'But now, please, use your best words to assure your esteemed fellow members of the great pleasure they have given me and how grateful I am for their kindness. You can easily supply details which I am shy of adding and which, if written, might sound trivial and vain. You, however, are aware that such a friendly token of appreciation and sympathy is a very serious matter....

'Now, with hearty greeting to you and yours,

'Yours most sincerely, 'J. BRAHMS.'[66]

In his setting of 'Nanie,' dedicated to Frau Henriette Feuerbach and performed from the manuscript at this concert, Brahms has conceived the calm fatalistic spirit of classical antiquity represented in Schiller's funeral dirge as perfectly as he has embodied in the music of the German Requiem the passionate intensity of the writers of the Old and New Testaments. A current of tender pathos glides evenly through the lament, which is somewhat strengthened during the passing image of Aphrodite bewailing the loss of her son, but not sufficiently to disturb the smooth onward flow of the passages proceeding continuously from beginning to end of the work. It seems to suggest the ancient Greek idea of death as the final decree of destiny, hardly to be dreaded, not to be questioned or resisted, immutable even in the presence of beauty, just as clearly as the powerful contrasts of the Requiem present the Biblical conception of death as an enemy to be opposed and finally destroyed in the victory of an all-conquering love.

Dr. Carl Neumann describes a visit paid by him to Frau Feuerbach when she was seventy-five years of age, at her house in Ansbach. He went through two rooms.

'In the first was a grand piano on which lay Brahms' "Nanie"; in the second, one might say, dwelt the departed. Tall green plants stood in the window recesses obscuring the light. What the mother had of her son's works hung on the walls. The coloured sketch of a "Descent of the Cross," a flower study belonging to the time when the frame of "Plato's Feast" was painted, a drawing of the standing Iphigenia looking towards the land of Greece--here was her altar....

'We left this room. She sat down to the piano, at first as if to rest; then asked if I knew Brahms' "Nanie," which, as an admirer of her son's art, he had dedicated to her. She gave me the music to follow and began to play it by heart....

'Suddenly I looked up.... The woman at the piano in the black dress, a black veil on her white hair, seemed changed. The tall figure, bent forward and lost in tones and memories; was it not the tragic muse herself and was she not sounding a song of fate?

'In the spring of 1886 she once again met Brahms and heard "Nanie"

under Joachim.'[67]

The want of appreciation of the new concerto shown by the audience of the Leipzig Gewandhaus did not escape the notice of Hans von Bulow in his capacity as Brahms' champion, and he carried his band to Leipzig in the middle of March to give a series of three concerts, two of them respectively devoted to Beethoven and Brahms, and the other divided between Mendelssohn and Schumann. The Brahms programme included the C minor Symphony, Haydn Variations, and the D minor Concerto played by Bulow, the orchestra accompanying without a conductor. The applause which followed the movements of the symphony as the work proceeded was not hearty enough to satisfy the excitable capellmeister, who at the end of the third movement desired his orchestra to repeat it, and on the conclusion of the work turned round and addressed his audience. He had, he said, arranged the Brahms programme by express command of his Duke, who had desired that the Leipzig public should know how the symphony ought to be performed; and also to obtain satisfaction for the coldness manifested towards the composer on his appearance with the new concerto at the Gewandhaus on January 1. It need hardly be said that eccentric efforts such as this on the part of a musician for many years conspicuously identified with the New-German school could have no result one way or the other in directing the artistic leanings of the city.

Brahms' Pianoforte Concerto in B flat is of quite unusual dimensions, and differs not only from his first in D minor, but from almost every other preceding work of its kind, in containing four movements, the additional one of which, a long 'allegro appassionato,' succeeds immediately to the first allegro. Probably few hearers of the work would subscribe to the reason for this innovation given by the composer to his friend Billroth.

'When I asked him about it, he said that the opening movement appeared to him too simple; he required something strongly passionate before the equally simple andante.'

If anything of the usual meaning of the word 'simple' is to be attached to its use here--_i.e._, something without complication and easy of comprehension--it must be said that the second movement of the concerto, in spite of its passionate character, is very much simpler than the first. Its plan, whilst containing points of originality, is perfectly symmetrical, and stands out in well-balanced proportions clearly evident to the imagination.

The first movement, on the other hand, is extraordinarily difficult to grasp as a whole, partly on account of its great length, but still more from the ambiguity of the role assigned to the solo instrument on its entry after the first orchestral 'tutti.' The principle to be traced in the first movements of the concertos of Mozart and Beethoven, by giving to the solo, on each entry, something of the character of a brilliant improvisation, supported by the band, on the material of a preceding 'tutti,' insures for it a clearly defined position, and, whilst preserving a due balance between the orchestra and the solo instrument, lends contrast to the movement as a whole. Brahms would almost seem, in the instance under consideration, to have deliberately degraded the pianoforte from its legitimate position as dominant factor in its own domain. True, it enters with eight bars' quasi-improvisatory restatement of the principal theme, but it sinks immediately afterwards to occupy the subordinate role of the answering voice in a kind of antiphonal duet with the orchestra, which it imitates almost servilely, fragment by fragment, during a lengthy succession of bars. This method of treatment robs the solo, not only of its effect, but almost of its very _raison d'etre_, and, by blurring the outline of the movement, is probably chiefly answerable for the sense of fatigue, to which even Billroth confessed, that most people feel after listening to a performance of the entire work. This is not the place for a detailed discussion of the movement, which, with all its grandeur, scarcely realizes the great expectations warranted by its magnificent opening. A comparison of it with the first movement of Beethoven's Pianoforte Concerto in E flat will make the foregoing remarks clear, the more so as the ground-plan is much the same in the two compositions. The third and fourth movements of Brahms' concerto are as easy to follow as the second. The andante is fervent and melodious, and the finale offers to the ear a dainty feast of sound sparkling from beginning to end with graceful vivacity.

This concerto has, like its predecessor, sometimes been described as a symphony with pianoforte obligato. The comparison is in each case misleading. Both works are essentially based on the modern concerto form as established by Mozart.

The Concerto in B flat, published in 1882, was dedicated by Brahms to 'his dear friend and teacher Edward Marxsen.' It was performed--probably for the first time in England--by Charles Halle at one of the famous Manchester concerts, and by Heinrich Barth at a Crystal Palace Saturday concert of November, 1884. The present author played it in London December 13, 1888, at her matinee at Messrs. Broadwood's, and on February 14, 1891, at her private concert at the Royal Academy of Music, kindly accompanied in the composer's arrangement of the orchestral part for two pianofortes, on the first occasion by Mr. Otto Goldschmidt and Mr. Stephen Kemp, and on the second by Messrs. Stephen Kemp and Septimus Webbe. Frederic Lamond introduced it to the audience of the Philharmonic Society, St. James's Hall, on May 14, 1891. Since these dates the concerto has been frequently played in Great Britain by Leonard Borwick.

Fraulein Marie Baumeyer of Vienna was the first lady to perform the immensely difficult work. She played it in Graz in 1883, and later, in the composer's presence, at one of her concerts in Vienna.

The other publications of 1882 were a book of Romances and Songs for one or for two voices, and two books of Songs for one voice. The two Overtures and 'Nanie' were issued in 1881.

Brahms passed a considerable part of the first quarter of 1882 in Hamburg, to the joy of his friends there. He had written in good time to Frau Caroline to bespeak his favourite 'corner room,' and made his headquarters from the beginning of January with his stepmother. He had accepted an invitation to conduct his Requiem at the annual Good Friday concert of sacred music at the Stadt Theater, and was occupied several weeks beforehand with preliminary study and rehearsals. The choir of 200 consisted of the members of the Bach Society and opera chorus combined.

The performance, which took place on April 7, partook of the character of a solemn memorial service, and the audience properly abstained from applause, though the sixth number created an impression that would make itself audible. At the close of the concert the composer received a vote of cordial thanks tendered in the name of all present.

[Illustration: BRAHMS' LODGINGS AT ISCHL.

_By permission of Frau Maria Fellinger._]

The master stayed, for the second time, at Ischl during the summer months. Billroth, who was in the neighbourhood, writes of him in August:

'I should like to enjoy myself in Italy from September 15 till October 1. Brahms wishes to accompany me.... He has been very busy lately. Three books of songs have been published. A string quintet and a trio are ready, both of them simpler, shorter, brighter than his earlier things; he strives consciously for shortness and simplicity. He lately sent me the manuscript of a true work of art, the "Parzenlied" [Song of the Fates] from Goethe's "Iphigenia."

Very deep but simple.'

The journey to Italy duly took place, the proposed party of two being enlarged to one of four by the addition of Ignaz Brull and Simrock.

Original plans had to be modified on account of the exceptionally wet season, and the chief places visited were Vicenza, Padua, and Venice.

The personnel of Brahms' intimate friends in Vienna had remained on the whole much what it had become a very few years after his arrival in the Austrian capital. Of its closest circle the Fabers, Billroths, and Hanslicks, with whom must be associated Joachim's cousins, the various members of the Wittgenstein family--amongst them Frau Franz and Frau Dr.

Oser--still formed the nucleus. An acquaintance with Herr Victor von Miller zu Aichholz and his wife had meanwhile ripened into warm friendship, and their house became one of those whose hospitality was most frequently and gladly accepted by the master. Amongst the musicians, Carl Ferdinand Pohl, author of the standard Life of Mozart, and, since 1866, archivar to the Gesellschaft, was one of his dearest friends. With the leading professors of the conservatoire his relations continued very cordial, and amongst the younger musicians to whom, in addition to his early allies, Goldmark, Gansbacher and Epstein, he extended his friendly regard, may be mentioned Anton Door and Robert Fuchs. The feeling of warm friendship existing between Brahms and Johann Strauss has been commemorated in several well-known anecdotes. The autumn of 1881, however, brought to permanent residence in Vienna a family that before long made notable addition to the master's intimate circle. Special circumstances conduced to the speedy formation of a bond of friendship between Brahms and the new-comers, Dr. and Frau Fellinger.

In the first place, they were friends of Frau Schumann and her daughters, and as such had an instant claim on his courtesy, which he acknowledged by calling on them as soon as possible after their arrival. In the second, his interest was awakened by the fact that Frau Dr. Fellinger was the daughter of Frau Professor Lang-Kostlin, the gifted Josephine Lang, whose attractive personality and talent for composition made a strong impression upon Mendelssohn when he was a youth of twenty-one and some six years the lady's senior. The story of Josephine, who at the age of twenty-six married Professor Kostlin of Tubingen, is given in Hiller's 'Tonleben,' and Mendelssohn's congratulations to her bridegroom-elect may be read in the second volume of the 'Letters.' The talent for art which had come to her as a family inheritance was transmitted to her daughter, though with a difference.

Frau Dr. Fellinger's gifts have associated themselves especially with the plastic arts; in the first place with that of painting, but they have become well known in the musical world also by her busts and statuettes of Brahms, Billroth, and others belonging to their circle.

Her photographs of our master are now familiar to most music-lovers.

When it is added that Brahms found he could command in Dr. Fellinger's hospitable house, not only congenial intellectual sympathy, but the unceremonious intercourse with a simple, affectionate family circle in which he had through life found a pre-eminent source of happiness, it will easily be understood that he became a more and more frequent guest there, until, during the closing years of his life, it became for him almost a second home.

The master introduced two of his new works in the course of a few weeks'

journey undertaken in the winter of 1882-83. According to Simrock's Thematic Catalogue, the Pianoforte Trio in C major, the String Quintet in F major, and the 'Parzenlied' constitute the publications of 1883.

Early copies of the trio and quintet were sent out, however, and the works were publicly performed from them in December, 1882. An interesting entry in Frau Schumann's diary says:

'I had invited Koning and Muller to come and try Brahms' new trio with me on Thursday 21st [December]. Who should surprise us as we were playing it--he himself! He came from Strassburg and means to stay with us for Christmas. I played the trio first and he repeated it.'

Both works were performed on December 29 at a Museum chamber music concert--the Quintet by the Heermann-Muller party, the Trio by Brahms, Heermann, and Muller.

Amongst the early performances of the Trio were those on January 17 and 22 respectively in Berlin (Trio Concerts: Barth, de Ahna, Hausmann) and London (Monday Popular Concerts: Halle, Madame Neruda, Piatti), and at Hellmesberger's in Vienna on March 15.

The work has not become one of the most generally familiar of the master's compositions, though it is not easy to say why. It contains no trace of the 'heaven-storming Johannes,' but, like many of the later compositions, it breathes, and especially the first movement, with a rich, mellow warmth suggestive of one to whom the experiences of life have brought a solution of their own to its problems, which has quieted, if it has not altogether satisfied, the aspirations and impulses of youth.

The Quintet in F for strings is, for the most part, bright, concise, and easy to follow. As one of its special features may be mentioned the combination of the usual two middle movements in the second. It was given in Hamburg on the 22nd and in Berlin on the 23rd of January, respectively by Bargheer and Joachim and their colleagues (it should be noted that Hausmann had at this time succeeded Muller as the violoncellist of the Joachim Quartet), at Hellmesberger's on February 15, and at the Monday Popular, London, of March 5.

Brahms conducted the first performance of the Parzenlied in Basle on December 8, 1882. Excellently sung by the members of the Basle Choral Society, the work met with extraordinary success, and was repeated after the New Year by general desire. Similar results followed its performance in other towns, of which Strassburg and Crefeld should be specially mentioned. The programme of the Crefeld concert included the fifth movement of the Requiem. 'What is your _tempo_?' Brahms inquired, on the morning of the rehearsal, of Fraulein Antonia Kufferath, who was to sing the solo. The lady, not taking the question seriously from the composer of the music, waived a reply. 'No, I mean it; you have to hold out the long notes. Well, we shall understand each other,' he added; 'sing only as you feel, and I will follow with the chorus.'

These are characteristic words, and valuable in more than one sense. To most of the few works to which the master has placed metronome indications--and the Requiem is amongst these--he added them by special request, and attached to them only a limited importance. An absolutely and uniformly 'correct' pace for a piece of genuine music does not exist. The pace must vary to some extent according to subtle conditions existent in the performer, and the instinct of a really musical executant or conductor will, as a rule, be a safer guide, within limits, than what can be at best but the mechanical markings even of the composer himself.

The Parzenlied, received with enthusiasm throughout Brahms' tour in Germany and Switzerland, was not equally successful in Vienna, where it was heard for the first time at the Gesellschaft concert of February 18 under Gericke. The austere simplicity of the music, which paces majestically onward with the concentrated, resigned calm of despair, adds extraordinary force to Goethe's poem, but does not appeal to every audience, and the work has never become a prime favourite in the Austrian Kaiserstadt. The song is set for six-part chorus with orchestra, in plainer harmonic masses and with less employment of imitative counterpoint than we usually find in the works of Brahms, who has accommodated his music here, as in 'Nanie,' to the classical spirit of the text. A singular deviation, however, which occurs in the course of the setting, from the uncompromising severity of the words, furnishes a remarkable illustration of the composer's unconquerable idealism.

Comment was made in its place on the beautiful device by which he has sought to relieve the dark mood of Holderlin's 'Song of Destiny'--the addition of an instrumental postlude which breathes forth a message of tender consolation that the poet could hardly have rendered in words. In Schiller's 'Nanie' the lament, with all its calm, gives expression to a sentiment of compassionate sorrow that is perfectly reproduced in the master's music. Goethe's Fates, however, in their measured recitation of the gods' relentless cruelty, would have seemed to offer no possible opportunity for even the inarticulate expression of ruth. Least of all, it might be imagined, could any concession to the demands of the human heart have been found in the penultimate stanza of their song:

'The rulers exclude from Their favouring glances Entire generations, And heed not in children The once so beloved And still speaking features Of distant forefathers.'

Our Brahms, however, who, in spite of his increasing weight, his shaggy beard, his frequently rough manners, his unsatisfied affections, his impenetrable reserve, remained at fifty, in his heart of hearts, the very same being whom we have watched as the loving child of seven, the simple-minded boy of fourteen, the broken-hearted man of thirty, sobbing by the death-bed of his mother, cannot leave the dread gloom of his subject unrelieved by a single ray. He seems, in his setting of the last strophe but one, to concentrate attention on past kindness of the gods, and thus, perhaps, subtly to suggest a plea for present hope. How far the musician was justified in thus wandering from the obvious intention of his poet must be left to each hearer of the work to determine for himself. If it be the case, as has sometimes been suggested, that the variation was made by the composer in the musical interests of the piece as a work of art, it cannot be held to have fulfilled its purpose; for the striking inconsistency between words and music in the verse in question has a disturbing effect on the mind of the listener. We believe, however, that the true explanation of the master's procedure is more radical, and is to be found in the nature of the man in which that of the musician was grounded.

The Parzenlied was dedicated to 'His Highness George, Duke of Saxe-Meiningen,' and was included in a Brahms programme performed in Meiningen on April 2 to celebrate the Duke's birthday. The complete breakdown of Bulow's health necessitated his temporary retirement from his conductor's duties, which were divided on this occasion between Brahms and Court Capellmeister Franz Mannstadt, appointed to assist Bulow. Returning by a circuitous route to Vienna after a few days at the ducal castle, Brahms paid a short visit to Hamburg to take part in another Brahms programme arranged by the talented young conductor of the Cecilia Society, Julius Spengel. This was the first of several occasions on which the master gave testimony of his appreciation of Dr. Spengel's talents and musicianship by co-operating in the concerts of the society.

Brahms celebrated his fiftieth birthday by entertaining his friends Faber, Billroth, and Hanslick at a bachelor supper. He was occupied during the summer with the completion of a third symphony, on which he had worked the preceding year, and lived at Wiesbaden in a house that had belonged to the celebrated painter Ludwig Knaus, in whose former studio--Brahms' music-room for the nonce--the work was finished.

It was known to the composer that a delicate elderly lady inhabited the first-floor of the house of which Frau von Dewitz's flat, where he lodged, formed an upper story. Every night, therefore, on returning to his rooms, he took off his boots before going upstairs, and made the ascent in his socks, so that her rest should not be disturbed. This anecdote is but one amongst several of the same kind that have been related to the author by Brahms' intimate associates. Samples of another variety should not, however, be omitted.

A private performance of the new symphony, this time arranged for two pianofortes, was given as usual at Ehrbar's by Brahms and Brull, and aroused immense expectations for the future of the work. Amongst the listeners was a musician who, not having hitherto allowed himself to be suspected of a partiality for the master's art, expressed his enthusiastic admiration of the composition. 'Have you had any conversation with X?' young Mr. Ehrbar asked Brahms; 'he has been telling me how delighted he is with the symphony.' 'And have you told him that he very often lies when he opens his mouth?' angrily retorted the composer, who could never bring himself to submit to the humiliation of accepting a compliment which he suspected--perhaps unjustly in this case--of being insincere.

A terrible rebuff was administered by him on the evening of a first Gewandhaus performance. It must be owned that Brahms was seldom in his happiest mood when on a visit to Leipzig; he was well aware that his music was not appreciated within the official 'ring' there, and suspiciously resented any well-meant efforts made to ignore this fact.

'And where are you going to lead us to-night, Herr Doctor?' inquired one of the committee a few minutes before the beginning of the concert, assuming a conciliatory manner as he smoothed on his white kid gloves; 'to heaven?' 'It is the same to me where you go,' rejoined Brahms.

The first performance of the Symphony in F major (No. 3) took place in Vienna at the Philharmonic concert of December 2, under Hans Richter, who was, according to Hanslick, originally responsible for the name 'the Brahms Eroica,' by which it has occasionally been called. Whether or not the suggestion is happy, a saying of the kind, probably uttered on the impulse of the moment, should not be taken very seriously.

Nothing of the quiescent autumn mood which we have observed in the master's chamber music of this period is to be traced in either of his symphonies, and the third, like its companions, represents him in the zenith of his energies, working happily in the consciousness of his absolute command over the resources of his art. Whether it be judged by its effect as an entire work or studied movement by movement, whether each movement be listened to as a whole or analyzed into its component parts, all is found to be without halt of inspiration or flaw in workmanship. Each theme is striking and pregnant, and, though contrasting with what precedes it, seems to belong inevitably to the movement and place in which it occurs, whilst the development of the thematic material is so masterly that to speak of admiring it seems almost ridiculous. The last movement closes with a very beautiful and distinctive Brahms coda. The third symphony is more immediately easy to follow than the first, and of broader atmosphere than the second. It is of an essentially objective character, and belongs absolutely to the domain of pure music.

The supreme and glorious pre-eminence which the great master had by this time attained in contemporary estimation naturally made it an object of competition with concert-givers and directors to announce the earliest performances of his works, and this was especially the case in the rare event of a new symphony which succeeded its immediate predecessor after an interval of six years. Brahms, however, had his own ideas on this matter, as on every other that he thought important, and after the first performance of the work in Vienna he sent the manuscript to Joachim in Berlin, and begged him to conduct the second performance when and where he liked. This proceeding would hardly have been noteworthy under the circumstances of intimate friendship which had so long united the two musicians, had it not been that the old relation between Brahms and Joachim had been clouded during the past year or two, during which there had been a cessation of their former affectionate intercourse. When, therefore, it became known that Joachim, acting on the composer's wish, proposed to conduct the symphony at one of the subscription concerts of the Royal Academy of Arts, Berlin, so much disappointment and heart-burning were felt and expressed that Joachim, although he had already replied in the affirmative to Brahms' request, consented to write again and ask what his wishes really were. The answer came without delay, and was clear enough to set the matter quite at rest. Brahms desired that the performance should be committed unreservedly to the care of his old friend.