It must not be supposed that the young Brahms was always so companionable as we have shown him when in the society of his chosen friends. He had his moods. Christian Miller's early experiences of his persistent taciturnity had not been exceptional. He spent a few evenings at the Japhas' house, but Louise's family, her sister Minna only excepted, by no means took a fancy to her favourite. One evening, when he was about eighteen, a gentleman of the Japha circle, who had been interested in hearing him play the scherzo now known as Op. 4, the earliest written of his published instrumental works, accompanied him on the way home, and made repeated but quite hopeless efforts after sociability. Not one word would Johannes say. Perhaps he felt subsequent secret prickings of conscience, for he made confession to Louise, though not in any apparently repentant spirit. 'One is not always inclined to talk,' he said; 'often one would rather not, and then it is best to be silent. You understand that, don't you?' 'No, you were very naughty,' she told him, but forgave him nevertheless. She could overlook his occasional whims. She perceived his genius, admired his candid nature, and felt her heart warm to him when he talked to her of the old mother to whom he was devoted, and of Marxsen, whom he revered with all the enthusiastic loyalty of his true heart. Soon after his walk with the Japhas' friend he had a chance opportunity of playing his scherzo to Henry Litolff, who bestowed high praise on the composition.
Meanwhile the friends at Winsen faithfully remembered their young musician. Uncle Adolph and friend Schröder seldom missed going to see him when occasion brought either of them to Hamburg, and Lischen came over to be introduced to Madame Cornet and Marxsen. Johannes persevered in his desire that her voice should be trained forthe musical profession, and wished her to obtain a good opinion on the subject. The verdict of the authorities proved, however, unfavourable to the project.
Of the general invitation to visit the Giesemanns Brahms gladly availed himself, staying sometimes for a few days, sometimes in the summer for a week or two, as his occupations allowed. He was never again able to undertake the choral society, but there was always a great deal of music at the Amtsvogt's house when he was at Winsen, as well as at the Giesemanns' and Schröders'. Town-musician Koch was a good violinist, and but too happy to have the chance of playing the duet sonatas of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven with such a colleague, and every now and again compositions were looked out in which Uncle Giesemann could take part with his guitar. Pretty Sophie Koch, the younger of the town-musician's two daughters, took great interest in these artistic doings, and it was rumoured, as time went on, that her fondness for music was not untinged by a personal element connected with the Giesemanns' popular guest. If this were so, Johannes himself was probably the last person to become observant of it. He was wholly absorbed in his profession, and several quite independent informants have concurred in describing him to the author as being, at this time of his life, something less than indifferent to the society of ladies, and especially of young ones. For his early playmate, Lischen, his affection continued unchanged, and with her he remained on the old terms of frank and cordial friendship.
It happened as a natural consequence of the political revolution which took place early in the year 1848 in Germany and Austria, that, during the year or two following its speedy termination, there was an influx into Hamburg and its neighbourhood of refugees on their way to America. Conspicuous among them were a number of Hungarians of various sorts and degrees, who found such sympathetic welcome in the rich, free merchant-city that they were in no hurry to leave it. Some of them remained there for many months on one pretext or another, and amongst thesewas the violinist Edward Reményi, a German-Hungarian Jew whose real name was Hoffmann.
Reményi, born in 1830, had been during three years of his boyhood a pupil of the Vienna Conservatoire, studying under Joseph Böhm, now remembered as the teacher of Joachim. He had real artistic endowment, and played the works of the classical masters well, if somewhat extravagantly; but something more than talent was displayed in his rendering of the airs and dances of his native country, which he gave with a fire and abandon that excited his hearers to wild enthusiasm. Eccentric and boastful, he knew how to profit to the utmost by his successes in Hamburg, where he created a furore. Johannes, engaged one evening to act as accompanist at the house of a rich merchant, made his personal acquaintance, and Reményi, quickly perceiving the advantage he derived from having such a coadjutor, made overtures of friendship in his swaggering, patronizing way, which were not repulsed by the young pianist. Brahms had, in fact, been fascinated by Reményi's spirited rendering of his national Friskas and Czardas; he was willing that the chance acquaintance should be improved into an alliance, and, on his next visit to the Giesemanns' house, was accompanied by his new friend.
The violinist had connections of his own in the neighbourhood. Begas, a Hungarian magnate, had settled down into a large villa at Dehensen, on the Lüneburg Heath, that had been placed at his disposal for as long a time as he should find it possible to elude or cajole the police authorities, and kept open house for his compatriots and their friends. To his circle Brahms was introduced, and much visiting ensued between Dehensen and Winsen, for one or two musicians staying with Begas were pleased to come and make music with Reményi and Johannes, and to partake of the Giesemanns' hospitality. It was a feather in Brahms' cap, in the eyes of many of his friends, that he had been able to capture for Winsen such a celebrity as Reményi, though they were not all quite of one mind. Lischen, for example, did not care for him at all, but much preferred the tall, handsomefiddler Janovitch, with his flashing black eyes and his velvet jacket, who wrote a splendid characteristic waltz expressly that he might dedicate it to her. The jolly party broke up suddenly at last, running off to take speedy ship for America, for they had heard that the police were on their heels. Johannes, who happened to be at Winsen when this crisis occurred, accompanied them as far as Hamburg, where he remained to pursue his ordinary avocations. Meanwhile the Friskas and Czardas continued to revolve in his brain.
Time went on, the Hungarians were no longer vividly regretted, and somewhere about the autumn of 1852, Brahms was left more lonely than ever by the departure of Louise Japha, who found opportunity to carry out her cherished wish to stay at Düsseldorf, where the Schumanns had now been settled for about two years. Her sister Minna was to accompany her, to carry on the cultivation of her own special gift under Professor Sohn, of the Düsseldorf Academy of Art. The thought of losing his friend caused Johannes great sorrow. 'Do not go,' he entreated; 'you are the only person here that takes any interest in me!' His prospects do not seem to have been improving at this time, and his best encouragement must have been derived from his own sense of his artistic progress. This was advancing by enormous strides, the exact measure of which is furnished by the manuscript of the Sonata in F sharp minor now in the possession of Hofcapellmeister Albert Dietrich. It bears the signature 'Kreisler jun.,' a pseudonym adopted by Brahms out of love for the capellmeister Johannes Kreisler, hero of one of Hoffmann's tales, and the date November, 1852.
This work, which, though published later on as Op. 2, was written earlier than the companion sonata known as Op. 1, is, in many of its fundamental characteristics, immediately prophetic of the future master. In it the mastery of form and skill in contrapuntal writing, the facility in the art of thematic development, the strikingly contrasted imaginative qualities—here subtly poetic, there large and powerful—bring us face to face with the artist nature which unitedin itself high purpose, resolute will, sure capacity, sensitive romanticism, boundless daring. The fancy, however, has not yet crystallized; the young musician has still to pass out of the stage of mental ferment natural to his age before he will be able to mould his thoughts into the concentrated shape which alone can convince the world. The sonata, not perhaps destined ever to become widely familiar, must always remain a treasure to the sympathetic student of Brahms' art, not only by reason of the beauties in which it abounds, but also because it is absolutely representative of its composer as he was at nineteen. We may read his favourite authors in some of its movements without the need of an interpreter, and we know, from his own communication to Dietrich, that the melody of the second movement was inspired by the words of the German folk-song, 'Mir ist leide, Das der Winter Beide, Wald und auch die Haide, hat gemachet kahl.'
It would be difficult, and is fortunately unnecessary, to trace the exact steps of Reményi's career after his flight from Germany. For the purpose of our narrative the facts suffice that he reappeared in Hamburg at the close of 1852, giving a concert in the Hôtel de l'Europe, which does not seem to have created any great sensation, and that he found himself in the same city in the spring of 1853. Brahms, depressed by the hopeless monotony of his daily grind, was no doubt glad enough to see him, and, as his slack time was at hand, it was proposed, perhaps by Reményi, perhaps by Uncle Giesemann, possibly by Johannes himself, that the two musicians should give a concert to their friends in Winsen, who would, no doubt, hail the prospect of such an event, and assist it to the utmost of their power. Communications were opened, and the proposal was not only entertained, but developed, as such ideas are apt to do. If at Winsen, why not also at Lüneburg and Celle? Amtsvogt Blume had influence in both towns, which he would be too happy to exert. In the end, the project expanded into the plan of a concert-tour. Johannes and Reményi would give performances in the three localities named, andfrom Celle it would be no distance to go on to Hanover, where the twenty-one-year-old Joachim, already a European celebrity, had a post at Court. Reményi had known him for a short time when they had both been boys at the Vienna Conservatoire; they would go and see him. He was bound to welcome his compatriot and former fellow-pupil. Who could tell what might happen?
No doubt Brahms' heart beat fast when he left home on this his first quest of adventure, and probably not the least ardent of his anticipations was that of making the personal acquaintance of the celebrated violinist whose first appearance in Hamburg at the Philharmonic concert of March 11, 1848, with Beethoven's Concerto, remained vividly in his remembrance as one of the few great musical events of his own life. Before starting, he exacted a promise from his mother that she would write to him regularly once a week—not a mere greeting, but a real letter of several pages. It was a serious undertaking for Johanna, who was not practised in penmanship, but she gave her word to Hannes, and found means to keep it. The travellers took but little luggage with them. Such as Johannes carried was made the heavier by his packet of manuscripts, which contained his pianoforte sonata-movements and scherzo, a sonata for pianoforte and violin, a pianoforte trio, a string quartet, a number of songs, and possibly other works. One programme was to suffice for the concerttournée, and this the two artists had in their heads.
The exact date of the Winsen concert is forgotten, apparently beyond chance of recall, but the event may be fixed with certainty as having taken place in the last week of April. Both musicians were the guests of the Giesemanns for several days beforehand, and spent the greater part of their mornings practising together, beginning before breakfast. They gave a great deal of time to the Hungarian melodies, and it would seem as though Johannes had been preparing a pianoforte accompaniment; for they repeated the periods over and over again, Reményi becoming very irritable during the process. The season was a warm one;they worked energetically in their shirt-sleeves, and the violinist more than once drew a scream of pain from his colleague, by bringing the violin bow suddenly down on his shoulder to emphasize the capricioustempohe required. One morning Johannes, very angry, jumped up from the piano, and declared he would no longer bear with Reményi; but the concert came off nevertheless, and turned out a brilliant success. It took place in the large room of the Rusteberg club-house; the entrance fee was about eight-pence, and the profits to be divided came to rather over nine pounds. Beethoven's C minor Sonata for pianoforte and violin headed the programme, and was followed by violin solos; Vieuxtemps' Concerto in E major, Ernst's 'Elégie,' and several Hungarian melodies, all accompanied by Brahms, who, it must be remembered, was but the junior partner in the enterprise. Only one thing was to be regretted. Schröder had been ill, and could not come to Winsen for the concert. He managed, however, to attend a repetition of the programme, which the two artists gave the next day in his schoolroom at Hoopte, expressly in order that he might get some amount of pleasure out of the great doings of the neighbourhood.
The next concert took place on May 2 at Celle. It had been arranged for with the assistance of Dr. Köhler, a well-known inhabitant of the town, probably a relation of the Rector of Winsen, and a friend of Amtsvogt Blume, who, besides seeing through the business arrangements, had neglected no opportunity of arousing general interest in the event. The single public announcement appeared in theCelles'sche Anzeigenof Saturday, April 30:
'Next Monday evening at seven o'clock the concert of the Herren Reményi and Brahms will take place in the Wierss'schen room. The subscription price is 12 g.gr.[13]Tickets may also be obtained of Herr Wierss jun. at Herr Duncker's hotel, and on the evening at the room for 16 g.gr.'
At Celle there was a sensation. The two artists, going, on the morning of May 2, to try their pieces in the concert-room,were dismayed to find that the only pianoforte of which it boasted was in such an advanced state of old age as to be unusable for their purpose. Classical concerts were rare events in Celle, and it had occurred to no one to doubt the excellence of the instrument; a piano was a piano. It was arranged that every effort should be made, during the few hours that remained, to procure a better one, and a better one was actually discovered and sent in just as the hour had arrived for the concert to begin. But a fresh difficulty arose. The second instrument proved to be nearly a semitone below pitch, and Reményi refused to make so considerable a change in the tuning of his violin. What was to be done? The practised and intrepid Johannes made short work of the difficulty. If Reményi would tune his fiddle slightly up, so as to bring it to a true semitone above the piano, he himself would transpose his part of the Beethoven sonata a semitone higher than written, and play it in C sharp instead of C minor. No sooner said than done. The young musician performed the feat without turning a hair, though his colleague allowed him no quarter, and the performance was applauded to the echo. Reményi behaved well on this occasion. Addressing the audience, he related the circumstances in which he and his companion had found themselves placed, and said that all approval belonged by right to Brahms, whose musicianship had saved the situation for everyone concerned. History does not relate whether the young hero transposed his parts throughout the evening, or whether the old instrument was sufficiently serviceable for the accompaniments of the violin solos, and the question does not appear to have suggested itself until the present time, when it cannot be solved. Johannes himself seems to have thought but little of his achievement. Writing presently to let Marxsen know how he was getting on, he mentioned the incident, not as worthy of comment, but as one amongst others.
The day after these events Reményi and Brahms retraced their steps as far as Lüneburg, where they were to remain for a week as the guests of Herr Calculator Blume, son of theAmtsvogt. At his hospitable house they were presented to the musical circle of the town, so far as it included members of the sterner sex. At the earnest persuasion of Brahms, no ladies were invited to the party arranged by Frau Blume in the interests of the forthcoming concert. 'It is so much nicer without them,' he said, and was so serious about the matter that his hostess regretfully gave way to him. He played part of the C major Sonata, on the composition of which he had lately been engaged, on this private occasion, making but little impression with it. Perhaps the double consciousness, which cannot but have been secretly present with him, of his great artistic superiority to Reményi, and of the quite secondary place to which he found himself relegated whenever they appeared together, may have increased the awkward shyness which placed him at such a disadvantage by the side of his colleague. He was incapable of making any effort to assert himself in general society, and attracted little notice from ordinary strangers who had no particular reason for observing him closely. However, everyone behaved very kindly to him throughout the journey. He was certainly a good pianist, and accompanied Reményi delightfully.
The concert was advertised in theLüneburger Anzeigerof May 7, the twentieth birthday anniversary of our Johannes:
'The undersigned propose to give a concert on Monday evening, the 9th inst., at 7.30, in Herr Balcke's Hall, and have the honour to invite the attendance of the music-loving public. Amongst other things, the concert-givers will perform Beethoven's Sonata for Pianoforte and Violin in C minor, Op. 30, and Vieuxtemps' grand Violin Concerto in E major.
'Tickets to be had,' etc.
'Edward Reményi.'Johannes Brahms.'
Again a great success was scored, and the next day a second concert 'by general desire' was announced, with the same programme and special mention of the 'Hungarian Melodies,' for Wednesday, May 11. It brought the visit to Lüneburg to a brilliant conclusion, and the performanceswere again repeated on the 12th at a second concert in Celle, advertised in the Celle journal of the 11th.
With the account of these five soirées, exact record of the public concerts of the journey is exhausted. Neither advertisement nor local recollection of any other can be traced, though Heuberger speaks, on the authority of Brahms' personal recollection, of two given at Hildesheim.[14]The first was very sparsely attended, and the artists, after supping at a restaurant where they seem to have made merry with some companions, paraded the streets with a queue of followers until they arrived underneath the windows of a lady of position who had been their principal patron. Reményi greeted her with some violin solos, the assembled party followed suit with a chorus, and the ingenious advertisement proved so successful that a second concert-venture on the following evening drew a crowded audience. The circumstances thus related point to the conclusion that the first concert at Hildesheim was hastily arranged, and the explanation may be that some unexpected introduction caused the musicians to visit the town. This would fit in with the fact that there is no reference in any Hildesheim journal of the date to Brahms and Reményi, and with the absence of all knowledge, on the part of several persons still living who have personal associations with the journey, of any other concerts than those in Winsen, Lüneburg, and Celle, and of one other of a different kind in Hanover, to which we shall return.
It is necessary for the understanding of what is to follow that we should here part company, for a time, with the travellers. Before introducing Johannes to the great musical world which he is to enter before long, we must glance at the party questions by which it was agitated in the early fifties, and which had hitherto been unknown or unheeded by our young musician in the inexperience of his secluded life.
The musical world of Leipzig, the city raised by the leadership of Mendelssohn to be the recognised capital ofclassical art, had become split after the death of the master in November, 1847, into two factions, both without an active head. The Schumannites, whilst receiving no encouragement from the great composer whose art they championed, decried Mendelssohn as a pedant and a phrase-maker, who, having nothing particular to say, had covered his lack of meaning by facility of workmanship. The Mendelssohnians, on the other hand, declared Schumann to be wanting in mastery of form, and perceived in his works a tendency to subordinate the objective, to the subjective, side of musical art. The division soon spread beyond Leipzig throughout Germany, and, in the course of years, to England, with the result that Mendelssohn, once a popular idol, is now rarely represented in a concert programme.
Meanwhile Franz Liszt, perhaps the greatest pianoforte executant of all times, and one of the most magnetic personalities of his own, had exchanged his brilliant career of virtuoso for the position of conductor of the orchestra of the Weimar court theatre, with the avowed noble purpose of bringing to a hearing such works of genius as had little chance of being performed elsewhere. He declared himself the advocate of the 'New-German' school, and, making active propaganda for the creeds of Hector Berlioz and Richard Wagner, succeeded in attracting to his standard some of the most talented of the younger generation of artists, amongst whom Joachim, Raff, and the gifted and generous Hans von Bülow, were some of the first converts. There were, therefore, three different schools of serious musical thought in the year 1853, each of which boasted numerous and distinguished adherents.
The purists of Leipzig held sacred the memory of Mendelssohn, clung to the methods as well as the forms of classical tradition, and declined to recognise as legitimate art anything that savoured of progress.
The Schumannites believed it possible to give musical expression to the world-spirit of the time by expanding their methods within the old forms—i.e., by free use ofchromatic harmonies, varied cadences, mixed rhythms, and so forth.
The Weimarites, rejoicing in the potent leadership of Liszt, declared they would no longer be hampered either by old methods or old forms, which they regarded as worn out and perishing of inanition.
The party disputes as to the respective merits of Mendelssohn and Schumann, were as nothing beside the violent controversies which raged for years around the theories professed by the founders of the so-called 'music of the future.' For some time the battle was fought chiefly between the 'academics' of Leipzig and the 'revolutionists' of Weimar. The classical-romantic art of Schumann had points of contact with that of each of the extremists. Animated by new impulse and instinct with modern thought, it was by no means coupled by the leaders of the new party with that of Mendelssohn, but was accepted by them for some years with more than toleration, and some of the master's works, as 'Genoveva' and 'Manfred' were performed at Weimar under Liszt's direction. Schumann himself, however, whilst warmly appreciating the great qualities of Wagner's musicianship, was well aware that any relationship between his own works and that of the new school was merely superficial. He was second to none in his reverence for the forms of the great masters, upon which he based his compositions, and, though it is probably the case that the originality of his art-methods did not attract the sympathy of Mendelssohn, he clung to the memory of this departed friend as that of a beloved comrade in arms.
Schumann, who had long since retired from his labours as editor of theNeue Zeitschrift für Musik, of which he was the founder, lived quietly at Düsseldorf, where he had, in 1850, succeeded Ferdinand Hiller as municipal conductor. The success achieved by him there, during the first season of his activity as director of the orchestral subscription concerts and the choral society, was only transient. His reserved nature, and the progress of the malady that threatened him, unfitted him for the position, and he wassubject to the constant annoyance that resulted from differences with his committee. To this was added the serious disappointment of knowing that the periodical to which he had devoted untiring energy during some of the best years of his life, had become, under the editorship of Franz Brendel, the organ of the New-German party, from whose principles he felt increasing alienation. These vexations probably augmented his nervous condition, and his habitual silence and reserve increased. His chief pleasure was found in the absorbing work of composition, and in his generous sympathy with a group of young musicians who regarded themselves as his disciples. Perhaps feeling that the best part of his own career was already behind him, he lived in the constant hope that someone would appear of creative genius sufficiently decisive to indicate him as the worthy successor to the prophet's mantle of classical art.
Many of our readers are aware that Joseph Joachim was born on June 28, 1831, at Kittsee, a village near Presburg in Hungary; that at the age of twelve he had learnt all that the distinguished violinist Böhm, of the Vienna Conservatoire, master of many famous pupils, could teach him; and that he lived at Leipzig, well known at the conservatoire, though not its pupil, for the next six years, happy during the first four of them in the affection of Mendelssohn, to whom he was passionately attached, and who lost no opportunity of furthering his protégé's genius and of laying the foundation of his future career.
It was not until after Mendelssohn's death that either of the party questions to which we have referred became acute, and Joseph grew up an unquestioning believer in the principles of musical tradition, which he reverenced with something of religious fervour. The loss of Mendelssohn left him, at the age of sixteen, lonely and disconsolate, in spite of his being himself already a distinguished personality and a universal favourite. The peculiar place in his life which the master had occupied could not again be filled, and for more than two years he was unable to regard anyone as even the partial successor to his best affections.It happened, however, that two events of the year 1850, awakened in his heart something of the personal enthusiasm which had made his early happiness. A week spent by the Schumanns at Leipzig in the month of March, convinced him of his sympathy with the composer and his art; and a visit which he paid to Weimar in August, on the occasion of the first performance of Wagner's 'Lohengrin,' stirred him so strongly that by the end of the year he had resigned his position in Leipzig and taken up his residence in Weimar as concertmeister in Liszt's orchestra.[15]
Here he lived for two years, and it seemed for a time as though he would become one of the most enthusiastic of the band of young musicians, amongst whom were Bülow, Raff, Cornelius, and the violoncellist Cossmann, who proclaimed themselves disciples of the new school. His genius and his already eminent position as an artist made him by far the most important member of the group, and he was treated by Liszt almost on equal terms, as a younger colleague. In the constant companionship of this fascinating master, Joachim felt some renewal of the satisfaction in life which he had experienced when with Mendelssohn at Leipzig; but his early convictions and affections were too deeply rooted to be effaced by newer impressions, and his allegiance to the school of the future was not permanent. Liszt's aspirations, as the composer of sounding orchestral works which Joachim ought to have admired, but could not, gradually caused the young concertmeister to feel his position a false one, and he was glad to accept a post offered him, at the close of 1852, as court concertmeister and assistant capellmeister at Hanover. By this step he regained his independence without hurting the feelings of his Weimar friends. His absence of warmth on the subject of the Symphonic Poems had, indeed, been observed by Liszt, but Joachim had naturally refrained from expressing himself about them in detail, and Liszt could not guess that his young companion had conceived a positive aversion to hiscompositions. Joachim remained for some years yet on terms of affectionate intimacy with Liszt, Bülow, and the others, and was, indeed, so lonely and depressed during the first few months of his residence in Hanover, that he was impelled to express his state of mind by the composition of an overture to 'Hamlet.' Sending the manuscript to Liszt in the middle of March, he wrote:
'I have been very much alone. The contrast between the atmosphere which is constantly resounding, through your influence, with new tones, and an air which is completely tone-still, is too barbarous. Wherever I have looked there has been no one to share my aims—no one; instead of the phalanx of like-minded friends at Weimar ... I took up "Hamlet" ... I am certain that you, my ever-indulgent master, will look through the score, and will advise me as though I were sitting near you, dumb as ever, but listening eagerly to your musical wisdom.'[16]
The Festival of the Lower Rhine, held in the year 1853 at Düsseldorf (May 15-17), was a particularly brilliant function. The names of Robert and Clara Schumann, Ferdinand Hiller as chief conductor, Joseph Joachim, the English artist Clara Novello, and others of high distinction, roused lively expectations which were perhaps exceeded by the performances. Schumann's D minor Symphony, Pianoforte Concerto played by his wife, and Overture and final chorus from the 'Rheinweinlied,' all given under his own direction, were received with enthusiasm; and the first appearance on the Rhine of the young concertmeister from Hanover, with Beethoven's then little-known Violin Concerto, resulted in a triumph that defies description. 'He opened a veritable world of enchantment,' 'He was the hero of the festival,' 'We will not attempt to describe his success; there was French frenzy, Italian fanaticism, in a German audience,' say the critics of the day.
For our readers, the peculiar interest of the occasion lies in the fact that Joachim, increasingly attracted by Schumann's art and individuality, took advantage of his fewdays' stay in Düsseldorf to draw closer his relations with the master, and it may be said that his future attitude was finally determined at this time. He saw in Schumann the living representative of the music that he loved, and to him and his he became bound henceforth by ties that death itself was but partially able to sever.[17]
Brahms and Reményi visit Joachim in Hanover—Concert at Court—Visit to Liszt—Joachim and Brahms in Göttingen—Wasielewski, Reinecke, and Hiller—First meeting with Schumann—Albert Dietrich.
Leaving Düsseldorf on May 18, the day following the close of the festival, Joachim proceeded on a week's visit to Weimar, and, returning thence to spend a day or two at home in Hanover before settling for the summer at Göttingen, where he proposed to attend University lectures, was surprised by a call from Reményi and Brahms.[18]His first attention was naturally devoted to his old school-fellow, but by-and-by he turned to the stranger, and an account of the interview may be given in his own words:
'The dissimilar companions—the tender, idealistic Johannes and the self-satisfied, fantastic virtuoso—called on me. Never in the course of my artist's life have I been more completely overwhelmed with delighted surprise, than when the rather shy-mannered, blonde companion of my countryman played me his sonata movements, of quite undreamt-of originality and power, looking noble and inspired the while. His song "O, versenk dein Leid" sounded to me like a revelation, and his playing, so tender, so imaginative, so free and so fiery, held me spell-bound. No wonder that I not only foresaw, but actually foretold,a speedy end to the concert-journey with Reményi. Brahms parted from him soon afterwards, and, encouraged before long by an enthusiastic recognition, marched proudly onwards in his own path of endeavour after the highest development.'[19]
Reményi had not been mistaken in building hopes for the success of the concert-journey upon the chance of an interview with Joachim, who proved the medium through which both he and his companion were guided to the respective spheres for which each was peculiarly fitted. The great violinist was at this, his first interview with Brahms, so deeply penetrated by the certainty of his genius, so impressed by its daring, and so profoundly touched by the evident sincerity and childlike freshness of his nature, that he took him then and there to his heart, and made his cause his own. He at once exerted his influence in Hanover to such purpose that the travellers were engaged to appear before King George and the royal circle.
'There is in his (Brahms') playing,' he wrote to the Countess Bernstorff, a lady of great musical accomplishment attached to the Hanoverian Court, 'that concentrated fire, what I may call that fatalistic energy and precision of rhythm, which prophesy the artist, and his compositions already contain much that is significant, such as I have not hitherto met with in a youth of his age.'[20]
Joachim's engagements did not allow him to wait in Hanover till the date of the proposed court concert; but before his departure he cordially invited Johannes, who called to bid him farewell, to visit him in Göttingen if his relations with Reményi should come to as early a termination as Joachim thought likely.
Mention of the concert before King George and the royal family is to be found in a volume, 'Aus allen Tonarten,' by Heinrich Ehrlich, court pianist at Hanover, who was present, and has recorded that Brahms played the E flat minorScherzo. In a subsequent letter to this musician Joachim wrote:
'... It was his exceptional talent for composition, and a nature which could have been developed in its integrity only in close retirement, pure as the diamond, tender as snow.'
From Hanover, Reményi and Brahms travelled to Weimar, where Joachim had ensured them a welcome by writing to Liszt on their behalf. Of the first meeting between the world-famous musician, who lived in a style of ostentatious luxury in a house on the Altenburg belonging to the Princess Caroline von Sayn-Wittgenstein, and the obscure young composer from the Lane-quarter of Hamburg, we have, fortunately, the account of an eye-witness, William Mason, of New York, who was at the time resident in Weimar as a pupil of Liszt, and one of the ardent young champions of the new school.
'One evening early in June,' says Mason,[21]'Liszt sent us word to come up the next morning to the Altenburg, as he expected a visit from a young man who was said to have great talent as a composer, and whose name was Johannes Brahms. He was to come accompanied by Edward Reményi.
'The next morning, on going to the Altenburg with Klindworth, we found Brahms and Reményi already in the reception-room with Raff and Prückner. After greeting the new-corners, of whom Reményi was known to us by reputation, I strolled over to a table on which were lying some manuscripts of music. They were several of Brahms' unpublished compositions, and I began turning over the leaves of the uppermost of the pile. It was the pianoforte solo, Op. 4, Scherzo in E flat minor.... Finally Liszt came down, and after some general conversation he turned to Brahms, and said: "We are interested to hear some of your compositions whenever you are ready and feel inclined to play them."
'Brahms, however, who was in a highly nervous state, declared that it was quite impossible for him to play, and as the entreaties of Liszt and Reményi failed to induce him to approach the piano, Liszt went over to the table, saying, "Well, I shall have to play"; and taking the first piece athand from the heap of manuscripts, he performed the scherzo at sight in such a marvellous way, carrying on, at the same time, a running accompaniment of audible criticism of the music, that Brahms was surprised and delighted. Raff found reminiscences, in the opening bars, of Chopin's Scherzo in B flat minor, whereupon Brahms answered that he had neither seen nor heard any of this composer's works. Liszt then played a part of Brahms' Sonata in C major, Op. 1.
'A little later, someone asked Liszt to play his own sonata, a work which was quite recent at that time, and of which he was very fond. Without hesitation he sat down and began playing. As he progressed, he came to a very expressive part, which he always imbued with extreme pathos, and in which he looked for the especial interest and sympathy of his listeners. Glancing at Brahms, he found that the latter was dozing in his chair. Liszt continued playing to the end of the sonata, and then rose and left the room. I was in such a position that Brahms was hidden from my view, but I was aware that something unusual had taken place, and I think it was Reményi who told me what had occurred. It is very strange that among the various accounts of this first Liszt-Brahms interview—and there are several—there is not one which gives an accurate description of what took place on the occasion; indeed, they are all far out of the way. The events as here related are perfectly clear in my own mind; but not wishing to trust implicitly to my memory, I wrote to my friend Klindworth, the only living witness of the incident except myself, as I suppose, and requested him to give me an account of it as he remembered it. He corroborated my description in every particular, except that he made no specific reference to the drowsiness of Brahms, and except also that, according to my recollection, Brahms left Weimar on the afternoon of the day on which the meeting took place; Klindworth writes that it was on the morning of the next day—a discrepancy of very little moment.'
It is to be observed, in the first place, with reference to this interesting account, that Brahms' panic was probably caused by his finding that he was expected to play before not only Liszt himself, but a party of his pupils, the most unnerving kind of audience with which he could possibly have been confronted; and in the second, that Reményi,in saying his companion had fallen asleep, unquestionably merely intended to convey the meaning that he had not taken prudent advantage of his opportunity to ingratiate himself with the great man. The very different methods employed by the violinist for the advancement of his own ambition are illustrated by a letter written by him to Liszt—evidently soon after this first interview—which throws an illuminating sidelight upon the scene and its immediate sequel. It is clear that Reményi at once took steps for the purpose of ingratiating himself with the leader of Weimar and his rising young musicians by acquainting himself with, at all events, the names of Liszt's compositions, and announcing himself a convert to the New-German music. He remained associated with the party for a considerable time, and Liszt recognised his gifts whilst ridiculing his extravagances. The letter referred to opens with a kind of preamble:
'This scribbler ventures to address the great man, after having heard the sonata, the scherzo, the rhapsodies, the Dante fantasia, etc. One must have courage to dare to write to such a man. Let us see, let us try, nevertheless. We shall see whether I have the talent to continue. Now to work!
'Tisztelt Liszt Ur!
'Admirable compatriot!
'I am here on the Altenburg, the place where I have had the happiness (read effrontery) of being received by Liszt, and where I have the happiness of finding myself again!
'Conceive the immense joy you have given me by forwarding the letter addressed to me from Hungary. Every bad thing is of some use; when I reflect that this bit of a Hungarian letter has procured me the sublime lines of Liszt—Ah! yes, I have read this letter four or five times—no! devoured it, but not altogether; some fragments fortunately remain for me to point to proudly in the future (when I shall have become a great man??!!): do you see, gentlemen? I am a happy mortal. I possess the writing—no,a personal letter from Liszt. You may be assured that that iseverythingfor me—it will be my talisman! If you by chance ask what I am doing, really I cannot tell you—ofwhat interest can it be to you if I scrape on the violin or compose some new mazourek fantastiques? That is zero for you....
'As for my political confession, it is already sent—Raff has edited it!
'Now, I think this letter is much too long. I shall finish it by telling you quite simply, but very sincerely, that the good God has you in His holy keeping, and that He ever directs your genius for the honour and glory of the human race in general, and particularly (but particularly) of your dear country.
'Adieu, great compatriot!
'I subscribe myself,
'E. Reményi,
'Citizen of the Altenburg, ci-devant of Hungary.
'P.S.—Brahms has left for Göttingen.'[22]
And no wonder! one feels inclined to exclaim, on reading the postscript, the first of three appended to the epistle. Johannes must have felt that his power of endurance was being strained to its utmost limit by daily association with such a comrade, and determined to break it, helped, very likely, to his resolution by the recollection of the very different personality of that other violinist, the young king of fiddlers, who had invited him to Göttingen. The story frequently related, that Brahms and Reményi, or one of them, stayed on for several weeks as Liszt's guests at the Altenburg, is contradicted by all contemporary testimony, negative as well as positive. No such visit is mentioned in any known letter of the period, whilst Reményi's communication to Liszt would of itself be fairly good evidence that none such took place, and, taken together with the independent accounts of Mason and Klindworth, must be accepted as conclusive against the supposition. The morning at the Altenburg can, indeed, have left little behind it in the mind of our musician beyond a feeling of mortification, and Mason expressly states that the impression it produced on the young men present was that it had not been a success.It is likely that Klindworth was substantially correct as to the exact date of Brahms' departure from Weimar. Perhaps hoping to appear to better advantage in atête-à-têteinterview, he seems to have called a second time on Liszt, who presented him with a leather cigarette-case in which was placed an autograph inscription in remembrance of their meeting.[23]
Somewhere about the middle of June, then, Joachim, at work one day in his rooms at Göttingen, had hardly time to call out, 'Come in' in answer to a knock at the door, before the door opened and in walked Brahms. This was the beginning of the intimate acquaintance between the two youthful musicians, which ripened into the historic friendship that endured until the death of Brahms forty-four years later. What a discovery was each to the other! Alike in no respect, perhaps, save in earnest devotion to art, and a profound feeling of obligation in her service, the dissimilarity of their dispositions was such as to make them mutually interesting and to cement the growing bond between them. To Joachim the worship of art, adored goddess though she might be, could never be all in all; it could never appease the craving for human sympathy which, since Mendelssohn's death, he had at times felt to be almost intolerable. Johannes, haunted by a vision of the delight of intimate sympathy, was not convinced of its being either possible or indispensable, and knew that he could, if necessary, live his life without it. To Joachim, possessed of strong likings and antipathies, and firm to convictions involving a principle, it was not difficult, in a conflict of mere inclinations, to yield. In Johannes, with all his childlike sweetness of nature, there dwelt an ineradicable combative instinct. To Joachim life had been one continued triumph; he had never known even the taste of failure. A personality from childhood, he had conquered his world once and for all with scarcely an effort. Hannes had passed his days in obscurity, and had seen and knownonly struggle. And now, to Joachim, who had never had to plan for his own advancement, what a fresh joy it was to think and hope and suggest for the future of Johannes, and to Johannes, who had known little of the satisfaction of intelligent appreciation from colleagues of his own standing, what an astonishing experience was this enthusiastic and authoritative approval from such a comrade! The companions, engrossed in the first place by their compositions—for Joachim was engaged upon two overtures, and Johannes busy with sonatas and songs—found plenty of time for other occupations. They studied and made music together, and walked and talked and dined together, and compared opinions and argued and agreed together. No doubt Johannes heard much about the Leipzig of Bach and Mendelssohn, and he found to his surprise that Joachim, the unparalleled interpreter of Bach and Beethoven, shared Louise Japha's opinion of Schumann's music. He certainly touched Joachim's heart by his loving talk of Hamburg, rich in proud traditions, and not without art memories of its own, associated with the great names of Klopstock and Lessing, of Telemann and Keiser, of Handel and Mattheson and Emanuel Bach. The fêted violinist, familiar since his ninth year with one or other centre of musical learning, brilliant pupil of the conservatoire of Vienna, beloved favourite of that of Leipzig, listened, moreover, with no little interest to all that Johannes chose to relate of his solitary studies with his Marxsen. The happy young Hamburger felt that he could tell Joseph anything. He spoke to him of his struggles, his kind friends at Winsen, his acquaintance with Louise Japha, the difficulties of his journey with Reményi. Joachim was so much interested in the Winsen episodes that he could not refrain from writing to Uncle Giesemann to tell him that his young musician would be a great man some day.
In one thing only Johannes would not bear his friend company. He declined to attend the university lectures of Ritter and Waiz, voting lectures a bore, and preferring to take his mental food, as usual, from books. He was veryready, however, to join the jovial fellowship that met at the Saxsen, the students' club-restaurant frequented by Joachim and his friends. He entered with great zest into all the fun of the social evenings, and on the night when he and Joachim were called upon, as the youngest of the party, to perform the 'Fox-ride,' he sat astraddle on his little chair, and galloped round the table with the court concertmeister from Hanover as though he were bent on keeping his terms with the most serious-minded student of them all. The happy holiday was crowned by a concert given by the two 'students,' which attracted an overflowing audience and provided Brahms with welcome funds for the prosecution of his immediate plans. He wished to make a walking excursion along the Rhine before the summer should have passed away, and left Göttingen about the middle of August, armed with several of his friend's visiting-cards with which to introduce himself to musical houses on his route. The acquaintance which Joachim desired to secure for him above all others was that of Schumann, but Johannes, probably sore from his recent experiences of an interview with a leader surrounded by his followers, was uncertain if he should stay at Düsseldorf. The separation between himself and Joachim was to be a short one only. They were to meet in October at Hanover, where Johannes was to pass the winter in his friend's society.
We have to picture our traveller as passing, during the next two or three weeks, from point to point along the beautiful Rhine valley in a frame of mind rendered almost ecstatic by the combined influences of his daily surroundings, his recent experiences, and his well-grounded hopes for the future. We meet him again early in September in the house of J. W. von Wasielewsky, who at this period filled a post as music-director at Bonn, and who has given an interesting account of Brahms' arrival in that city.
'Towards the end of the summer,' he says,[24]'I was surprised by a visit from an attractive-looking, fair-haired youth, who delivered to me one of Joachim's visiting-cards, on thereverse side of which was his own humorously-written signature.[25]Coming in the direction from Mainz, he had travelled on foot through the Rhine valley, and presented himself to me staff in hand and knapsack on his back. His fresh, natural, unconstrained manner impressed me sympathetically, so that I not only bade him welcome, but invited him to stay a day or two with me, to which he then and there consented. After the first hours of our intercourse, I naturally felt a desire to learn to know my guest from the musical side. He at once favoured me with a performance of one of his then unpublished early works, a pianoforte sonata, the quality of which immediately revealed to me his great talent for composition. I also heard him in other things. I particularly remember his characteristic execution of the Rakóczy March, which he was fond of playing and gave with great effect.'
Asked by Wasielewsky whether he intended to visit Schumann, Johannes replied that he had come to no decision on the point, giving as the reason for his uncertainty, the failure of his effort to approach the master on his visit to Hamburg in 1850, and no persuasion of his new friend availed to bring him to a resolution. He did not quit the neighbourhood of Bonn immediately. Acting, no doubt, on Wasielewsky's advice, he retraced his steps a little in order to present himself at a great house in the vicinity—that of Commerzienrath Deichmann, a gentleman widely known, not only from his wealth and hospitality, but also by the warm interest taken by himself and his family in matters connected with literature and art. Distinguished visitors of many varieties of social rank, from royal personages downwards, were entertained by Frau Deichmann at her residence at Mehlem, opposite Königswinter. Celebrities on a visit to the Rhine country were generally to be met in her drawing-rooms in the course of their stay, many of the artists resident in the neighbourhood belonged to her intimate circle, and young musicians of promise were received by her with especial kindness. Needless to say that the arrival of Brahms as Joachim's intimate was hailed by her with lively satisfaction, and the familiar friends of the house, amongstwhom were Franz Wüllner, the 'cellist Reimers, Wasielewsky himself, and other young musicians, hurried to Mehlem on receiving her hasty summons, prepared to extend to the new-comer's performances as much approbation or criticism as the event might justify.
'I found,' said Wüllner, in a memorial speech delivered after Brahms' death in the conservatoire of Cologne, 'a slender youth with long fair hair and a veritable St. John's head, from whose eyes shone energy and spirit. He played us the just-finished C major Sonata, the earlier completed F sharp minor Sonata, the E flat minor Scherzo, and several songs—amongst them the now familiar "O versenk dein Leid." We young musicians were immediately delighted and carried away by his compositions.'
As might have been expected, Brahms was not allowed to leave Mehlem immediately. He was persuaded to remain on as the Deichmanns' guest, to improve his acquaintance with their friends, and to further explore the Rhine and its beauties from their house, and it was during this visit that he found the opportunity, eagerly desired by him since his stay at Göttingen, to begin the real study of Schumann's compositions, till now but little known to him. What must have been his wonder and his joy as he found himself brought face to face in many of their pages with his favourite authors, Jean Paul and E. T. A. Hoffmann, and perceived in them as in a mirror the dreamings of his own soul! His surprise was probably but little less on making the discovery that Schumann's tone-poems, with all their fresh originality of method and their fascinating romance, were no mere erratic imaginings, but were firmly rooted in the great traditions of classical art. It is, perhaps, impossible to realize in its strength the revulsion of feeling that must have attended this first real spiritual meeting of 'Kreisler jun.' with the composer of the 'Kreisleriana'; but it is safe to say that it settled him in the determination to pay the visit to Schumann which Joachim had planned, and that it had its share in producing the temper of mind manifest in a letter written by Johannes in the third weekof September, whilst he was on a few days' excursion with the boys of the Deichmann family, to the Amtsvogt Blume of Winsen:
'Dear Herr Amtsvogt,
'Permit me to offer most heartfelt wishes for your own and for Frau Blume's happiness on the joyful festival which you celebrate this month. The great esteem and love which I have for you may excuse me for troubling you from so great a distance, and perhaps at the wrong time, with these lines; I only know that you celebrate your golden wedding in the middle of this month. May God long preserve you in health, that I may often again, as hitherto, spend many happy hours at your house. In case you still feel some interest in my fate, you may, perhaps, be pleased to hear that I have passed a heavenly summer, such as I have never before known. After spending some gloriously inspiring weeks with Joachim at Göttingen, I have now been rambling about for five weeks according to heart's desire on the divine Rhine. I hope to be able to pass this winter at Hanover in order to be near Joachim, who is equally noble as man and artist. Begging you to remember me most warmly to your wife and daughter, I would also request you to express my heartiest greeting to your son with his wife and children, to dear Uncle Giesemann, and to all acquaintances. With best greeting, YourJoh. Brahms.
'In the Lahnthal,Sept. 1853.'[26]
Johannes' thoughts were engaged at this time on the Pianoforte Sonata in F minor, Op. 5, that was finally completed early in November. Who that has really tasted of the enchantment of that wonderful composition, great in spite of its immaturity, can doubt, on reading these lines, that the shining Rhine with its wooded heights, that the Rolandseck and the Nonnenwerth and the Drachenfels, and the deep blue sky and gorgeous starry nights, had their part, with the romance and wonder and gratitude and delight dwelling in his young heart, in the making of the work—not in the sense of supplying the composer with a programme for hisinspiration; but as the sunbeam caught by the plant—as mingling with his nature and becoming a portion of the very elemental force that blossomed into the flower of his imagination?
Yet another important halt was made by Brahms at Cologne, where two more interesting names were added to the long list of acquaintances already formed by him during the short five months of his absence from home. He delivered a letter from the university music-director of Göttingen, Arnold Wehner, and a greeting from Wasielewsky, to Carl Reinecke, at the time professor of pianoforte and counterpoint in the conservatoire of the Rhenish capital, and Reinecke, after hearing some of his compositions, conducted him to Ferdinand Hiller's house, and subsequently accompanied him to the railway-station at Deutz. Here he took train for Düsseldorf,[27]full, no doubt, of fluttering expectation at the thought that he was about to seek an interview with the great master of his day; sole successor, since the death of Mendelssohn, to the mighty giants in whose traditions he had been steeped since early childhood by Cossel and Marxsen. And as we accompany the young musician in imagination on this last stage of his Rhine journey, we may fittingly pay the tribute of passing remembrance to these two men. To their talents and attainments and character he owed it that he was able to approach the supreme hour of entrance upon the manhood of his artistic life, shortly to dawn for him, with the certainty of equipment and devotion of purpose that had already stamped upon his genius the unmistakable pledge of mastership.
Several accounts, agreeing in essential points, have been given by Dr. Schübring and others of Brahms' first acquaintance with Schumann. After some preliminary conversation, the master desired his visitor to play something of his own. Scarcely was the first movement of the C major Sonata concluded, when he rose and left the room, and, returning with his wife, desired to hear it again. And as Johanneshad played it three months previously to the amazement and delight of Joseph Joachim, so he now played it to the amazement and delight of Robert and Clara Schumann; and when he had finished one movement these two great artists bade him play another, and at the end of that, another, and still desired more, so that when, at length, the performance was at an end their hearts had gone out to him in affection, whilst in his the first link had already been forged of that chain of love by which he soon became bound to the one and the other till the end of both their lives.
Johannes lost no time in finding out his old friends Louise and Minna Japha. What wonderful adventures he had to relate to them, more than could be got through in one or even two interviews! There was the tour with Reményi, the performance at Court—how far away these things seemed!—then the visit to Weimar, the student-life at Göttingen, the journey along the Rhine. He had made the acquaintance of many young musicians, who had one and all welcomed his coming amongst them; he had been introduced to Hiller, become Joachim's closest friend, and now had, he thought, won Schumann's approval. 'He patted me on the shoulder,' Johannes told Louise, 'and said, "We understand each other." What did he mean?' Schumann's meaning was made very obvious to Joachim, who received the following note from the master in answer to the introduction and messages of greeting he had sent him by Brahms: 'This is he that should come.'
We may now turn to the delightful account given by Albert Dietrich,[28]one of Schumann's favourite disciples, who lived at Düsseldorf in daily intercourse with the great composer, of his first acquaintance with the new-comer:
'Soon after Brahms' arrival in September, Schumann came up to me before the commencement of one of the choral society practices with mysterious air and pleased smile. "Someone is come," said he, "of whom we shall one day hear all sorts of wonderful things; his name is Johannes Brahms." And he presented to me the interestingand unusual-looking young musician, who, seeming hardly more than a boy in his short gray summer coat, with his high voice and long fair hair, made a most agreeable impression. Especially fine were his energetic, characteristic mouth, and the earnest, deep gaze in which his gifted nature was clearly revealed.'
Here was another companion of the right sort for Brahms. He and Albert met daily from this time forward during his four weeks' stay at Düsseldorf, breakfasting together at an open-air restaurant in the Hofgarten, and sharing each other's confidences and pleasures. Albert's recognition of the powers of his new friend was no less thorough than Joachim's had been, and he sent enthusiastic reports of him to Kirchner, Naumann, and other young musicians of the Schumann set. Himself apersona gratain the various artistic circles of Düsseldorf, he was able to open to Johannes a new and inexhaustible source of interest. He introduced him to Schirmer, Lessing, Sohn, and other of the leading painters, at whose houses the young musician heard much talk about the sister arts which bore due fruit in a mind whose first need was, in Joachim's words, 'the harmonious cultivation of its various powers and the loving assimilation of all sorts of knowledge.' A charming young society was quite ready to welcome a new playfellow—and such a playfellow—into its midst, and Johannes was invited by Albert's friends to many parties and excursions. He managed to waive the objection to ladies' society which he had once found insuperable, and discovered that a festivity from which they were not rigorously excluded was not therefore a necessarily tiresome affair! Music in general and his music in particular, was much in demand at frequent evening gatherings, and his hearers knew not whether they were more delighted by his interpretations of the great masters or of his own compositions.
'Everyone was filled with astonishment,' says Dietrich, 'and the young people, especially, were dominated by the impression of his characteristic, powerful, and, when necessary, extraordinarily tender playing. He used toreceive the enthusiastic praise accorded to his performances in a modest, deprecatory manner.
'His constitution was thoroughly sound; the most strenuous mental exertion scarcely fatigued him, but then he could go soundly to sleep at any hour of the day he pleased. With companions of his own standing he was lively, sometimes arrogant, dry, and full of pranks. When he came to see me, he used to rush up the stairs, thump on the door with both fists, and burst in without waiting for an answer.... Brahms never spoke of the works with which he was busy, or of his plans for future compositions, but he told me one day that he often recalled folk-songs when at work, and that then his melodies suggested themselves spontaneously.'
At the Schumanns' house Brahms learned chess and table-turning. He was soon made free of the master's library, and borrowed from it many a book to lend to the Japhas, who had to submit to a term of quarantine during Minna's recovery from an attack of measles. Johannes refused, for his own part, to acquiesce in the decree, and paid long daily visits to the sisters as soon as they were able to receive him. He often sat at Louise's side reading with her from an open volume placed between them, as he had once been used to do with Lischen in the Winsen fields. One day he brought some volumes of Hoffmann, to reread his favourite tales from Schumann's own copy. He carried the old memories and friends, and the simple home with its dear affections, faithfully in his heart throughout his excitements and successes, and throughout the weeks and months of his absence Johanna kept her promise to her boy. 'Look,' said Hannes one day, pulling a letter out of his pocket, and holding it open before Louise and Minna as he told them of the stipulation he had made, 'I get one like this every week; my old mother keeps her promise. Some of it is copied from the newspapers; what is she to do when she has no more news? she cannot write a philosophical treatise, but she always sends me three whole pages.'[29]
The passionate admiration quickly conceived by Brahms for the character and genius of Schumann, which was intensified by the recollection of his past misconception of the great composer's art, was returned in appropriate measure. Schumann became every day fonder of his young friend, and inclination united with conviction to strengthen the strong first impression he had received as to the extraordinary nature of his gifts. 'Facile princeps' is written in one of Schumann's pocket-books against the name Johannes Brahms, added, in the master's handwriting, to a list of his favourite young musicians. It has sometimes been suggested that the secret of the immediate fascination exercised over him by Brahms' compositions lay in his perception of their dissimilarity from his own. This, however, is only part of the truth. Though it be the case that Schumann's influence is not traceable either in the melody, harmony, or structure of Brahms' first published movements, it is equally the fact that the 'delicate youth with dreamy expression, who, without a tinge of affectation, spoke naturally in poetic phrases; who signed his manuscripts "Joh. Kreisler jun."; who exactly answered Joachim's description, "pure as the diamond, tender as snow"';[30]had elements in his many-sided nature of near kin to the characteristic spirit of Schumann's genius, which were by no means without influence on the individuality of his works, and especially the works of his first period. Schumann, astonished beyond measure by the mastery and originality of Brahms' technical attainment, was, in regard to his ideal qualities, certainly penetrated as much by the romance as by the independence, by the tenderness as by the power, by the subjective, as by the objective side, of his art, and the elder musician loved the younger as much because of the affinity as of the difference between them. Both contrasting sides of Brahms' nature are strikingly manifest in the very beautiful drawing of him which was executed for Schumann at this time by the painter de Laurens, a representation of which we are enabled, by the kindness of Frau ProfessorBöie, to whom the original now belongs, to place before the reader at the beginning of this volume.
Schumann had not been forgetful of the overtures to closer intimacy made to him by Joachim in the spring of the year, and composed two concert-pieces for violin and orchestra about this time, during the writing of which, the famous young violinist and his performances at the Düsseldorf festival were constantly present to his mind. In a letter to Hanover concerning these and other matters, written by him on October 8, the following passages occur:[31]
'I think if I were younger I could make some polymetres about the young eagle who has so suddenly and unexpectedly flown down from the Alps to Düsseldorf.[32]Or one might compare him to a splendid stream which, like Niagara, is at its finest when precipitating itself from the heights as a roaring waterfall, met on the shore by the fluttering of butterflies and by nightingales' voices....
'The young eagle seems to be content in the Lowlands; he has found an old guardian who is accustomed to watch such young flights, and who knows how to calm the wild wing-flapping without detriment to the soaring power.'[33]
On the same day he wrote to Dr. Härtel, head of the great Leipzig publishing firm:
'A young man has just presented himself here who has most deeply impressed us with his wonderful music. He will, I am convinced, make the greatest sensation in the musical world. I will take an opportunity of writing more in detail about him.'[34]
Five days later, writing again on business to Joachim, who was to take part on the 27th, in the first Düsseldorf subscription concert of the season, he adds:
'I have begun to put together my thoughts about the young eagle. I should wish to help him on his first flightthrough the world, but fear I have grown too fond of him to be able to describe the light and dark colours of his wings quite clearly. When I have finished the paper, I should like to show it to his comrade [Joachim], who knows him even better than I do.'
A postscript is subjoined: 'I have finished the essay and enclose it. Please return it as soon as possible.'
A second letter to Dr. Härtel enters into some of the promised detail:
'You will see before long, in theNeue Zeitschrift für Musik, an article signed with my name on young Johannes Brahms from Hamburg, which will give you further information about him. I will then write to you more fully about the compositions he intends to publish. They are pianoforte pieces and sonatas, a sonata for violin and piano, a trio, a quartet, and a number of songs—all full of genius. He is also an exceptional pianist.'
And now, whilst Schumann, with Albert and Johannes, was eagerly looking forward to Joachim's arrival for the concert of the 27th, Schumann proposed that they should prepare a surprise for him in the shape of a new sonata for pianoforte and violin, to be written by the three of them jointly. Thereupon Dietrich undertook the first movement, Schumann the intermezzo and finale, and Brahms the scherzo.