order reached him in Ischl, taking him completely by surprise, and was followed by an inundation of letters, cards, and telegrams of congratulation, to all of which he replied individually.

'I was so pleased that the Austrians, as such, were glad that I was obliged to reply prettily,' he wrote to Hanslick.[75]

Another of the distinctions bestowed upon Brahms late in his career, which gave him, as a German musician, extraordinary pleasure, was that of his election as foreign member of the Academie francaise. He endeavoured to write his letter of acknowledgment in French, but, not being able to satisfy himself, was obliged to be content with expressing his gratification in his own language.

It seems appropriate to record, with the mention of these pleasant incidents, the fact of Brahms' warm admiration of the opera 'Carmen,'

the work of the French composer Bizet.

A visit to Cologne--the last--in February is noteworthy as having furnished opportunity for the first (private) performance from the manuscript of three Motets for four and eight part chorus _a capella_.

They were sung by the students' choral class of the conservatoire, and on the same occasion Brahms played--also from the manuscript--with two of the professors, the revised edition of his early B major Trio for the first time outside Vienna. We have already, in the early pages of our narrative, expressed our preference for the original version of this lovely work.

A visit to Italy in the spring with Widmann, which included Parma, Cremona, Brescia, and Vicenza, afforded Brahms opportunity of deriving pleasure from the most varied sources. The sight of the cathedral of Cremona by moonlight, upon which he and Widmann came suddenly the night of their arrival, as they turned a street corner, quite overpowered him.

He could not gaze long enough at the wonderful scene, and was obliged to return with his friend to look at it once again before he could persuade himself to go in for the night. He was able, on the other hand, to derive amusement from the trifling incidents of each day's adventures, and was always ready to meet the passing difficulties and embarrassments of the traveller with laudable equanimity and resource. He used, later on, to describe, with some zest, an opera performance which he attended at Brescia. The work, he declared, consisted entirely of final cadences, but was so beautifully sung that he had great pleasure in listening to it.

His appearance and manner, which at this period of his life made an irresistible impression of nobility and, generally, of benevolence on strangers, in spite of his short stature and careless dress, attracted the constant admiration of his casual fellow-travellers and of the people of the country with whom he had to do; and amongst other anecdotes related by Widmann is one of a guide at Palermo who had fought under Garibaldi:

'Our refined and amiable guide suddenly stopped short in the midst of his flowing discourse, and, with a look at Brahms, exclaimed involuntarily: "Ah! mi pare di parlare al mio venerabile generale Garibaldi!" at which the master's eyes lightened enthusiastically.'

Brahms was frequently asked to officiate as godfather to his friends'

children, and this summer he acceded to the request of Frau Dr. Marie Janssen, eldest daughter of his first teacher, Cossel, that he would stand sponsor to her little son. A few months later Frau Janssen sent him a photograph of two of her children, which he acknowledged in the following words:

'DEAR AND ESTEEMED LADY,

'I am not able to write a real letter however strongly your kind and welcome packet tempts me to do so. Let me, however, briefly express my thanks and believe that my most cordial thoughts go out to you at Kiel, and again to Hamburg to your unforgettable father, whose memory is amongst those most sacred and dear to me. Only one thing were to be wished as to the charming little packet--that it could have smiled at him.

'In warm remembrance and with best greetings

'Yours sincerely, 'J. BRAHMS.'

When the Janssens settled at Kiel, Brahms wrote to ask Groth to call upon them, saying:

'... The lady is the daughter of my first pianoforte teacher Cossel of whom I must have told you. And when I began to speak of him I was certainly unable to leave off again....'

At the period we have now reached, Brahms had given up his solitary Christmas evenings. The home of Dr. and Mrs. Fellinger became every year more and more a substitute to him in some sort for that home of his own which he imagined, perhaps, with longing and regret till the last year of his life. Each Christmas Eve of his last seven winters found him amongst the Fellinger family group, rejoicing in the joy of the young people, stimulating their fun, happy in feeling himself truly one in the midst of a family circle whose greatest delight it was to know that their friend of friends liked to be amongst them. Frau Fellinger always contrived some charming practical joke in the matter of the Christmas presents prepared for the master, by which he was annually and unfailingly taken in. One year--the first Christmas he passed at the house--part of her own gift table, labelled with his name, was tastefully arranged with toilet accessories. In front of a burnished mirror two candlesticks stood, holding lighted candles; between these was a pincushion, on to which was pinned a black silk necktie; some parcels with pink paper wrappings, tied with ribbon and labelled 'Finest perfume,' lay near. The only uncovered articles were packets of writing-paper of the kinds most used by Brahms, supplied in sufficient quantities to last some time.

The usual general survey of the gift-laden tables took place, and Brahms evinced much sympathetic interest during the tour of inspection, but presently he walked silently away to the other end of the room, passing his hand over his beard, then sauntered back carelessly, only to retire again and pace about apart, the picture of quiet dismay. 'But won't you look at your things, Dr. Brahms?' inquired Frau Fellinger by-and-by, when her guest had summoned sufficient courage to mingle again with the party and admire the young people's presents, though he carefully avoided glancing at his own. Poor Brahms allowed himself to be led to the table, and stood mute and dazed before it. 'Ah! _here_ is mine,' he cried, suddenly catching sight of the paper; 'this is for me!' 'But all is for you,' returned his hostess kindly but firmly. 'But these things are all for you,' said the master, pleading; 'they are not for me, they are yours.' 'But why, Dr. Brahms?' insisted the lady; 'pray look at your things; do you not like scent?' By little and little the master was persuaded to handle his presents, gingerly enough, it is true. And now ensued the transformation scene. Each dainty trifle turned into some useful article suited to Brahms' needs. The two candlesticks became cream-jugs, the pincushion a sugar-basin, the packets of perfume proved to be tablets of unscented soap. A bread-basket containing bundles of English quills such as Brahms always used for writing music, and a clothes-brush, stood in bare, attractive reality before his astonished eyes. Soon nothing remained but the mirror. 'But this really does belong to you,' he implored, still deceived. 'Look behind it,' said Frau Fellinger; and the mirror became a nickel coffee-tray, chosen because of its smooth, brilliantly-polished back, which had well served the Christmas Eve purpose. 'Now I really must sit down,' said Brahms, drawing a long breath, his kind face shining; and he insisted on carrying away all his things in a cab the same evening.

But though Brahms was persuaded, in the later years of his life, to join the family festivities of these kind friends, he kept up to the last his custom of showing himself at his landlady's Christmas Eve party. Frau Truxa used to light up her tree an hour or two earlier than formerly, so that he should feel quite happy in setting out for Dr. Fellinger's. Of course her two boys were always remembered by the master, and his gifts to them, generally books, were found punctually on the table at the hour appointed for the commencement of the festivity.

The publications of the year 1890 were the 'Fest und Gedenkspruche,' as Op. 109, and three Motets for four and eight part Chorus _a capella_, Op. 110.

The writer of these pages was present at a supper-party given in Vienna in January, 1890, after a concert of the Joachim Quartet, at which Brahms with Joachim and his colleagues were the chief guests. 'What shall we have next?' said Joachim to Brahms in the course of supper; 'a quintet; we have one, a very fine one; we will have another.' A second string quintet, with two violas, composed during the summer at Ischl, was the next work produced by Brahms, and was heard for the first time in public from the manuscript in Vienna at the Rose Quartet concert of November 11 (Rose, Bachrich, Hummer, Jenek, and Siebert). An anecdote which appears to the author worth preserving, as expressive of Brahms'

appreciation of his friend's incomparable playing, may find a place here. At a period when the two men had not met for a couple of years an occasion came when Brahms heard Joachim play. 'Now,' he said afterwards to the lady who related the story to the author, 'now I know what it is that has been wanting in my life during the past two years. I felt something was missing, but could not tell what. It was the sound of Joachim's violin. How he plays!'

Brahms' Quintet in G major is, in the opinion of most competent judges, one of the most powerful and fascinating of his works of chamber music for strings. If there is, in one or two of his late compositions for pianoforte and other instruments, something that suggests the feeling that in this domain the elasticity of his imagination was approaching its limits, nothing of the sort can be said of either of the works for strings only, and the Quintet in G is certainly second to none of them in wealth of spontaneous melody, in vigour and variety of inventive power, in all, in short, that is included in the word 'vitality.' To the present writer it appears quite clear and easy to follow, but that there may be two impressions on this point is proved in a remarkable way by two letters written by Billroth, the first to Brahms himself after the work had been performed for the first time from the manuscript at a party at Billroth's house, the second a few months later to Hanslick.

In the letter to Brahms, dated November 6, the famous surgeon, writing evidently under the influence of the great artistic excitement of the day, tells the master that he cannot rest without sending him word of his delight.

'Lately I have been silent, for I know not what more to say than, wonderfully fine and now clear to me at first hearing, clear as the blue sky!... Could one compare the various works of Michael Angelo, Raphael, Beethoven, Mozart when they were at the height of their powers? Only in the sense of a limited personal sympathy.... I have often wondered what human happiness is--now I was happy to-day when listening to your music. That is quite clear to me.'

The following March, however, Billroth wrote to Hanslick that he found the quintet one of the most difficult of Brahms' works.

'The form, when one has found it out, is simple and clear; but the length of the first bass theme and the rhythmic and harmonic over-rich, I might say overladen, five-part development make enjoyment of the movement [the first] impossible except under great mental strain. One must be fresher and better in health for it than I am at present.... But it is easy to talk; we are always wanting something new, something which interests us more than the last; no one can quite satisfy us.'[76]

Billroth heard the work the first time under the most favourable imaginable conditions, when his own powers of receptivity were strongly stimulated. He was depressed and out of health when he wrote the second letter. The majority of music-lovers would, we fancy, range themselves on the side of his original impression. The power and loveliness of the first movement, the romance of the second (the wonderful adagio), the plaintive daintiness of the third, the vivacity of the fourth, tinged with Hungarian colouring, all seem to foretell a continued prolongation of the composer's creative force and impulse. That Brahms himself, however, in the beginning of the nineties was conscious of needing rest is well known. Billroth says of him in a letter dated May 28, 1890, after visiting him at Ischl:

'He rejected the idea that he is composing or will ever compose anything. He is deep in Sybel's "Foundation of the German Empire,"

three thick volumes and the fourth to come.'

To another friend Brahms said in 1891: 'I have tormented myself to no purpose lately, and till now I never had to do so at all; things always came easily to me.' He professed his intention of giving his creative activity a rest, and employing his time in reading, going excursions, and seeing his friends, but did not at once persevere in the resolution.

In the early part of the year 1891 he paid a visit to Meiningen. His enjoyment was the greater since the Duke, to whom the master had often spoken of Widmann, had invited this gentleman to meet his friend.

Several delightful details of the time are related by Widmann. For us, however, the fact of particular interest is that it was now that Brahms'

admiration of the performances of the clarinettist Muhlfeld, of the Meiningen orchestra, culminated in the determination to write for his instrument. Muhlfeld had gained particular reputation as a soloist by his performances of Weber, whose Concertino for clarinet and orchestra had been introduced by him at Meiningen on December 25, 1886, the hundredth anniversary of the composer's birth. Our master, who since that date had had many opportunities of listening to Muhlfeld's wonderful tone and execution, now asked for a private recital with only himself as audience, in the course of which the clarinettist played to him one piece after another from his repertoire, and discussed his instrument with him. The sequel was the composition by Brahms, during his annual residence at Ischl, of a trio for pianoforte, clarinet, and violoncello and a quintet for clarinet and strings. These works were performed from the manuscripts before the ducal circle at Meiningen Castle on November 24 of the same year, the Trio by Brahms, Muhlfeld, and Hausmann, the Quintet by the same musicians, Joachim, and two members of the Meiningen orchestra.

Brahms remained on as the Duke's guest for some little time after the performance, and then followed his friends to Berlin in order to take part in the Joachim Quartet concert of December 12, when his new works were heard for the first time in public. This occasion was, and has remained, unique in the history of the famous party of artists. The Joachim Quartet concerts in Berlin, occupying a position in the forefront of the musical life of the city, have now taken place annually for nearly forty years; but into no other programme than that of December 12, 1891, has a work not written exclusively for strings been admitted. That Brahms was much gratified by the compliment paid him is evident from a letter written by him on December 1 to Hanslick, in which he says:

'... I shall not be able to tell you about it [a performance of Strauss' opera, 'Ritter Paynim'] for another fortnight. This is because Joachim has sacrificed the virginity of his Quartet to my newest things. Hitherto he has carefully protected the chaste sanctuary but now, in spite of all my protestations, he insists that I invade it with clarinet and piano, with trio and quintet.

This will take place on the 12th of December, and with the Meiningen clarinettist. Tell Mandyczewski (or let him read) that the quintet "adagio con sordini" was played as long and often as the clarinettist could hold out.'[77]

The visit to Berlin resulted in a phenomenal triumph. A public rehearsal was held on the 10th, when every seat was occupied, and at the conclusion of the quintet, the last number of the programme, the audience indulged in an overwhelming demonstration to composer and executants. They went so far as to demand a repetition of the entire work, and Joachim and his colleagues at length consented to repeat the adagio. A similar scene was enacted at the concert on the 12th. Both new works were favourably noticed by the Berlin press, which waxed enthusiastic over the quintet, and especially the adagio.

The trio was played in Vienna the same month at a Hellmesberger concert; the quintet on January 5, 1892, by the Rose Quartet party, with the clarinettist Steiner. Both works were heard again in the Austrian capital a fortnight later at a concert given there by the Joachim Quartet party, with the co-operation of Brahms and Muhlfeld. The quintet was introduced to a London audience at the Monday Popular concert of March 28 by Muhlfeld, Joachim, Ries, Straus, and Piatti, and repeated at the Saturday concert of April 2, when the trio was also played by Miss Fanny Davies, Muhlfeld, and Piatti.

The Clarinet Trio appears to us one of the least convincing of Brahms'

works, and this in spite of the fact that it bears its composer's name writ large on every page. No one could fail to recognise his handwriting in either of the four movements, and to true Brahms lovers the handwriting must always be dear; but if one may compare the composer with himself, the inspiration of this work seems to us to halt, the spirit to want flexibility. Far otherwise is it with the beautiful and now favourite quintet, which contains, as Steiner says, richest fruits of the golden harvest of the poet's activity. Here 'the brooks of life are flowing as at high noon,' though the tone of gentle, loving regret which pervades the four movements, and holds the heart of the listener in firm grip, suggests the composer's feeling that the evening is not far away from him in which no man may work. A fulness of rich melody, a luscious charm of tone, original effects arising from the treatment of the clarinet, 'olympian' ease and mastery, distinguish every movement of this noble and attractive work, which, taking its hearers by storm on its first production, has grown more firmly rooted into the hearts of musicians and laymen with each fresh hearing. In the middle section of the second movement Brahms has written for the clarinet a number of quasi-improvisatory passages embracing the entire extent of its compass, which are supported by the strings, and which, when competently performed, are of surprisingly attractive effect. A fancy that suggested itself to one of the Berlin critics, as to the position assigned in this movement to the clarinet, seems to have commended itself to Brahms, who was ever afterwards in the habit of introducing the distinguished artist for whom it was written, to intimate friends, as 'Fraulein von Muhlfeld, meine Primadonna.'

In 1891 were published the String Quintet in G, Op. 111; six Vocal Quartets, the last four being additional Gipsy Songs set to Conrat's texts, Op. 112; and thirteen Canons for women's voices, the appearance of which forms a direct link between the composer's late maturity and early youth.

The Clarinet Trio and Quintet and three books of short Pianoforte Pieces, Op. 116, Nos. 1 and 2, and Op. 117, appeared in 1892.

Brahms departed in good time in the spring of 1893 for what was to be his last holiday in the south, meeting Widmann and two Zurich friends (Friedrich Hegar and Robert Freund) in Milan and proceeding with them to Sicily, whose scenery and general romantic charm had made an indelible impression on his mind when he had travelled in the country with Billroth some fifteen years previously. He had an additional and weighty reason for desiring to leave Vienna in April. The coming 7th of May, his sixtieth birthday, could not fail to be made the occasion, not only of friendly rejoicings, but, if he were at home, of formal congratulatory functions in which he would be asked to take part. To his mind, such a predicament left but one course open to him--flight; and for this he had made arrangement months beforehand. As early as the year 1892 he had refused Hegar's invitation to celebrate his birthday by some festival performances at Zurich in the following terms:

'VIENNA, _September 29th, 1892_.

'DEAR FRIEND */ 'I hasten to place this pretty sheet of paper before me and will endeavour approximately to express my gratitude to you and your society for your extremely kind and friendly project for the next 7th May. To-day I will only say that I have for some time been intending to make a proposal to you. My indolence in writing is the only cause that you have been beforehand with me. I wished to ask you and Widmann if you would not like, as I should, to go for a little while to Italy?

'When and where is all one to me; if on the 7th of May we are only safe in the Abruzzi or somewhere else where no one can find us; if we can only devote ourselves to touching (and preferably jovial) meditation. You see my plans and ideas are quite different from yours and my next letter will contain only many thanks for your very kind thought....'[78]

To Herr Ehrbar's annual invitation to the asparagus luncheon, therefore, which was sent as usual about the middle of April to No. 4, Carlsgasse, and which contained a special request that in this particular year the festivity should be celebrated on May 7 itself, a telegraphic reply was received from Genoa. The master was very sorry that he would not be able to be present this year, but sent his kindest greetings to all friends who should assemble on the occasion. Instead of postponing the party on account of this disappointment, Herr Ehrbar decided not only to gather the old friends about him as usual, but to hold the festivity at the Hotel Sacher, and to invite some additional guests to drink the health of the absent composer, bringing up the number to about thirty.

Widmann, who had an accident during the return journey which injured his knee and obliged him to remain for two days at Naples under the surgeon's care, has thus described how Brahms spent May 7:

'And so it happened that Brahms passed his sixtieth birthday in the most quiet seclusion, remaining to watch faithfully by my bed after we had persuaded our two friends to make an excursion to Pompeii.

The doctor's performances, which gave me little pain, excited him fearfully, though he tried to conceal this by making jesting remarks, as when he muttered grimly between his teeth, "If it should come to cutting, I am the right man; I was always Billroth's assistant in such cases." When we were alone he provided for my comfort like a deaconess and took pains to keep up my spirits by chatting cheerfully, saying for instance, "You have already tramped about so much in the Swiss Alps and Italy. Even if, at the worst, this should not again be possible, you are much better off than a hundred thousand others who have not had such opportunity." ...

Every now and then whilst he was sitting with me, congratulatory telegrams arrived from intimate friends who had obtained intelligence from one or other of us as to our whereabouts.'

It was rumoured in Vienna, nevertheless, that Brahms was present at Herr Ehrbar's luncheon; that he was seen in the Augustinestrasse in the evening of the 6th; that he astonished his friends by joining them at the Hotel Sacher at twelve o'clock on the 7th, just as they were about to sit down to table; and that he vanished from the city immediately after the festivity, to come back no more until the usual time of his return in October.