Two of the vocal quartets, Op. 31, were included in the programme, and Brahms played some unaccompanied Schumann solos in the second part of the concert.

On the 6th of the month two new 'Magelone Romances' were sung for the first time in public by Krause, at a concert given in the same hall by Frau Schumann and Joachim; and before Brahms left Carlsruhe the first private performance took place of the newly-completed Trio in E flat for pianoforte, violin, and horn, a composition which has now long occupied a peculiar place in the affection of genuine lovers of his music on account of the tone of pure beauty that pervades it--beauty of sound, of mood, and idea. The noble simplicity of its themes and the spontaneous character which distinguishes their development hold the attention even of the unfamiliar listener from beginning to end of this inspired work, and the great musicianship of the composer has wrought it to a flawless example of its kind, in which no weak spot can be detected by deliberate examination. The adagio has the character of a lament, and can hardly be matched as an expression of profound sadness excepting by a few others of Brahms' and some of Beethoven's slow movements. The work was a favourite with the composer, and it is of interest to know from his own lips that its inception was due to an inspiration that came to him in the course of one of his walks near Lichtenthal. A year or two later than our present date, as he was ascending one of his beloved pine-clad hills in Dietrich's company, he showed his friend the exact spot where the opening theme of the first movement had occurred to him, saying: 'I was walking along one morning, and as I came to this spot the sun shone out and the subject immediately suggested itself.'[12]

From Carlsruhe Brahms proceeded to Switzerland, where he appeared at Basle, Zurich, and Winterthur. At Zurich he conducted his D major Serenade, given there two years previously under Fichtelberger, and performed the solo of Schumann's Pianoforte Concerto, and Bach's Chromatic Fantasia; and at Winterthur he gave a chamber music soiree in combination with his friend Theodor Kirchner and the young violinist F.

Hegar. Of this Widmann, who saw and heard Brahms for the first time on the occasion, has given some account in his 'Recollections.'

'There was,' he writes, 'a something in his countenance which suggested the certainty of victory, the beaming cheerfulness of a poet happy in the exercise of his art.'

Returning to Germany, Brahms appeared next at Mannheim, and, on December 12, conducted his D major Serenade and played Beethoven's E flat Concerto at the fifth Gurzenich subscription concert of the season at Cologne. He had but little success on this occasion either as pianist or composer. The serenade was criticised as being too lengthy and its themes as too 'nave' for his elaborate treatment of them. A different reception was accorded him at a soiree of chamber music held at the conservatoire, when he performed with Hiller his Duet Variations, Op.

23, and with von Konigslow and his colleagues the G minor Pianoforte Quartet. Both works were received with acclamation, and the composer achieved a success worthy of his position in the world of art. Before leaving Cologne Brahms played at a meeting of the Musikverein to a private audience of the members, most of them professors and students of the conservatoire. Amongst the pieces chosen by him for performance on this occasion were Bach's great Organ Prelude and Fugue in A minor.

And now the anxious son found opportunity to hurry with beating heart to Hamburg to see his father and to make the acquaintance of his stepmother-elect. To find, also, every probability that Jakob had chosen wisely, and that his contemplated change of life bade fair to ensure a happy and peaceful close to a career that had been full of hardship and uncertainty.

Frau Caroline Schnack, a handsome widow who had already been twice a wife, was just turned forty-one, and therefore more than seventeen years the junior of her proposed third husband. She had an only child, her son Fritz, born of her second marriage, now a lad of about thirteen. Capable and managing, she kept an excellent public dining-room for single men not far from the musicians' 'Borse,' described in an early chapter of our narrative, and had a regular _clientele_ amongst the members of the Stadt Theater orchestra. Since the time when Johannes had thought it advisable for his parents to separate, Jakob had been one of her daily customers, and her good cooking and substantial capacity had gradually opened for her the way to his affection. Johannes, on his interview with Frau Schnack, was at once favourably impressed by her personality and gave his consent to the engagement, only insisting that full time for consideration on both sides should be allowed before the taking of the irrevocable step of marriage; and after a day or two in Hamburg he set out with a greatly relieved mind for Detmold, where he had arranged with Bargheer to spend the Christmas week and to reappear as composer and pianist on the scenes of his former activity.

The visit passed off most happily. The great composer, to whom, with some disappointment, much success and fame had come since his last sojourn in the little capital six years previously, was merry according to his wont when in the midst of familiar associates. Such changes as had taken place in the circle were for the better. Bargheer was married, Carl von Meysenbug engaged. The reunions of the former bachelor friends were enlivened by the presence of ladies--charming young married women and pretty girls--and Brahms was ready to abandon himself to any amount of fun, his almost extravagant buoyancy of spirits being no doubt assisted by the reaction from his late tension of mind in regard to his father's affairs. These social occasions were but the interludes between more serious pleasures. Every day there was music at the palace, the castle, or one or more of the private musical houses. Brahms conducted his A major Serenade and played Beethoven's E flat Concerto at an orchestral concert, and took part in a soiree at the palace, where, amongst other things, he performed the Kreutzer Sonata with Bargheer before the well-remembered sympathetic court circle. The visit, which was the last paid by him to Detmold, formed a fitting close to his association with Prince Leopold's court, to whose memory, and especially to that of the various members of the princely family, must ever attach the artistic distinction of their early recognition of the composer's genius and their appreciation of his personality.

Brahms' next destination was Oldenburg, where he arrived in time to celebrate the New Year's festival of 1866 with the Dietrichs. He played his own Concerto and an unpublished composition of Schubert at the subscription concert of January 5, and at the chamber music soiree of the 10th contributed some Bach solos to the programme and took part with Dietrich in a performance of Schumann's Variations in B flat, and with Engel and Westermann in the first public performance of his own Horn Trio, which created a deep impression. It is important to add here that Westermann used the natural horn on the occasion by the particular desire of Brahms, who now and always insisted to the hornists of his acquaintance on the impossibility of securing a poetical interpretation of his work with the ventil horn.

'If the performer is not obliged by the stopped notes to play softly the piano and violin are not obliged to adapt themselves to him, and the tone is rough from the beginning.'[13]

The appearances at Oldenburg closed the _tournee_. Gratified as our musician declared himself to be with the results of his journey, which, if it had not brought him a series of triumphs, had at least demonstrated the fact that his works were gradually making their way through the musical circles of Europe, it was not, as we know, part either of his inclination or his aim to prolong his occasional artistic travels. He chafed at the restriction to personal freedom resulting from fixed engagements, and at the disturbance of mind inseparable from hurried journeys from place to place, and this year he had more than ordinary reason for desiring to be settled again to the quiet concentration of thought essential to all art-creation worthy to be so called. After a second and longer stay in Hamburg that confirmed the satisfaction with which he had lately contemplated the idea of his father's approaching marriage, he returned to Carlsruhe to pass the rest of the winter in Allgeyer's house in Langenstrasse, now known as Kaiserstrasse.

The first quarter of the year 1866 witnessed the publication of a long list of works. By Rieter-Biedermann, the two sets of extraordinarily difficult and brilliant Paganini Variations for Pianoforte, which, when in the hands of a competent executant, are found to be full of original and striking effects, even if they be inferior in musical value to the composer's other achievements in this form[14]; the three Sacred Choruses, Op. 37, for unaccompanied women's voices, and mentioned in our first volume in connection with the Ladies' Choir. By Simrock, the second String Sextet in G major, worthy sister to its companion work, though it has not obtained quite so wide a popularity, and the Sonata in E minor, dedicated to Dr. Josef Gansbacher. The Horn Trio was issued by the same house quite at the end of the year.[15]

The Sonata in E minor for pianoforte and violoncello, the earliest of Brahms' seven published duet sonatas for pianoforte and another instrument, all of which are characteristic examples of certain sides of his genius, is a valuable number in the comparatively short list of works of its class for the violoncello. The first movement is of graceful, expressive, delicately melodious character, rising at one point of the development section towards passion, but returning immediately to the dainty, dreaming mood by which the composer so often subdues his hearers to the spell of his imagination. The 'allegretto quasi menuetto' which follows is an exquisite example of a species of movement in the making of which Brahms stands unrivalled. It fascinates with irresistible certainty by its ethereal, playful, poetic fancy, to which the touch of seriousness in the trio offers just sufficient, not too pronounced, contrast. The finale is written _con amore_ in the form of a free fugue, which, full of spirit and energy throughout its course, rattles to its close in a lively coda. Care should be taken not to exaggerate the pace of this movement in performance. If taken too quickly, the violoncello passages lose their due effect.

On his return to Carlsruhe, Brahms settled down to the actual writing of the German Requiem, with which he was occupied during the succeeding months, and it was one of Allgeyer's favourite recollections in later years that a portion of the inspired work had been put on paper under his roof.

It is well known that Brahms' nearest friends accepted the composition as his memorial of his mother. 'We all think he wrote it in her memory, though he has never expressly said so,' Frau Schumann told the author some years later. 'Never has a nobler monument been raised by filial love,' said Joachim, referring to the German Requiem in the course of his address at the Brahms Memorial Festival held at Meiningen in October, 1899; and we may at least say with certainty that the work, which must be regarded as the crowning point of much of the composer's previous activity, is, on the whole, a memorial of the emotions by which he was stirred during the period that immediately succeeded his mother's death, apart from the question of whether or not he had planned it at an earlier time. It is, however, a circumstance of great interest that the strains he had conceived in his grief for the tragedy of Schumann's illness recurred to him as appropriate for the solemn mourning march--one of the most vivid and extraordinary of his inspirations--of the Requiem,[16] and we cannot be wrong in assuming that the remembrance of his beloved friend was with him as he worked. Perhaps we may venture to think that two of the strongest affections and griefs of Brahms'

life, associated with strangely contrasted objects--Schumann, the great genius and master, Johanna, the simple old mother--live together in this exalted music. There is no warrant for the statement of anything more precise as to the composer's intention excepting with regard to the fifth number, the soprano solo with chorus, which was added some time after the completion of the other movements. Of this it may be said definitely, as will presently appear, that whilst Brahms was engaged in writing it the thought of his mother was present in a special sense to his memory.

Jakob's marriage with Frau Schnack took place in March, rather more than a year after the death of his first wife. Johannes sent a substantial sum of money as a wedding present, and his great contentment in the anticipation of his father's happiness was a constant and favourite theme in his talks with Allgeyer, always an interested and sympathetic listener.

Frau Caroline's business was given up, and the newly-married pair settled into a comfortable flat on the fourth floor of No. 5, Anscharplatz, at the corner of Valentin's Camp, a respectable business quarter of Hamburg, where there was sufficient accommodation to allow Frau Caroline to turn her housekeeping talents to account by taking two or three men boarders. A large airy room, 'the corner room,' was reserved for Johannes, who was ultimately responsible for the rent of the flat, and to it were transferred his books, bookcase, and other belongings, from the apartments that had been his mother's in the Lange Reihe, whilst Elise arranged to live near an aunt in another quarter of the city. A photograph of Johannes, taken by Allgeyer, was sent to Jakob a few weeks after the wedding as a permanent souvenir of his son's felicitations on the occasion. It is still in existence, and is now in the possession of Herr Fritz Schnack, 'the second Fritz,' as Johannes caressingly called his quasi stepbrother.

Persuaded by Theodor Kirchner, who was at this time resident in Zurich, to spend the summer near him, Brahms, arriving in the middle of April, found a lodging in a small house on the Zurichberg which commanded a splendid prospect of lake and mountain. Here every facility was abundantly at hand for his enjoyment. Dividing his time, from a very early hour of the morning until noon, between musing in the open air and work in his room, he was usually to be met about twelve o'clock in the museum, which became a place of rendezvous for his friends. After the early dinner, always taken out of doors in fine weather, and a more or less prolonged sitting over newspapers, or in chat with acquaintance, in the open air, he would drop in at a friend's house, generally Kirchner's, pass an hour or two in informal sociability, and often make music with some of the resident musicians. It was at Kirchner's that he became acquainted with the celebrated Swiss writer and poet, Gottfried Keller, and with the distinguished Zurich professor of surgery, Dr.

Theodor Billroth, who was some four years our composer's senior, and who, called subsequently to Vienna, became one of Brahms' most familiar friends. Billroth's love for music was second only to his devotion to his own great vocation. He had studied the violin under Eschmann, played at a weekly trio meeting at his house in Plattenstrasse, Zurich, and was sufficiently proficient to take part on the viola with professional musicians in private performances of Beethoven's quartets and Brahms'

sextets. He could play the piano well, was a good sight-reader, and acted occasionally as musical critic to one of the Zurich papers.

'Brahms arrived here a few days ago,' he writes on the 22nd of April to his friend, Professor Lubke of Stuttgart. 'This morning he and Kirchner played some of Liszt's symphonic poems on two pianofortes. Horrible music!... We purged ourselves with Brahms'

new sextet that has just come out. Brahms and Kirchner played it as a duet.'[17]

The composer became intimate, also, at the house of Herr and Frau Wesendonck, who had been Wagner's great friends during his residence at Zurich, and could not hear enough about the composer of the 'Meistersinger,' of whom the Wesendoncks possessed inexhaustible personal recollections and several valuable souvenirs. Amongst these was the master's autograph score of the 'Rheingold,' an object that was regarded by Brahms with a respect almost amounting to veneration.

Traits of habit and character similar to those with which the reader is familiar, and which recall the period of the Detmold visits, are described in Steiner's 'Recollections,' by Capellmeister F. Hegar,[18]

who was the inseparable associate of Brahms and Kirchner:

'... We were no less impressed by his extraordinarily sound health.

He could venture upon anything. How often has he passed the night on the sofa of my bachelor's quarters when he was disinclined to climb the Zurichberg in the late hours of evening. Once indeed, when an older friend less hardy than himself claimed my hospitality, he lay down underneath my grand piano, and declared next morning that he had slept splendidly.'

Hegar mentions that Brahms' musical memory and unusually rapid power of apprehension excited the astonished admiration of the Zurich musicians.

'When we played him our compositions for the first time, he would afterwards sit down and repeat long portions note for note from memory, pointing out the weak places.'

One or two reminiscences of the summer are to be found in the volume of Billroth's letters from which quotation has already been made. Amongst them is the description of a music-party at his house, at which Brahms was present to hear a performance of his lately-published Sextet in G major. The consciousness of the composer's presence so unnerved Billroth that he was obliged to ask Eschmann, who was amongst the listeners, to relieve him of his part of second viola.

'I have learnt never to play before a composer,' he wrote a few days afterwards, 'unless his work has been well rehearsed. As I was quite familiar with the composition, I could imagine the vexation Brahms must have felt, although he put the matter aside in the kindest way. Kirchner, Brahms and Hegar had been up late together the night before and were tired. Everything contributed to make the evening dull.'

Of the sextet he says: 'I think it wonderfully fine; so clear, so simple, so masterly.'

Brahms remained in Switzerland until the middle of August, and, arriving on the 17th of this month to stay for a few weeks at his old lodgings in Lichtenthal, surprised Frau Schumann by appearing before her for the first time with a beard. He did not at this period persevere very long in wearing the appendage, which changed his appearance in an unusual degree, but he adopted it a second time, and, as it proved, permanently, about fourteen years later.

The composer had worked steadily on at the German Requiem during the months of his residence in Zurich, and that he now completed it in Lichtenthal--save and excepting only the fifth number--is to be inferred from the inscription on the manuscript score--'Baden-Baden im Sommer, 1866'--now in possession of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde at Vienna.

Great additional interest is given to this date by a short entry made by Frau Schumann in her diary early in September, which is, without doubt, the earliest written note upon the now famous work.

'Johannes has been playing me some magnificent movements out of a Requiem of his own and a string quartet in C minor. The Requiem delighted me even more, however. It is full of tender and again daring thoughts. I cannot feel clear as to how it will sound, but in myself it sounds glorious.'[19]

The extract has a double interest, as furnishing a new illustration of Brahms' caution with regard to publication, and especially in the case of works which constituted for him a new artistic departure. The String Quartet in C minor was not published until 1873, seven years from our present date.

About the middle of September Joachim appeared in Lichtenthal, and after a few days' stay there carried Brahms away with him. He had become a man at large through the political events of the year, by which the kingdom of Hanover became part of Prussia, having felt it impossible to accept the offer made him to retain his appointment after the deposition of King George, and was able to follow his inclination as to his arrangements for the autumn and winter season. These included tours in Switzerland and France, and it was ultimately arranged between the friends that Johannes should combine with him in some of his Swiss concerts.

Brahms spent most of the intervening time in Hamburg, and was so happy in his comfortable corner room in the Anscharplatz that he began seriously to entertain the idea of settling down again under his father's roof. Frau Caroline managed the household with careful but judicious thrift, and there was peace and contentment in the home. In his own way Jakob was as regular in his habits as his son. Every morning he went to the 'Borse' to inquire for work, and was generally successful in obtaining small engagements, often to act as substitute in the theatre orchestras. His position as bassist at the Stadt Theater had come to an end in the course of the fifties, owing to changes in the management, but he continued a member of the Philharmonic orchestra until a year before his death. He was proud and fond of Frau Caroline, always came home as soon as his work was done to enjoy the good plain fare which she had ready for him, and was perfectly happy as he sat in the kitchen with his pipe and a large cup of thin coffee, watching her movements. Once a week he amused himself by walking in the Jews' quarter of the city and inspecting the cheap second-hand wares with which the vendors sought to tempt his custom. His weakness for bargains was sometimes a source of embarrassment to his wife, in spite of her firmness in limiting his loose pocket-money to the sum of a few pence.

Now he would send home to her a quantity of wardrobe hooks, another time many pounds'-weight of honey. 'Goodness, Brahms! what are we to do with it?' she would despairingly inquire. 'Yes, Lina, but I couldn't let it stand at the price,' he would answer. Johannes used to lecture his father on his weakness for spending money, telling him how careful he himself was obliged to be, and could be seriously vexed if he found that Jakob had been really extravagant or thoughtless. This, however, occurred but seldom.

A letter to Dietrich from the Anscharplatz mentions the Requiem, and evidently answers an inquiry from Albert as to the long-delayed Symphony in C minor of which we heard in the summer of 1862.

'DEAR DIETRICH!

'Before the summer is over you shall be reminded of me by a short greeting....

'Unfortunately I cannot wait upon you with a symphony, but it would be a joy to have you here for a day, to play you my so-called German Requiem.

'I have been till now living in Switzerland, in Zurich. I shall stay here a little and think of going then to Vienna....'[20]

The concert-journey with Joachim was very successful, and afforded Brahms quite unexpected evidence of the progress his music was making in Switzerland. This country was, in fact, one of the earliest in which his art met with general appreciation, and much of the credit of its acceptance there must be ascribed to the efforts of Theodor Kirchner, who, as the reader may remember, was one of the most gifted musicians of the Schumann circle, and who seized every opportunity that offered from the beginning of Brahms' career, to spread the understanding of his compositions. Kirchner filled an organist's post at Winterthur for nearly ten years before his removal to Zurich in 1862, and, whilst developing an active musical life in the little town, made his influence felt far beyond its limits.

The tour opened on October 24 in Schaffhausen, and included Winterthur, Basle, and finally Muhlhausen in Alsace. An interesting incident of the visit to Muhlhausen was the renewal of friendly relations, after ten years of estrangement, between Joachim and von Bulow, who was resident during the season 1866-67 at Basle, and gave Trio concerts there with Abel and Kahnt. No communication took place between the former Weimar intimates during the week passed by Brahms and Joachim at Basle, but Bulow's affectionate nature was strongly stirred by seeing his old friend again on the concert-platform and hearing his public performances, which he describes as 'ideal perfection.' The sequel may be told in the words of his letter to Raff, dated Basle, November 22.

'And now, a great piece of news. On Sunday the 10th I travelled to Muhlhausen for the Brahms-Joachim concert, and the relation of friendship between Joachim and me was renewed on French soil after ten years' interruption. This will lead to no results of a positive nature, but a stone has been taken from my heart, and from his also as he has assured your sister-in-law. For my sake Joachim returned to Basle for a few hours and then took the night train to Paris.'[21]

Some years were yet to elapse before Bulow could pretend to any cordiality of feeling towards the art of Brahms. In another letter of 1866 we read:

'I respect and admire him, but--at a distance. The Pianoforte Quintet seems to me the most interesting of his large compositions.... Kiel is much more sympathetic to me.'[21]

He prevailed upon himself, indeed, to play the Horn Trio at his Basle Trio concert of March 26, 1867, when his colleagues were Abel and Hans Richter, who commenced his artist's career as a hornist, and was at this time living in Switzerland in the enjoyment of Wagner's intimacy; and he included Joachim's Variations for viola and pianoforte in the same programme; but as late as 1870 he wrote to Raff:

'What do the Br.'s matter to me? Brahms, Brahmuller, Bruch, etc.

Don't mention them again! Who knows whether a Riehl may not turn up in 1950 to beplutarch them as maestrinelli? The only one who interests me is Braff!'