First public performances of the Pianoforte Concerto in Hanover, Leipzig, and Hamburg--Brahms, Joachim, and Stockhausen appear together in Hamburg--First public performance of the Serenade in D major--Ladies' Choir--Fraulein Friedchen Wagner--Compositions for women's chorus.

It is not difficult to realize something of the mingled feelings of hope and anxiety that must have filled the mind of Johannes on his arrival in Hanover in January, 1859. If the first chapter of his career had closed in triumphant fashion with the extraordinary series of events that followed his first little concert-journey, the second chapter can only be regarded as an intermezzo which was spent in quiet preparation for what was to succeed it. The prelude of his artistic life had been successfully completed in 1853; the main action was to begin with the performances in Hanover and Leipzig in the opening month of 1859. Brahms was almost extravagantly self-critical, but he must have felt encouraged when he remembered the substantial success of his debut as a composer at Leipzig immediately after the appearance of Schumann's famous article, and he knew that he had now attained a much more advanced stage of capacity. Such considerations, combined with the enthusiasm of his best friends, may well have raised his hopes high.

The concerto was heard at Hanover on January 22 under the most favourable conditions. Joachim conducted the orchestra, Johannes played the solo, and it would be hard to say which of the two young musicians was the more interested in the occasion, but the result of the performance was that the public was wearied and the musicians puzzled.

'The work had no great success with the public,' reported the Hanover correspondent of the _Signale_ ten days later, 'but'--and we seem to read the promptings of a Joachim in the following words--'it aroused the decided respect and sympathy of the best musicians for the gifted artist.'

'The work, with all its serious striving, its rejection of triviality, its skilled instrumentation, seemed difficult to understand, even dry, and in parts eminently fatiguing,' said another critic;[76] 'nevertheless Brahms gave the impression of being a really sterling musician, and it was conceded without reservation that he is not merely a virtuoso, but a great artist of pianoforte-playing.'

Johannes had to leave immediately for Leipzig, and he started from Hanover without knowing more about the impression produced there by his concerto than could be gathered from the reserve of the audience and the enthusiasm of his friend, but that his frame of mind was not despondent may be inferred from a paragraph which appeared in the _Signale_ immediately after his arrival.

'Herr Johannes Brahms is here, and will play his Concerto at the Gewandhaus concert of the 27th. He thinks of remaining the rest of the winter at Leipzig.'

It is necessary to remind the reader what kind of audience it was for whose acceptance our young composer was now about to submit his work.

Leipzig still occupied the position of musical capital of Europe to which it had been raised by the genius of Mendelssohn. By the most influential of its artistic circles, the premature death of this fascinating master (1809-1847) was still deplored as an almost recent event. Most of his old friends were living, and, in virtue of their former personal association with him, looked upon themselves as competent judges of all later aspirants to fame. It is matter of daily experience that the uninformed satellites of a man of genius are arrogant in proportion to their ignorance, and that even professional adepts of sincerity are apt to allow their horizon to be limited by their hero-worship. Musicians and amateurs, alike, of the Gewandhaus circle associated the idea of a concerto with the clear melody of Mozart and Beethoven, still, perhaps, regarding Beethoven as a little difficult to understand, with the attractive sparkle of Mendelssohn and with the opportunity for a display of the soloist's virtuosity afforded more or less by the works of all three masters. If asked to listen to a novelty, they expected that it should not be too unlike what they had heard before to be difficult to follow. Bernsdorf, newly appointed to succeed Brahms' friendly critic, Louis Kohler, on the staff of the conservative _Signale_, was himself a conservative of the most obstinate type, in some respects resembling the English J. W. Davison of the _Times_ and the _Musical World_, who was honestly convinced that the series of great masters had closed with Mendelssohn.

On the other hand, the New-Germans had by this time made considerable conquests in Leipzig, where they had established an important party organization, and had, as we have seen in an earlier chapter, even been admitted on trial to the platform of the Gewandhaus. The _Neue Zeitschrift_ was their organ, but they had supporters also amongst the journalists of the daily press, Ferdinand Gleich, of the _Leipziger Tagblatt_, being one of the principal. They were on the look-out for champions who would rally to their cause, and welcomed the unusual as such, though reserving their heartiest approval for the piquant, sounding, sensational, or even revolutionary.

To these two bodies of extremists our Johannes, with his inexperience, his ideal aims, his genius, and his dislike of the sensational, was now to appeal. Had he been compelled at the moment to declare for either party, he certainly would not have chosen the side of revolution. But he was gifted with an imagination at once profound, original, and romantic.

This sealed his fate with the men who considered themselves the modern representatives of classic art. The day after the concert he wrote to Joachim to announce--'a brilliant and decided failure.'

'In the first place,' he says, 'it really went very well; I played much better than in Hanover, and the orchestra capitally. The first rehearsal aroused no feeling whatever, either in the musicians or hearers. No hearers came, however, to the second, and not a muscle moved on the countenance of either of the musicians. In the evening Cherubini's Elisa overture was given, and then an Ave Maria of his uninterestingly sung, so I hoped Pfund's (the drummer's) roll would come at the right time.[77] The first movement and the second were heard without a sign. At the end three hands attempted to fall slowly one upon the other, upon which a quite audible hissing from all sides forbade such demonstrations. There is nothing else to write about the event, for no one has yet said a syllable to me about the work, David excepted, who was very kind....

'This failure has made no impression at all upon me, and the slight feeling of disappointment and flatness disappeared when I heard Haydn's C minor Symphony and the Ruins of Athens. In spite of all this, the concerto will please some day when I have improved its construction, and a second shall sound different.

'I believe it is the best thing that could happen to me; it makes one pull one's thoughts together and raises one's spirit.... But the hissing was too much?...

'The faces here looked dreadfully insipid when I came from Hanover, and was accustomed to seeing yours. Monday (January 31) I am going to Hamburg. There is interesting church music here on Sunday, and in the evening Faust at Frau Frege's.'[78]

The grimness of the young composer's disappointment may be read between these Spartan lines. But perhaps he has exaggerated his failure. Let us see what Bernsdorf has to say.

'It is sad, but true; new works do not succeed in Leipzig. Again at the fourteenth Gewandhaus concert was a composition borne to the grave. This work, however, cannot give pleasure. Save its serious intention, it has nothing to offer but waste, barren dreariness truly disconsolate. Its invention is neither attractive nor agreeable.... And for more than three-quarters of an hour must one endure this rooting and rummaging, this dragging and drawing, this tearing and patching of phrases and flourishes! Not only must one take in this fermenting mass; one must also swallow a dessert of the shrillest dissonances and most unpleasant sounds. With deliberate intention, Herr Brahms has made the pianoforte part of his concerto as uninteresting as possible; it contains no effective treatment of the instrument, no new and ingenious passages, and wherever something appears which gives promise of effect, it is immediately crushed and suffocated by a thick crust of orchestral accompaniment. It must be observed, finally, that Herr Brahms'

pianoforte technique does not satisfy the demands we have a right to make of a concert-player of the present day.'

Nothing could be more representative than these lines, of the conscientious bigotry which almost always opposes what is really original, though it is expressed by Bernsdorf with exceptional coarseness. The narrowly orthodox antagonists of Brahms' art resembled those who had levelled their shafts against Beethoven and Schumann each in their day. The young composer fared differently at the hands of the progressists. The _Neue Zeitschrift_ wrote:

'The appearance of Johannes Brahms with a new concerto was bound to attract our especial attention. In the first place, on account of the hopes entertained of an artist who had been introduced in a most exceptional manner, even before his first appearance, by the enthusiastic words of a revered master; and secondly, from the rarity of his subsequent public announcements and the retirement in which he has lived.

'Notwithstanding its undeniable want of outward effect, we regard the poetic contents of the concerto as an unmistakable sign of significant and original creative power; and, in face of the belittling criticisms of a certain portion of the public and press, we consider it our duty to insist on the admirable sides of the work, and to protest against the not very estimable manner in which judgment has been passed upon it.'

Ferdinand Gleich writes:

'Who would or could ignore in this new work the tokens of an eminent creative endowment! We least of all who regard it as our duty to encourage young talent. Many doubts, however, suggested themselves as we listened to this concert-piece in large form.

This work again suggests a condition of indefiniteness and fermentation, a wrestling for a method of expression commensurate with the ideas of the composer, which has indeed broken through the form of tradition, but has not yet constructed another sufficiently definite and rounded to satisfy the demands of the aesthetics of art.... The first movement, especially, gives us the impression of monstrosity; this was less the case with the two others, although even there we were not able, in spite of the beauties they contain, to feel real artistic enjoyment. Brahms places the orchestra, as far as is possible in a concert-piece, by the side of the obligato instrument, and by so doing establishes himself as an artist who understands the requirements of the new era. The treatment of the orchestra shows a blooming fancy and the most vivid feeling for new and beautiful tone effects, although the composer has not yet sufficient command over his means to do justice to his intentions.

The work was received calmly, not to say coldly, by the public; we, however, must acknowledge the eminent talent of the composer, of whom, though he is still too much absorbed in his _Sturm und Drang_ period, it is not difficult to predict the accomplishment of something great.'

Whether or not these two reviews were penned with a deliberate purpose--and a desire on the part of the supporters of the New-German school to identify Brahms with their cause can hardly be regarded as either remarkable or dishonourable--no trace is to be found in either of the insincerity attributed by Kalbeck, in his Life of Brahms, to the journalistic partisans of the Weimarites, and especially to Brendel, editor of the _Zeitschrift_ and friend of Liszt. Their honesty of purpose, as well as their liberality of view, has been vindicated by the fate which for many years attended the published concerto, and again we may place the remarks of Hanslick, the avowed champion of classical art and the enthusiastic admirer of the mature Brahms, beside those published in the _Zeitschrift_ of the fifties. Writing in 1888, he says:[79]

'Brahms began, like Schumann, in _Sturm und Drang_, but he was much more daring and wild, more emancipated in respect to form and modulation. The fermentation period of his genius, which is generally supposed to have closed with his Op. 10 (Ballades for pianoforte), should, perhaps, be extended ... does it not include the D minor Concerto, with its wild genius?'

It has, indeed, taken nearly half a century to establish the concerto in a secure position of public acceptance, and the day, though now probably not far distant, has not even yet arrived when it can be said to rank as a prime favourite amongst compositions of its class with the large body of music-lovers.

Conceived as part of a symphony, the first movement of the work is symphonic in character, though, as Spitta has pointed out, not in form.

The desire attributed to the composer by Ferdinand Gleich and by many others since, to create a new form, to compose a symphonic work with a pianoforte obligato, did not exist. Brahms simply wished to use what he had already written, and did not feel that the time had come when he could successfully complete a symphony. He rewrote his first two movements, therefore, as we have noted, making room in them for a pianoforte solo, put away the third movement, and composed a new finale.

How successfully he accomplished his task is to-day apparent to accustomed ears, for which the first movement, though it contains slight deviations from traditional concerto form, has no moment of obscurity.

The imagination of this portion of the work is colossal. It has something Miltonic in its character, and seems to suggest to the mind issues more tremendous and universal than the tragedy of Schumann's fate, with which it must be associated. No one will assert that it contains what are termed 'brilliant pianoforte passages,' the very existence of which is unthinkable in a movement of such exalted poetic grandeur; but that its performance brings due reward to capable interpreters has been proved by the enthusiasm of many a latter-day audience. After all that has been said, the reader will have no difficulty in understanding the fervent intensity of mood which impelled the composition of the slow movement, or in realizing something of the emotions which suggested the motto, _Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini_, written above it in the original manuscript (in Joachim's possession) by Brahms. In the finale, the difficult task of creating something which should relieve the tension of feeling induced by the preceding movements, without impairing the unity of the concerto as a whole, has been well achieved. If it is somewhat more sombre in colour than the usually accepted finale in rondo form, it is abundant in vigour and impulse, whilst, on the other hand, though written with a view to the concert-room, it never descends towards the trivialities of mere outward glitter.

Much more might be said in explanation of the dubious position so long occupied in the world of art by this great work of genius. We may not, however, linger longer over such interesting matters. It is enough to say that the purpose expressed by Brahms in his letter to Joachim, of 'pulling his thoughts together,' was literally carried out, and that his development proceeded in the direction it had already taken, which was the very opposite of that pursued by the adherents of the New-German school. It consisted in the still closer concentration of his powers within the forms of tradition, and the rapidity with which he attained to complete and free mastery over musical structure is marked by the production--soon to be recorded--of the first of the great series of chefs-d'oeuvre of chamber music which have set his name, in this particular domain of art, as high as that of Beethoven himself.

Unrecognised by the public and misunderstood by the academics of Leipzig, whose sympathies he seems particularly, though for many years vainly, to have desired to gain, our young musician had now no choice but to return to his home and pupils at Hamburg. If, however, he himself felt at all despondent at the failure of his hopes, his friends were determined about the future of his work. Prompted and backed up by Joachim, Ave Lallement, who was a member of the Philharmonic committee, persuaded the directors to engage composer and concerto for their concert of March 24. Joachim had written to Ave:

'DEAR FRIEND,

'Nearer acquaintance with Brahms' concerto inspires me with increasing love and respect. The most intelligent people amongst the public and the orchestra (of Leipzig) with whom I have spoken express a high opinion of Brahms as a musician, and even those who do not like the concerto are at one as to his eminent playing. I have never expected anything else than that prejudice on the one hand, and, on the other, astonishment at an individuality which surrenders itself so unreservedly to the ideal as that of our friend, should present some impediment to the brilliancy of his success. A few places in the composition which, though good in themselves, are too much spun out may also here and there disturb one's enjoyment. Nevertheless, one may say that the concerto has had a success honourable alike to artist and public; the same in Hanover. Now let fault-finders and malicious detractors gossip as they please--I don't mind; we have done right.... Now do as you like in Hamburg, but if you give the concerto at the Philharmonic I will come and conduct. That has long been settled.'[80]

The concert was made into a musical event of unusual importance by the engagement of Joachim and of Stockhausen--his first appearance in Hamburg; and public interest was increased by the advertisement of a concert in the joint names of Brahms, Joachim, and Stockhausen to take place on the 28th, which was to be signalized by the first public performance of the newly composed Serenade in D major. That Johannes had taken heart again after his disappointments, and was looking forward with pleasure to the visits of his friends, is evident from a letter written by him a few days beforehand to the lady in waiting on the Princess Friederike of Lippe-Detmold.

'VERY ESTEEMED, GRACIOUS FRaULEIN,

'In the first place I beg you to express my most humble thanks to Her Serene Highness the Princess Friederike for the despatch of the new Bach work.

'How often this present will remind me in the most agreeable manner of Her Highness's kindness. You know how I love the divine master, and may imagine that his tones (so dreaded by you) will often be heard here.

'I am glad that Her Serene Highness continues to work so industriously at her music, and only wish I could help her in some way.

'In the trio mentioned by you[81] the most simple way is that the left hand (which ceases playing) should help the poor right. For what embarrassment the mischievous arrogance of the composer is responsible!

'The day after to-morrow I play my pianoforte concerto here, and a few days later introduce other works at a concert of my own.

Joachim and Stockhausen, who are coming for it, will make the days into real musical festivals.

'In spite of the great diversity of opinions expressed about my works, I have reason to be quite satisfied with my first attempts for orchestra, and I confidently hope that they will find friendly hearers in Detmold also.

'And I may venture to hope, above all, for later ripening and better swelling fruits....'[82]

The Philharmonic committee had no reason to regret their arrangements.

The attraction of the two great names filled their concert-room to suffocation. Every seat and every standing-place was occupied, and crowds were turned from the doors. Those who have witnessed similar scenes during--how many decades! can picture the excited expectancy that followed the performance of a Cherubini overture, the thunder of welcome at the first glimpse of Joachim, the never-ending applause and recalls at the conclusion of his first solo, Spohr's 'Gesang-Scena,' the sensation of Stockhausen's first appearance, the magnificent success of his performance of a great aria from his oratorio repertoire. Then a lull, the disappearance of Capellmeister Grund, the opening of the piano, the reappearance of Joachim, this time to take his stand at the conductor's desk, and the entrance of the slight, blonde young Hamburger, pale and nervous, but calm and self-controlled, almost happy in the support of his two friends.

On such an evening of enthusiasm, what public could have refused its tribute to the young fellow-citizen who came before them as a composer practically for the first time, with two heroes at his side to champion his cause? Johannes was really successful. 'The concerto created an impression, and excited applause far beyond that of a mere _succes d'estime_,' and the critic of the _Nachrichten_ records the fact with the more satisfaction from its contrast with the result of the performance at the Leipzig Gewandhaus.

It would appear from the wording of the letter to Detmold quoted on a foregoing page that the concert of the 28th, advertised in the three names, had been arranged for Brahms' benefit. Ten years had elapsed since his performance of the Variations on a favourite waltz had passed unrecorded save in Marxsen's paper. Since that time he had given no concert in Hamburg, and the change in his prospects is well measured by the different circumstances of the occasions of 1849 and 1859. True that at the age of twenty-six he had achieved no popular success, that his concerto had effectually alienated from him the sympathies of the Leipzigers, and that the Weimarites, whilst encouraging his efforts, partially misunderstood his aims. Thorough-going belief in his art and its promise was more firmly established than ever as a leading principle of the inner Schumann circle, and this was itself gradually spreading.

We give the full programme of March 28, which is interesting for many reasons:

1. Bach: Sonata for Clavier and Violin.

2. Handel: Aria from 'The Messiah.'

3. Tartini: 'Trillo del Diavolo.'

4. Schubert: Song, 'Der Erlkonig.'

5. Brahms: Serenade for Strings and Wind.

6. Boieldieu: Cavatina, 'Fete du Village Voisin.'