It is, indeed, certain that Brahms, during his third season at Detmold, began to grow impatient of his position there. His lessons to the Princess, who was really musical and made rapid progress, continued to give him genuine pleasure, but he chafed at the constant demands on his time arising from his fixed duties, and the rigid etiquette observed at the Court of a very small capital gave him a distaste for his work as conductor of the choral society. The circle of Serene Highnesses, Excellencies, and their friends, did not furnish sufficient voices for the adequate rendering of two or three oratorios and cantatas by Handel and Bach which he selected for practice during his second and third seasons; and, with Prince Leopold's permission, he supplemented them by persuading some of the towns-people to become members. His sense of the ridiculous was strongly excited by the rules of conduct prescribed for these not very willing assistants, who were not even permitted to make an obeisance to the Serenities, and scarcely ventured to lift their eyes from the music whilst in their august presence. There were some good performances of great works, however, and Bach's cantata 'Ich hatte viel Bekummerniss' was given four times; but the difficulty of procuring tenors continued serious, and the entire circumstances of the meetings made Brahms feel increasing desire to be relieved from the necessity of attending them.

To this season is to be referred the first private performance of one of those of Brahms' great works which have made his name not only famous, but popular. The Quartet in G minor for pianoforte and strings, destined to become one of the most familiar of the master's achievements, was tried by the composer, Bargheer, Schulze, and Schmidt, though not altogether as it now appears. The complaint made by the young composer's colleagues at Detmold, that his string passages were often ungrateful and sometimes unplayable, was not unfounded. Brahms, like everyone else, had to buy exact technical knowledge with experience, and the quartet was considerably altered before its final completion. Essentially, however, the work dates from the Detmold period, and the conception of the finale is to be associated with the sudden visit of Joachim, with his Hungarian Concerto, in the autumn of 1858. Of this movement, the magnificent 'Rondo alla Zingarese,' Joachim declared in generous triumph, comparing it with the last movement of his own composition, that Brahms had beaten him on his own ground. It is not the business of our pages either to endorse or contradict this statement, but it may be permissible once again to remind the reader that the increasing perfection of Brahms' instrumental works of the period was in no small degree furthered by the invaluable criticism and self-forgetting sympathy of his friend.

The programmes of the court concerts of the season included the D major Serenade; the 'Ave Maria,' sung by the ladies of the choral society; and the Begrabnissgesang, for mixed chorus and wind instruments (Op. 13).

It is strange that this fine work, composed to a sixteenth-century text by Michael Weisse, the editor of the earliest German church hymn-book, is not more generally known. Like all Brahms' sacred compositions of the time, it gives evidence of the strong impression he had derived from his exhaustive study of the medieval church composers; and the music, austere in its simplicity, is characterized by uncompromising fidelity to the almost grimly severe spirit of the words. Too grave to be in place in an ordinary miscellaneous programme, it is well adapted for performance at a Good Friday concert or as a church anthem in Passion Week. It was performed together with the 'Ave Maria,' both for the first time in public, at Gradener's Academy concert of December 2, and Brahms, who obtained leave to go to Hamburg for the occasion, appeared the same evening with Schumann's Pianoforte Concerto.

The manuscripts were sent immediately afterwards to Gottingen for practice by Grimm's choral society, of which Carl von Meysenbug was an enthusiastic member.

'As Grimm was distributing the parts of the "Ave Maria" and the "Begrabnissgesang" at one of the practices,' says the Freiherr von Meysenbug, 'my neighbour, a glib University student with the experience of several terms behind him, said to me in a surprised tone: "Brahms! who is that?" "Oh, some old ecclesiastic of Palestrina's time," I replied--a piece of information which he accepted and passed on.'

The compositions were given under Grimm's direction at the society's concert of January 19, 1860. There is little doubt that Philipp Spitta, author of the exhaustive biography of Sebastian Bach, whose essay 'Zur Musik' should be read by all earnest students of Brahms' music, took part in the performance of the Begrabnissgesang. His friendship with our composer dates from this period when he was a student of the Gottingen University and one of the intimates of Grimm's circle.

It will be convenient to add here that the invitation to revisit Detmold on the same terms as before was finally refused by Brahms in a letter to the Hofmarschall dated from Hamburg, August, 1860:

'After renewed consideration, I must beg to express to His Serene Highness the Prince my regret that I shall not be able to visit Detmold in the winter. I have to add to the causes of this decision which I have already had the honour to communicate, that I shall be much occupied this autumn with the publication of my works, with revising the proofs of some, and preparing others for the engraver.

On this account alone, therefore, I must decide to stay here during the winter. I particularly desire to express my regret to the Princess Friederike that I shall be unable to enjoy her progress in playing and her great sympathy for music....'[86]

The post of conductor to the court orchestra, which became vacant on Kiel's retirement with a pension in 1864, and which might probably under other circumstances have been offered for the acceptance or refusal of Brahms, passed to Bargheer, who retained it until 1876, when Prince Leopold's death put an end to the musical activity of Detmold.

Brahms' interest in the orchestra had been by no means even temporarily satisfied by the writing of the works of which we have recorded the performances. The first serenade was not completed before he had sketched a second, the finished manuscript of which he carried with him on his departure from Detmold early in January, 1860. Separated longer than ever from Joachim, whose successes in England, Scotland, and Ireland detained him until nearly the end of the year 1859, Johannes now went to see his dearest friend, and during his stay at Hanover heard a private trial of the new Serenade for small Orchestra (wind, violas, 'celli, and basses). The work was performed for the first time in public at the Hamburg Philharmonic concert of February 10. On the same occasion Joachim transported the audience by his performances of Beethoven's Concerto and Tartini's 'Trillo del Diavolo,' and Johannes had a great success as pianist with Schumann's Concerto.

The second serenade was considered easier to understand than its elder sister, and was received with comparative favour, though not with enthusiasm. To the ears of the present generation the work appears limpidly clear, and it is difficult to realize that it was ever accounted otherwise. In it we have a chef-d'oeuvre which displays our musician passed finally from his transition stage and standing out clearly as a master in definite possession both of aim and method.

Unmistakably he has taken his footing on the basis of tradition, and creates with the freedom of self-control within the forms consecrated by the works of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, no longer betrayed by immaturity into anything that could be misconstrued as the intentional discursiveness of rhapsody. The work is impregnated with a breath as fragrant as the spirit of Schubert's muse, and, though perhaps not fully representative of the very powerful individuality now associated with the name of Brahms, bears the distinct impress of his mind, and could have been written by no other composer. Each of the five movements is a gem of the first water. Each has a character of its own, which yet combines with every other to make the serenade a perfect example of a developed form of garden music, night music. Graceful romance, tender playfulness, lively frolic, just the stirring of the deeper emotions, all the gentler phases of poetic sentiment, are suggested in turn by its lovely melodies.

[Music: etc.]

Why is this masterpiece so seldom heard?

Appropriately called a serenade from the character of its ideas, and even from the structure of its movements, which, whilst fully developed, are all quite clear, balanced and symmetrical each in itself and as part of a whole, and indicate the composer's perfect fulfilment of his intention, the length of the work again approaches that of a symphony.

It must be borne in mind that to a general audience the name 'serenade'

as applied to instrumental music does not now suggest any particular class of composition, the times and customs which produced this form having long since passed away; whilst it is customary to associate with the word 'symphony' a suggestion of the more strenuous emotions of human existence. Thus, the ordinary concert-goer who listens to Brahms' work is puzzled as to what he ought to expect, and his uncertainty interferes with his enjoyment.

Another drawback, under modern concert conditions, to the general appreciation of the beautiful Serenade in A major is the absence of violins from the score. It hardly needs pointing out that the, so to say, muted tone of the combination of instruments employed by the composer would be ideal in the surroundings proper to the performance of the 'serenade' as originally so called--palpitating summer heat, deep-blue, starlit sky, flitting to and fro of gallant and graceful forms--but in the prosaic atmosphere of a modern concert-room the bright tone of the violins cannot, perhaps, be safely dispensed with throughout the length of so long a work. It consists of an allegro moderato, scherzo, quasi minuetto with trio, rondo. It may still be hoped, however, that the serenade may be revived, and may take its place in the repertoire of our concert societies.

We have lingered so long over the two serenades that a bare mention must suffice of the performance of the first in D major--the first performance in the second and final rearrangement of the score--at the Hanover subscription concert of March 3 under Joachim's direction, nor need we dwell upon the fact that it was received with indifference by audience and critics. It is time to glance again at the party conflicts of the day, and especially to note the activity of the disciples of Weimar, whose partisanship, as the reader may remember, had been stimulated to violence by the candid admissions of Joachim's letter to Liszt quoted on p. 212.

'In the _Grenzboten_,' says Moser,[87] 'Otto Jahn, the biographer of Mozart, led the cause of the conservative party and of those musicians whose creative art was rooted in classical tradition. In the opposite camp, Brendel, with a staff of like-minded colleagues, represented in the _Neue Zeitschrift_ the principles of radical progress, and extolled Liszt as the Mozart of his time, in whose works were united the efforts and results of all art epochs from the day of Palestrina. Liszt's cause and the Wagner question were treated as almost inseparable, and from this time dates the unfortunate influence of the "Wagnerians," who, in Raff's words, damaged rather than helped their master's cause.'

To put the matter, so far as our narrative is concerned with it, as shortly as possible, Brahms, who had been longing to enter the fray as an active combatant, now induced Joachim to join him in drawing up a manifesto for signature by musicians of their way of thinking, and subsequent publication. An obstacle to the fulfilment of the plan presented itself in the impossibility of obtaining unanimity of opinion as to the suitable wording of the document, and part of the difficulty seems to have arisen from Brahms' desire to differentiate between the works of Berlioz and Wagner on the one hand, and Liszt's 'productions'

on the other. Before these preliminaries had been satisfactorily arranged, however, accident settled the matter. By a mischance that has never been explained, a version of the manifesto which was presumably going round for signature found its way, with only four names attached, into the _Echo_, a journal of Berlin. It ran as follows:

'The undersigned have long followed with regret the proceedings of a certain party whose organ is Brendel's _Zeitschrift fur Musik_.

The said _Zeitschrift_ unceasingly promulgates the theory that the most prominent striving musicians are in accord with the aims represented in its pages, that they recognise in the compositions of the leaders of the new school works of artistic value, and that the contention for and against the so-called Music of the Future has been finally fought out, especially in North Germany, and decided in its favour. The undersigned regard it as their duty to protest against such a distortion of fact, and declare, at least for their own part, that they do not acknowledge the principles avowed by the _Zeitschrift_, and that they can only lament and condemn the productions of the leaders and pupils of the so-called New-German school, which on the one hand apply those principles practically, and on the other necessitate the constant setting up of new and unheard-of theories which are contrary to the very nature of music.

'JOHANNES BRAHMS.

'JULIUS OTTO GRIMM.

'JOSEPH JOACHIM.

'BERNHARD SCHOLZ.'

A few days later the answer appeared in the _Zeitschrift_ of May 4, in the shape of a parody written, not in a very formidable style of wit, by C. T. Weitzmann:

'DREAD MR. EDITOR,

'All is _out_!----I learn that a political coup has been carried _out_, the entire new world rooted _out_ stump and branch, and Weimar and Leipzig, especially, struck _out_ of the musical map of the world. To compass this end, a widely _out_reaching letter was thought _out_ and sent _out_ to the chosen-_out_ faithful of all lands, in which strongly _out_spoken protest was made against the increasing epidemic of the Music of the Future. Amongst the select of the _out_-worthies [paragons] are to be reckoned several _out_siders whose names, however, the modern historian of art has not been able to find _out_. Nevertheless, should the avalanche of signatures widen _out_ sufficiently, the storm will break _out_ suddenly. Although the strictest secrecy has been enjoined upon the chosen-_out_ by the hatchers-_out_ of this musico-tragic _out_-and-_out_er, I have succeeded in obtaining sight of the original, and I am glad, dread Mr. Editor, to be able to communicate to you, in what follows, the contents of this aptly conceived state paper--I remain, yours most truly,

'CROSSING-SWEEPER.'

'PUBLIC PROTEST.

'The undersigned desire to play first fiddle for once, and therefore protest against everything which stands in the way of their coming aloft, including, especially, the increasing influence of the musical tendency described by Dr. Brendel as the New-German school, and in short against the whole spirit of the new music.

After the annihilation of these, to them very unpleasant things, they offer to all who are of their own mind the immediate prospect of a brotherly association for the advancement of monotonous and tiresome music.

'(Signed) J. FIDDLER.

'HANS NEWPATH.

'SLIPPERMAN.

'PACKE.

'DICK TOM AND HARRY.

'Office of the Music of the Future.'

Bulow, writing from Berlin to Draseke, says:

'The manifesto of the Hanoverians has not made the least sensation here. They have not even sufficient wit mixed with their malice to have done the thing in good style, and to have launched it at a well-chosen time, such as the beginning or end of the season.'

It must be said here that Brendel was sincere in his views, whether or not they commend themselves to us, and that he had an exceptional power of appreciating the ideas put forth by the leaders of the new school.

Equally certain is it that the antipathy felt by Joachim and Brahms for Liszt's compositions proceeded from no feeling of malice or personal animosity, but from the most sincere conviction. Joachim's confession to Liszt had been wrung from him by the necessity of escape from a false position. The extraordinary importance attached by the musical parties of the day to his alliance is well illustrated by Wagner's bitter words:

'With the defection of a hitherto warm friend, a great violinist, the violent agitation broke out against the generous Franz Liszt that prepared for him, at length, the disappointment and embitterment which caused him to abandon his endeavours to establish Weimar as a town devoted to the furtherance of music.'[88]

The baselessness, and even folly, of such a statement is self-evident.

With regard to Brahms particularly, though such works as Liszt's Symphonic Poems and Dante Symphony were abominations to him, he always cherished a profound respect for the music of Wagner, even though the principles underlying its composition were not those of his own artistic faith. His allegiance, like that of Joachim, was wholly given to the masters of classical art, to whom he had paid homage from childhood, and it was one of the ironies of fate that he should have been widely supposed, during many years, to belong to the New-German party, and that he was handled more tenderly by the _Zeitschrift_ than the _Signale_. By Brendel himself, indeed, who from the year 1859 onwards worked earnestly to effect a reconciliation between the contending musical parties, Schumann's young hero was treated fairly, and even generously, and a steady Brahms propaganda was practised in years to come by the fraternity of the Allgemeiner Deutscher Musikverein, a society founded by Brendel in 1861 for the furtherance of his pacific aim.

Our composer, who had been betrayed into polemic partly by loyalty to his convictions and partly by his exuberant vitality, was not by temperament a party man any more than his friend, and was to be removed before very long from the immediate scene of party strife. For the future he took the wiser course of holding himself aloof from the contentions of the day, issuing no other manifestoes than such as were constituted by his works, and never allowing himself to be tempted into answering the many printed attacks that were levelled at him. Henceforth he lived his life, and wrote his works, and followed his faith, leaving the question of the false or the true to the decision of time. Who shall yet say what will be the final judgment of this supreme arbiter of all such matters?

Johannes was again settled in his parents' home during the spring of 1860, but his thoughts were busy with many plans for the future. He longed to extend his travels, and the desire to see Vienna was stirring forcibly within him. He played his Concerto and some numbers of Schumann's Kreisleriana at Otten's concert of April 20; but the concerto was very badly accompanied, and once more proved a complete failure. The critic of the _Nachrichten_ confesses his inability to understand the work, 'which is recognised so warmly by the musicians of the newest tendency,' and elects to say nothing about it.

The young musician's greatest pleasure was derived from his singing society of girls, who resumed with ardour their practices under his direction. He placed it this season on a more formal footing by drawing up a set of rules, signature to which was made a condition of membership. The document, headed 'Avertimento,' is playfully worded in a bygone style of formality, and after a short prelude, in which is set forth, amongst other things, that the practices are to be held only during spring and summer, five laws are laid down, the first two of which enjoin punctual attendance.

'Pro primo, it is to be remarked that the members of the Ladies'

Choir must be _there_.

'By which is to be understood that they must oblige themselves to be _there_.

'Pro secundo, it is to be observed that the members of the Ladies'

Choir must be there.

'By which is meant, they must be there precisely at the appointed time....'