier work, played by Brahms and Brull before an invited circle at Ehrbar's as a pianoforte duet (composer's arrangement) a few days before the date, December 11, first announced for its performance at a Vienna Philharmonic concert. Cause arose at the last moment for the postponement of this event, and the work was given for the first time in public at the succeeding Philharmonic concert of December 30, under Hans Richter's direction. The second performance, conducted by Brahms, took place at the Leipzig Gewandhaus on January 10, 1878.

The early fortunes of this second symphony were singularly various, and contrasted strangely with those of its predecessor. In Vienna, where the first had been received with reserve, the second achieved an instant, almost popular, success. It was warmly received by the audience, and was discussed by nearly all sections of the press in terms of cordial approval. It was of a 'more attractive character,' more 'understandable'

than its predecessor. It was to be preferred, too, inasmuch as the composer had not this time 'entered the lists with Beethoven.' The third movement was especially praised for its 'original melody and rhythms.'

The work might be appropriately termed the 'Vienna Symphony,' reflecting as it did 'the fresh, healthy life only to be found in beautiful Vienna.' In Leipzig, on the other hand, the work was little better than a failure. The impression of the preceding year was felt in the general applause, emphasized by a thrice-repeated flourish of trumpets and drums, which greeted the composer's entrance, and the audience maintained an attitude of polite cordiality throughout the performance of the symphony, courteously applauding between the movements and recalling the master at the end; but the enthusiasm of personal friends was not this time able to kindle any corresponding warmth in the bulk of the audience, or even to cover the general consciousness of the fact.

The most favourable of the press notices damned the work with faint praise, and Dorffel, whom we quote here and elsewhere because he alone of the professional Leipzig critics of the seventies seems to have been imbued with a sense of Brahms' artistic greatness, showed himself quite angry from disappointment.

'The Viennese,' he wrote, 'are much more easily satisfied than we.

We make quite different demands on Brahms, and require from him music which is something more than "pretty" and "very pretty" when he comes before us as a symphonist. Not that we do not wish to hear him in his complaisant moods, not that we disdain to accept from him pictures of real life, but we desire always to contemplate his genius, whether he displays it in a manner of his own, or depends on that of Beethoven. We have not discovered genius in the new symphony and should hardly have guessed it to be the work of Brahms had it been performed anonymously. We should have recognised the great mastery of form, the extremely skilful handling of the material, the conspicuous power of construction in short, which it displays, but should not have described it as pre-eminently distinguished by inventive power. We should have pronounced the work to be one worthy of respect, but not counting for much in the domain of symphony. Perhaps we may be mistaken; if so, the error should be pardonable, arising as it does from the great expectations which our reverence for the composer induced us to form.'

Possibly Dorffel's expectations had been founded too definitely upon his admiration of the first symphony, which may have caused him to take for granted that he would find in the second a reiteration of the exalted moods of its predecessor. The two works should not, however, be weighed in the balance one against the other, but should be considered side by side for the reason that they are not only different, but, as it were, supplementary. The first partakes of the nature of an epic in so far as it is conceived on a grand scale and is dominated throughout three of its four movements by a passionate intensity of feeling which is occupied only with the sublimities, whether of pain or of joy, and which, even after the pain has been conquered, seems to touch the joy theme itself with the pathos of a past tragedy. The second symphony is an idyll that is chiefly animated by the spirit of pure happiness and gently tender grace. A second symphony quickly following the first, which had shown any attempt to emulate that great work on its own ground, must of necessity have been doomed to result in artistic failure. The second symphony which the master actually wrote was one which, whilst it probably satisfied a need of his mind for the refreshment of change, was the appropriate sequel to its predecessor both in regard to its calm serenity of mood and to the clear melody of the thematic material in which the mood is so perfectly expressed. Those who are inexorable in their demands for 'originality' may, however, be referred to the 'adagio non troppo,' which, with its melodious phrases and its beautiful tone effects, its varied rhythms and its mysterious intention, offers opportunity for the energetic attention even of the accustomed listener, and is the one movement of the work which can hardly be at once followed with entire pleasure by the less initiated.

Meanwhile the first symphony was quickly making its way through Europe.

It was given with enormous success on November 11, 1877, at a concert of the Royal Academy of Arts, Berlin, by the orchestra of the music school under Joachim, and was very inadequately performed on the 16th of the same month at a Hamburg Philharmonic concert under von Bernuth. By the strongly-expressed desire of many musicians of the city, the composer was invited to conduct a repetition performance at the Philharmonic concert of January 18, 1878, when the work achieved considerable success. It was heard the same month in Bremen and Utrecht under Brahms, in Munster (J. O. Grimm), Dresden (F. Wullner), and in February for the second time in Breslau (Scholz), and made its way in the course of a few seasons to Basle, Zurich, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, the Hague, Edinburgh, Glasgow, and New York.

Brahms now, at the age of forty-four, was, indeed, in the enjoyment of almost unclouded recognition and success, which could be but little affected by the lack of enthusiasm of this or that audience. His position had become the more firmly established from the circumstance that very few of his works had taken the public by storm. The majority of them had grown almost imperceptibly into general acceptance by sheer force of their intrinsic value, of which but a modicum is to be found on the surface. It is certainly the case that at the outset of his modest entry on a public career he had gained with a single stroke, once and for always, the enthusiastic suffrage of some of the princes of his art; but the voice of Schumann, potent as it was, could be and had been only of avail to procure him a hearing--appreciation was, by the nature of things, beyond its control; and though Frau Schumann and Joachim and Stockhausen untiringly used the influence of their position as best beloved among the foremost favourites of the public to make a way for his music, even they could not immediately secure for it enthusiasm.

This it had gradually to gain by the independent means of its indwelling virtue, the insistency of its appeal, not to the outward seeming, but to the very heart of things.

A noteworthy addition was made in the course of the year 1877 to the ranks of Brahms' most stanch and influential supporters in the person of Hans von Bulow. Remark has already been made on the change observable in the early seventies in the attitude of this gifted, witty, whimsical, uncompromising, true-hearted musician towards Brahms' art. The publication of the first symphony completed his conversion, and he soon afterwards began an active propaganda on the master's behalf, to which, carried on as it was with characteristic vehemence and eccentricity, and started at the very moment when the great composer was achieving the highest summit of fame, an entirely fictitious importance has sometimes been ascribed in regard to its effect upon the outward development of Brahms' career. That von Bulow during the last ten or twelve years of his public activity partially devoted his energies to the task of forcing the master's works upon certain more or less indifferent audiences, whom he harangued and lectured concerning their lack of interest, had no bearing on the facts that Brahms' place amongst the immortals had been assured, by practically general consent, with the first few performances of the German Requiem, and that by the beginning of the eighties acceptance of his art had become world-wide. Bulow's new partisanship, destined to bring in its train distinguished friendships that were truly prized and reciprocated by the master, was touching from its sincerity, but is not of essential importance to Brahms' biographer.

It is, however, pleasant to be able to add to the extracts already quoted from Bulow's writings three which, dated October and November, 1877, mark the beginning of a new epoch in his own career, and in that of Brahms the commencement of an agreeable and valued personal intimacy.

The paragraphs are to be taken merely as illustrations of Bulow's changed sentiments, and not as necessarily expressing the personal views of the present writer.

'Only since my acquaintance with the "_tenth_" symphony, alias the _first_ symphony of Johannes Brahms, that is since six weeks, have I become so inaccessible and hard towards Bruch pieces and the like. I do not call it the "_tenth_" in the sense of its relation to the "_ninth_"....'

'I believe it is not without the intelligence of chance that Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms are in alliteration.'

'The imagination of Bach seems, in his clavier works, to be dominated by the organ, that of Beethoven by the orchestra, that of Brahms by both.'

[51] Schumann's essay, 'New Paths.'

[52] The variations for orchestra on Haydn's theme and six of Brahms'

songs, sung by Henschel, were included in the programme of the concert.

[53] Goethe's song, 'Unuberwindlich,' set by Brahms and published in 1877 as No. 6 of Op. 72: 'Though a thousand vows I've taken.'

[54] Article in the _New York Outlook_, July 25, 1903.

[55] See Vol. I., Appendix No. 1.

[56] _Die Musik_, in the article referred to in a previous chapter.

[57] Fraulein Ettlinger informs the author that it was she herself who put the question to the master and received his answer. For the article on Levi see 'Biographisches Jahrbuch und Deutscher Nekrolog,' 1902.

[58] Widmann's 'Brahms Recollections,' p. 38 and following.

[59] Kalbeck's 'Johannes Brahms,' p. 187 and following.

[60] _Die Musik_, No. 5 of 1902.

CHAPTER XVIII 1878-1881

Hamburg Philharmonic Jubilee Festival--Violin Concerto: first performance by Joachim--Pianoforte Pieces, Op. 76--Sonata for Pianoforte and Violin--First performances--Brahms at Crefeld--Rhapsodies for Pianoforte--Heuberger's studies with Brahms--Second Schumann Festival at Bonn--The two Overtures--Breslau honorary degree.

With the rapidly-increasing appreciation of Brahms' art observable during the second half of the seventies throughout the entire musical world, the condition of his private circumstances changed rapidly also.