In 1891 were published the String Quintet in G, Op. 111; six Vocal Quartets, the last four being additional Gipsy Songs set to Conrat's texts, Op. 112; and thirteen Canons for women's voices, the appearance of which forms a direct link between the composer's late maturity and early youth.
The Clarinet Trio and Quintet and three books of short Pianoforte Pieces, Op. 116, Nos. 1 and 2, and Op. 117, appeared in 1892.
Brahms departed in good time in the spring of 1893 for what was to be his last holiday in the south, meeting Widmann and two Zürich friends (Friedrich Hegar and Robert Freund) in Milan and proceeding with them to Sicily, whose scenery and general romantic charm had made an indelible impression on his mind when he had travelled in the country with Billroth some fifteen years previously. He had an additional and weighty reason for desiring toleave Vienna in April. The coming 7th of May, his sixtieth birthday, could not fail to be made the occasion, not only of friendly rejoicings, but, if he were at home, of formal congratulatory functions in which he would be asked to take part. To his mind, such a predicament left but one course open to him—flight; and for this he had made arrangement months beforehand. As early as the year 1892 he had refused Hegar's invitation to celebrate his birthday by some festival performances at Zürich in the following terms:
'Vienna,September 29th, 1892.
'Dear Friend
'I hasten to place this pretty sheet of paper before me and will endeavour approximately to express my gratitude to you and your society for your extremely kind and friendly project for the next 7th May. To-day I will only say that I have for some time been intending to make a proposal to you. My indolence in writing is the only cause that you have been beforehand with me. I wished to ask you and Widmann if you would not like, as I should, to go for a little while to Italy?
'When and where is all one to me; if on the 7th of May we are only safe in the Abruzzi or somewhere else where no one can find us; if we can only devote ourselves to touching (and preferably jovial) meditation. You see my plans and ideas are quite different from yours and my next letter will contain only many thanks for your very kind thought....'[78]
To Herr Ehrbar's annual invitation to the asparagus luncheon, therefore, which was sent as usual about the middle of April to No. 4, Carlsgasse, and which contained a special request that in this particular year the festivity should be celebrated on May 7 itself, a telegraphic reply was received from Genoa. The master was very sorry that he would not be able to be present this year, but sent his kindest greetings to all friends who should assemble on the occasion. Instead of postponing the party on account of this disappointment, Herr Ehrbar decided not only to gather the old friends about him as usual, but to hold thefestivity at the Hôtel Sacher, and to invite some additional guests to drink the health of the absent composer, bringing up the number to about thirty.
Widmann, who had an accident during the return journey which injured his knee and obliged him to remain for two days at Naples under the surgeon's care, has thus described how Brahms spent May 7:
'And so it happened that Brahms passed his sixtieth birthday in the most quiet seclusion, remaining to watch faithfully by my bed after we had persuaded our two friends to make an excursion to Pompeii. The doctor's performances, which gave me little pain, excited him fearfully, though he tried to conceal this by making jesting remarks, as when he muttered grimly between his teeth, "If it should come to cutting, I am the right man; I was always Billroth's assistant in such cases." When we were alone he provided for my comfort like a deaconess and took pains to keep up my spirits by chatting cheerfully, saying for instance, "You have already tramped about so much in the Swiss Alps and Italy. Even if, at the worst, this should not again be possible, you are much better off than a hundred thousand others who have not had such opportunity." ... Every now and then whilst he was sitting with me, congratulatory telegrams arrived from intimate friends who had obtained intelligence from one or other of us as to our whereabouts.'
It was rumoured in Vienna, nevertheless, that Brahms was present at Herr Ehrbar's luncheon; that he was seen in the Augustinestrasse in the evening of the 6th; that he astonished his friends by joining them at the Hôtel Sacher at twelve o'clock on the 7th, just as they were about to sit down to table; and that he vanished from the city immediately after the festivity, to come back no more until the usual time of his return in October.
The sixtieth birthday of its honorary president was celebrated by a special meeting and musical performance in the club-rooms of the Tonkünstlerverein, and the Gesellschaft had a gold medal cast in the master's honour.
A note to Frau Caroline, written in June from Ischl, headed by a diminutive photograph of himself in walkingdress, is suggestive of Brahms' happy mood at this time:
'Here I come, dear mother, and thank you for your dear letter.
'I am delighted that Fritz [Schnack] is making a nice tour which shows that you are both well—let him only make further plans, and travel!... I will be careful that you get a cast of the medal. It will interest Fritz as a connoisseur—he must imagine the gold. I am very well and the summer becomes finer every day. In the autumn or winter I really must look in upon you myself and not merely in a portrait.
'Have you a great deal too much money, or may I send some? I should like Fritz to spend plenty in travelling and he can afterwards entertain you and himself again with his sufferings!...
'YourJohannes.'[79]
Years before this date, Frau Caroline had, at the urgent and oft-repeated wish of Johannes, given up her boarding-house in the Anscharplatz, and retired to enjoy the remainder of her life as mistress of her son's quiet home in Pinneberg. Johannes kept his stepmother supplied with the necessary funds, which were regularly transmitted to her through his publisher, Herr Simrock of Berlin; but he was never tired of urging upon her his readiness to meet intermediate demands as they might arise, and particularly of suggesting holiday journeys for Fritz Schnack as a good way of spending extra money. Frau Caroline and her son, who both worshipped Johannes, frequently incurred his displeasure on account of the moderation with which they availed themselves of his generosity.
He never went to Hamburg after his stepmother's retirement without reserving a few hours to visit her at Pinneberg, and there, in the modest little dwelling he had provided, felt himself, as it were, in the old family home. He would sit in a corner of the sofa in the room by the side of the shop filled with clocks whose hands pointed to the right time and whose pendulums swung cheerily to and fro, andchat happily with her and Fritz, hearing little items of domestic news, asking after this and the other acquaintance; then would suddenly relapse into silence and reverie, which were unfailingly respected by the two people to whom he was so dear. By-and-by, after he had arranged his thoughts, he would come out again from his musing to continue the pleasant chit-chat where it had been left.
Brahms always expected his stepmother to be present at his public appearances in Hamburg, and continued to stay with her, when visiting the city, until she went to live at Pinneberg. On an occasion of his coming, after her retirement, to conduct a symphony at one of Bülow's Hamburg concerts, he took a room for her next his own at the Hôtel Moser, that they might be as much as possible together during the few days of his stay, and led her on his arm to her seat at rehearsals and concert. Frau Caroline did not, perhaps, entirely fathom the depths and intricacies of her stepson's fourth symphony, but she loved the work, and shared in the joy of it with her whole heart. Fritz, too, came over from Pinneberg, and greeted his stepbrother in the artist's room before the concert began. The master's sister, Elise Grund, died in 1892, and his visit to Hamburg after her death seems to have been the last known by his friends to have been paid by him to his native city. He was at Pinneberg, however, after this date.
Some of Brahms' time at Ischl this summer was given to the editing of the supplementary volume of Frau Schumann's complete edition of her husband's works. One cannot but read in this deeply-interesting book our master's desire to associate his name once more with those of Schumann and his wife, especially as he has taken the, for him, altogether exceptional course of writing and signing the introductory sentences of its first page. It contains, to quote Brahms' words,
'a few things found amongst Robert Schumann's papers which, on account of their value, or of some special interest, ought not to be omitted from this collection.... The theme with which the volume concludes is, in a quite peculiar sense,Schumann's last musical thought. He wrote it on the 7th of February, 1854, and afterwards added five variations which are withheld here. It speaks to us as a kindly greeting spirit [genius] about to depart and we think with reverence and emotion of the glorious man and artist.
'Johannes Brahms.
Ischl,July 1893.'[80]
Of the composer's original work of the season Billroth writes a few months later to a friend:
'Brahms has, so far as I know, composed a dozen pianoforte pieces during the summer. I do not know the cause of this sudden passion. I like him least of all in this style, the G minor Rhapsody excepted. He does not sufficiently diversify his form in these little works.... He ought to keep to the great style.'
The pieces in question were published in the autumn in two books—Op. 118 and 119. The other publications of the year, issued without opus number, were the two books of Technical Exercises for Pianoforte.
Billroth's expression of feeling about the Pianoforte Pieces will probably be endorsed by many even of the most faithful admirer's of Brahms' art, whilst all will certainly agree as to his one exception. Beautiful as many of the intermezzi, fantasias, etc., are, it is to be doubted whether Brahms' short compositions for the pianoforte will ever gain such universal and unreserved affection as has long since been accorded to those of Schumann and Chopin. The manner in which the thoughts are expressed sometimes seems out of proportion to the moderate length of their development, the height of the structure to be, as it were, too great in comparison with the superficial area allotted to it. In several instances at all events, however, this impression is due to the unusualness of the pieces, and passes away asthey become really familiar. It is as yet too soon to form any definite opinion as to the place they may ultimately take.
True appreciation of Brahms' small as of his great works is sometimes slow in coming, even to those who love his music with deepest affection. When, however, from time to time, the spirit dwelling within his inspirations reveals itself unsought as in a sudden flash, the whole heart is apt to go out with complete acceptance to the reception of its beauty and truth. Only in one instance (Op. 117, No. 1) has the master given any clue as to the sources which may have stirred his fancy during the composition of his thirty short pieces for the pianoforte from Op. 76 onwards, and where he has been reticent it would ill beseem others to stamp any particular piece with a definite suggestion. It may, however, be surmised that many of the little compositions are expressions derived from his passion for nature. The mountain storm swept up by the wind and bursting with a sudden crash, the approaching and retreating roll of its thunder, with the ceaseless pattering of rain on the leaves; the gay flitting of butterflies; the lazy hum of the insect world on a hot summer day; the long sweep of gray waves breaking into foam on the shore—all may be found in them. The music of the spheres, also, too ethereal for the perception of ordinary mortals, has been caught by our master's ear, and, woven into gossamer sound-textures, has been conveyed by him to the appreciation of organizations less delicate than his own. Some of the pieces have certainly grown up around the fancies of a legend or a poem. In these we may hear the weird footsteps of the spirit world, the dread strike of the bell of fate, the catastrophe of human lives. In no case, however, except in the one mentioned, are the several works to be taken as having been associated with this or that in the mind of the composer. The same one may mean different things to different people, and Brahms has carefully guarded against the possibility of being suspected of programme-music by giving to the Fantasias, Rhapsodies, Ballades, Intermezzi, thevaguest of all possible titles.[81]The book Op. 117 has become really popular, and is sold in the United Kingdom alone in its thousands. One of the first persons—perhaps the first—to hear books Op. 116 and 117 was Frau Schumann's pupil, Fräulein Ilona Eibenschütz (now Mrs. Carl Derenberg), to whom Brahms played them on their completion, inviting her especially to hear them.
Asking Brahms to be present in October at a festival meeting of the Imperial and Royal Society of Physicians, Billroth says:
'I should like to see you for once in evening dress [schön decorirt]. If, however, you object to this, you will find a place among the younger doctors in the (not high) gallery in walking costume.'
It was one of the last semi-public functions in which the famous surgeon took part. His health had for some time been declining, and he died on February 6, regretted by all ranks of Vienna citizens. The funeral procession was witnessed by crowds of people, especially of the poorer classes.
'We do not wear such open hearts,' writes Brahms afterwards to Widmann, 'nor show such pure and warm affection as they do here (I mean the people, the gallery).... In the whole innumerable concourse no inquisitive or indifferent face was to be seen, but upon each countenance the most touching sympathy and love. This did me much good when passing through the streets and at the cemetery.'[82]
Brahms could not trust himself to remain too close a spectator of the last scene. Whilst the relatives and friends of the departed surgeon remained standing round the open grave, he quietly strolled to a side-walk and paced up and down, talking with an acquaintance of other matters.
The thought of death had, indeed, a power over the master which probably held him in its clutch at times throughout his life. He could not bring himself to face the enemy with resolute front, especially during his later years, when the iron hand laid claim to one of his friends,but would speak of the matter as little as might be, and no doubt kept it as much as possible at bay in his thoughts. 'I do not mean to drink any more coffee,' he said one day to his landlady in Carlsgasse. 'Why, Herr Doctor, you enjoy your coffee so much!' exclaimed Frau Truxa, who had gained an insight into his character, and felt sure that something lay behind this announcement. 'I have taken coffee for a long time,' returned Brahms. 'I am going to leave it off, and drink something else.' A few days later Frau Truxa heard by chance of the death of a lady living in Marseilles who had for years kept the master supplied with Mocha. Nothing more was said, but an arrangement was made, without Brahms' knowledge, by which the same supply was to be despatched at the same interval by her daughter. Coming as it were from the same hand, Brahms continued to drink the coffee, but without further comment.
Death had, however, till now been kind to our master, sparing him the agony of many severe partings. We have seen his deep grief at the loss of the parents who had loved him with the entire devotion of their simple, affectionate hearts. By the nature of things, his sense of bereavement on the deaths of brother and sister had been less enduring in its sting. His friend Pohl, librarian of the Gesellschaft, died in 1887, but with this exception the old circle of chums remained as it had been. Joachim, Stockhausen, Grimm, Dietrich, Kirchner, Hanslick, Faber, Billroth, Goldmark, Epstein, Gänsbacher, all had continued with him, whilst in Frau Schumann's presence he was at the age of sixty-one still young, with youthful feelings of veneration in his heart. The death of Billroth dealt him a severe blow. Who shall say that even at this time he had not a presentiment that before very long he was to follow?
If this were so, but little change showed itself in his outward habits. The pedestrian excursions near Vienna took place every second or third Sunday as before, and if Brahms, growing every year heavier, found the ascent of the surrounding heights more fatiguing than in past years, he didnot openly allude to the fact, but would invite his companions to pause for a few moments to look at the country, whilst they, at once acceding to his wish, always carefully avoided perceiving that he was short of breath. Hugo Conrat frequently made one of the party of walkers at this period, and the master was often a guest at his house, where it is to be feared that Frau Conrat, in no way behind the rest of his friends, sadly spoiled him. He had become in these years a complete autocrat in the circles in which he moved. His comfort was studied, his desires were anticipated, his witticisms appreciated, his tempers accepted, and his utterances recognised as final. Brahms enjoyed his position, and, it must be confessed, did not hesitate to avail himself of his privileges. On one occasion of a dinner-party, being asked to escort one of the principal lady guests to the dining-room, he turned sharply round and offered his arm to the young governess. On another—a party at the Conrats' country house—finding on his arrival that the cloth had been laid in the dining-room, and not in the veranda, he went up to the hostess, saying: 'But it is still fine weather. I always dine out of doors in October.' The lady sent word to the kitchen that the dinner was to be put back for twenty minutes, and, begging her visitors to walk in the garden meanwhile, gave orders for the alteration of her arrangements. 'But what did Brahms say when he found he was causing such trouble?' someone asked Fräulein Conrat afterwards. 'Then he was good again,' she replied. Such incidents could be multiplied from the experiences of many of Brahms' friends. They serve chiefly to prove that the master's mind lost its pliancy as he grew older, and that he became incapable of adapting himself to circumstances outside his ordinary routine. His friends accepted his whims as a part of himself, and, knowing his sensitiveness to contradiction, did not contradict him. They were aware that the sterling nature had not really changed, and did not trouble themselves to criticise the outer crust of irritability and roughness that sometimes concealed it from the appreciation of less indulgent observers.
Silhouette by Dr. Böhler. Photograph by R. Lechner (Wilh. Müller), Vienna.Silhouette by Dr. Böhler.Photograph by R. Lechner (Wilh. Müller), Vienna.
'All that you tell me is very nice,' said Brahms one day to Herr Conrat's two gifted young daughters, who, paying the master a visit in his rooms, had been encouraged by him to talk about the progress of their studies. 'You must know these things, which are very important; but I will show you something to be learnt of still greater consequence;' and he fetched from a drawer an old, worn, folded table-cloth. 'Look here,' said he, showing the two girls some exquisite darning, 'my old mother did this. When you can do such work you may be prouder of it than of all your other studies.'
After the completion of the Clarinet Quintet and Trio in 1892, Brahms allowed his mind the refreshment of change of work. The only original compositions belonging to the following year are the two books of 'Clavierstücke,' Op. 118 and 119, the appearance of which we have already chronicled. He was, however, engaged with his collection of German Folk-songs, arranged with pianoforte accompaniment, six volumes for one voice, and the seventh for leader and small chorus.
The publication of this valuable work in 1894, almost at the end of the life of the great musician who compiled it, adds yet another and most striking illustration to those on which we have commented, of the general continuity of the lines on which Brahms' career was shaped. As he began, so he ended. The boy of fifteen who arranged folk-songs for practice by his village society, the youth of twenty who used them in his first published works, the mature master who returned to them again and again for inspiration and delight, all live in the veteran of sixty-one, who, as he busies himself in preparing the unique collection, every page of which bears mark of his insight, skill, and sympathetic tact, seems to be looking back over the years of the past with longing to leave behind him a final sign of his love for his great nation and all belonging to it. 'It is the only one of my works from which I part with a feeling of tenderness,' he said on its completion for the press. A child of the people by birth, Brahms remained, with all his literary and artistic culture, a child of the people by sympathy. Heloved, and ever had loved, the simple peasant folk of the country places where he dwelt, as part of the great life of nature which was his delight. His partiality for them had in it something which resembled his feeling for children. He was pleased with their naïveté, valued their confidence, and perhaps, idealist as he was, gave them credit for a genuineness and simplicity not always theirs. In their songs, it was this same naturalness that attracted him, and whether in his original settings of national texts, or in his arrangements of the people's melodies, nearly always, as we have seen, left the words as he found them in their spontaneous directness of expression. Writing to Professor Bächtold, to whom he sent a copy of his collection, he says:
'... I think you will find some things new to you, for if you have been interested in the music of our folk-songs, Erk and now Böhme will have been your guides? These have hitherto led the (very Philistine) tone, and my collection stands in direct opposition to them. I could and should like to gossip more if I knew that you were interested and especially if we were sitting together comfortably....'[83]
Brahms at one time contemplated changing his rather confined quarters at Ischl, but a feeling of loyalty to the good folks in whose house he had spent several summers, and who regarded themselves as having a prescriptive right to their lodger, asserted its sway over his kind heart. He returned to them as each succeeding spring came round, and the little signs that heralded his approach—the opening of shutters, the cleaning of windows, and other preparations visible from outside—were eagerly looked forward to by the country people near as the first tokens of the approaching season.
Frau Grüber's little house, of which Brahms occupied the first-floor, was built on a mountain slope, and a short flight of steps at the side led to a small garden furnished with a grass plot, a garden bench, and a summer-house. Visitors had to mount the steps, cross the garden, find a second entrance-door at the back of the house, go in, and knock atthe door of the composer's sitting-room. Sometimes he would cross the room, open the door, and peep cautiously out; but more often than not he called out, 'Come in!' and the visitor stepped at once into his presence. He laid strict injunctions on his landlady, however, that the door of his rooms was to be kept locked and the key in her possession whenever he was out, and that on no account was she to allow anyone even to peep into the room containing his papers and piano. If he once found out that she had disregarded this rule, once would be enough for him; that very day he would pack up and leave her, never to return. It was a most necessary precaution to take, for numerous visitors of either sex who were unknown to him found their way to the house, and would gladly have sought consolation for their disappointment at not seeing him by inspecting some of his belongings.
One or other of his friends frequently called for him about half-past eleven, and soon afterwards he would start out and gradually make his way to the Hôtel Kaiserin Elisabeth. Between two and three o'clock he usually made his appearance on the promenade by the side of the river. Stopping at Walter's coffee-house, he would seat himself at a table under the trees outside, where a cup of black coffee and the daily papers were at once brought to him. Here he generally remained for at least an hour, and sometimes it was much longer, to be joined by one friend and another till his party numbered a dozen or more. Walter's became, indeed, at this hour of the day, a rendezvous not only for Brahms' personal friends, but for many musical visitors to Ischl who did not know him, but who heard that they could easily get a sight of him there. He was very particular in acknowledging the greetings of his numerous acquaintance as they passed along the promenade, and, owing to his anxiety to be courteous and his near-sightedness combined, he sometimes made a mistake and bowed to people whom he did not know.
'Oh, if you had only been with us this afternoon!' a friend and fellow-lodger said to the author one day in thesummer of 1894. 'Paula and I were walking on the promenade, and we met Brahms, who greeted us so kindly. He waved his hand, and looked round, saying, "Good-day! good-day!" Of course I returned his greeting. I wonder if it could have been because he was pleased with my little Paula? He takes so much notice of children.' Frau F. was far too much gratified by the incident to accept the author's opinion that it was a case of mistaken identity, as Brahms was not in the habit of consciously bowing to strangers.
Herr Oberschulrath Wendt, of Carlsruhe, when staying at Ischl, was daily to be seen in the master's company, and the two men, both of striking appearance, presented a singular contrast as they paced side by side along the promenade. Wendt, tall, thin, and pale, was delicate-looking, and walked with a slight stoop. Brahms, rather short, very stout, with a good deal of colour, probably acquired by exposure to the weather, that seemed the more pronounced from its contrast with his white hair and beard, went along with head well thrown back, the very personification of vigour. On leaving Walter's he generally betook himself to a friend's house, most frequently that of Johann Strauss. To his intimacy there the world is indebted for some of the best of his late photographs—those of Krziwanek, of Vienna and Ischl—which were taken one afternoon in the summer of 1895 as he was sitting at ease with his friends.
Brahms knew, and was well known to, all the children of the neighbourhood, and when starting on his country walks would fill his pockets with sweetmeats and little pictures, and amuse himself with the eagerness of the small barefooted folk, who knew his ways and would run after him as he passed, on the look-out for booty. 'Whoever can jump gets a gulden,' he would say; and, displaying beyond reach of the little ones a handful of sweetmeats made in imitation of the Austrian coin, he would increase his speed, and raise his hand higher and higher, drawing after him the flock of running, leaping children, until he allowed one and another to gain a prize.
Two Sonatas for clarinet and pianoforte, the last works of chamber music composed by Brahms, were completed during the summer of 1894, and towards the end of September Mühlfeld arrived at Ischl to try them with the composer. The first private performance took place very soon afterwards, when the two artists played them before the ducal circle of Meiningen at the palace of Berchtesgarten.
A reunion at Frankfurt in November is of pathetic interest. It carries us back to the very early pages of our narrative, and is the last complete one of the kind we shall have to record. For the last time we find Frau Schumann and her husband's and her own two dearest musician-friends assembled and making music together. Brahms arrived at her house on a few days' visit on the 9th of the month; on the 10th Mühlfeld spent the evening there, having come from Meiningen at the composer's especial request, and the new works were played to the illustrious lady, 'the revered Frau Schumann,' as Brahms used to call her to his younger friends, who had now completed her seventy-fifth year. The next day Joachim, prince of violinists at sixty-three as at twenty-one, the age at which he entered these pages, gave a concert with his colleagues of the Quartet, and on the 12th there was a party at Herr and Frau Sommerhoff's, when Brahms and Mühlfeld again played the two Sonatas, and Frau Schumann, Joachim, and Mühlfeld, Mozart's beautiful Clarinet Trio, a favourite work of Brahms. The reunion of old friends was completed by the presence of Stockhausen, who, like Frau Schumann, had been resident in Frankfurt since 1878. On the 13th, the third Frankfurt performance of the Clarinet Sonatas by Brahms and Mühlfeld took place at a large music-party at Frau Schumann's, and another memorable item of the evening's pleasures was the playing by Frau Schumann and Mühlfeld of Schumann's Fantasiestücke for pianoforte and clarinet. Joachim had left to fulfil other engagements before the evening, and Brahms departed on the 14th.
The master's journeys and performances with Mühlfeld gave him extraordinary pleasure, and the publication of thetwo sonatas, which in the usual course of things would have taken place in the autumn of 1894, was delayed until the summer of 1895, that his possession of the manuscripts might be prolonged. Both works were performed at the Rosé concerts, Vienna, by the composer and his friend—No. 2 in E flat on January 8, 1895, when the Clarinet Quintet was also played; and No. 1 in F minor at an extra concert on January 11, the programme of which included the G major String Quintet. Amongst other towns visited by Brahms and Mühlfeld in the month of February were Frankfurt, Rudesheim, and Meiningen, and the master was seen for the last time in public by his Frankfurt friends on the 17th, when he listened to a performance of his D major Symphony, and conducted his Academic Overture at a Museum concert. The two sonatas were performed for the first time after publication at Miss Fanny Davies' concert of June 24 in St. James's Hall, London, by the concert-giver and Mühlfeld, engaged expressly to come to England for the occasion. The manuscripts of both works are in the possession of Mühlfeld, to whom the composer presented them on publication, with an appreciative autograph inscription.
With the publication of the two Clarinet Sonatas, our master's career is all but closed, and closed as we would have it. The more familiar they become, the more firmly will they root themselves, as we believe, in the affection of the lovers of his music. The fresh, bounding imagination of youth is, indeed, not in them, nor would we wish it to be there; but both works are pervaded by a warmth and glow as of sunset radiance, which, reflecting the spirit of the composer as he was when he wrote them, fill the mind of the listener with a sense of the mellow beauty, the rich pathos, the unwavering sincerity of his art. To compare the two sonatas one with the other is unnecessary. We prefer simply to commend them to the study of those of our readers to whom they are not entirely familiar, holding them, as we do, to be amongst the especially lovable examples of the late period of Brahms' art.
The Meiningen Festival—Visit to Frau Schumann—Festival at Zürich—Brahms in Berlin—The 'Four Serious Songs'—Geheimrath Engelmann's visit to Ischl—Frau Schumann's death—Brahms' illness—He goes to Carlsbad—The Joachim Quartet in Vienna—Brahms' last Christmas—Brahms and Joachim together for the last time—The Vienna Philharmonic concert of March 7—Last visits to old friends—Brahms' death.
But few events remain for record in the life which we have now followed step by step nearly to the end of its progress. Of these few, several have the pathetic interest of last visits to dear and familiar places made, so far as appears, without presentiment that they were final. The composer was present at a three days' festival held in Meiningen September 27-29; 'the Festival of the three B's,' as it has sometimes been called, from the circumstance that the programmes were devoted to works by Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms. Those of Brahms selected for performance included the Song of Triumph, the fourth Symphony, the B flat Pianoforte Concerto, with d'Albert as pianist, the Clarinet Sonatas performed by the same artist with Mühlfeld, some of the Vocal Quartets, amongst them the early favourite 'Alternative Dance Song,' and others.
The festival was an immense success, and the pleasure which the master derived from the concerts is evident in the following lines written to Steinbach immediately after the last one:
'Dear Friend,
'However tempted I may feel, I dare not break in upon your well-deserved rest; but you shall find my heartygreeting awaiting you on your happy awakening; how hearty and grateful it is there is no need to tell you in detail. You must have perceived each day that you gave me and all who took part in your splendid festival, a quite exceptional pleasure....'[84]
Brahms was, of course, a guest at the castle, and he remained on for a few days after the last concert. Leaving Meiningen on October 3, he proceeded to Frankfurt on a flying visit to Frau Schumann. Professor Kufferath of the Brussels Conservatoire, with Mr. and Mrs. Edward Speyer, accompanied him on the short journey, and were, by his particular suggestion, invited to spend the evening at Frau Schumann's house. Professor Kufferath, a pupil of Mendelssohn at Leipzig, and on a very old footing of intimacy at the Schumanns', had been for more than twenty years on terms of cordial friendship with Brahms also, though the two men met but seldom. Frau Schumann's daughters Marie and Eugénie, and Stockhausen, were the only others present. The hours were spent in pleasant chat as between old friends, and music was represented only by a few of Brahms' folk-songs sung by Mrs. Speyer (Fräulein Antonia Kufferath) to the master's accompaniment.
Brahms left the next morning, but before his departure he requested his old friend to play to him. Forty-two years had passed since Schumann had desired him to play for the first time to her, marking both musicians with inevitable outward signs. The traces of suffering and sorrow had deepened of late on Frau Schumann's countenance, but those who were happy enough to listen to her playing at this period, in the privacy of her home, knew that her spirit was still young, and Brahms' last remembrance of the great artist, the remembrance of an old age which had left the poetry of her genius untouched, will have fitly completed the long chain of personal associations begun when Schumann called his wife to rejoice with him in the daring power and romantic enthusiasm of Johannes' inexperienced youth. When she rose from the piano on that October morning, thefinal link had been added. Frau Schumann and Brahms were not to meet again on earth.
A four days' festival in October (19-22) to celebrate the inauguration of the new concert-hall at Zürich seems to carry us more than one stage nearer the end. It brought Brahms for the last time to Switzerland to conduct his Triumphlied; a fine close—for as such it may almost be regarded—to a noble career.
Let us pause for a moment to picture the robust figure of the composer as he stands before the vast audience completely filling the brilliantly lighted hall, and leads with sure, quiet dignity the 'masses of chorus and orchestra' that swell out in proud tones of thankfulness for his country's glory. Listen! for with the sounds of the grand old hymn 'Now thank we all our God' the bells of victory are pealing, and a sensation of happiness spreads through the mass of hearers, a vibration that stirs something of the feeling which roused the great German audience at Cologne to enthusiasm as they listened twenty years ago to the same jubilant tones. Who so fitted to raise the strain as the patriot citizen of ancient Hamburg, the unique descendant of the mighty Bach, the musician of true, rich, loving spirit, conqueror of life and of himself, our Johannes Brahms? Conqueror, too, of death; for surely we cannot be mistaken in accepting the likeness of the master, that looks down with those of the greatest of his art from the painted ceiling of the new hall, as the symbol of a further life to be his even here on earth, when he has entered the darkness that is soon to cover him from our sight.
Brahms was in overflowing spirits during the entire festival, enjoying the concerts, the private gatherings, the meetings with old friends, in a mood of harmless gaiety that recalls the Detmold days.
'We have seen Brahms and Joachim together again, both in full vigour; may we not hope for a prolongation of this happy state of things?' writes Steiner a few days after the festival.
Widmann was, of course, there, and stayed with Brahmsat Hegar's house. When he bade the master farewell on the day after the concert, the two friends clasped hands in a final grasp.
One of Brahms' late public appearances was on the occasion of the concert given in the Börsendorfer Hall, Vienna, by Signorina Alice Barbi (now the Baroness Wolff Homersee) shortly before her marriage. He pleased himself by acting as accompanist to the distinguished cantatrice, whose programme included a number of his songs. He held the bâton for the last time on a Vienna platform when he directed the performance of his Academic Overture by the students of the conservatoire at the festival concert given to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary (1895) of the opening of the present home of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde. He officiated for the last time in public at d'Albert's concert in Berlin of January 10, 1896, conducting his two Pianoforte Concertos and the Academic Overture, and was received with the usual enthusiasm. Stanford speaks of being present at a dinner-party given by Joachim during Brahms' brief visit.
'Joachim, in a few well-chosen words, was asking us not to lose the opportunity of drinking the health of the greatest composer—when, before he could say the name, Brahms started to his feet, glass in hand, and calling out "Quite right; here's to Mozart's health," walked round clinking glasses with us all. His old hatred of personal eulogy was never more prettily expressed.... The last vision I had of him was as he sat beside the diminutive form of the aged Menzel, drinking in, like a schoolboy, every word the great old artist said with an attitude as full of unaffected reverence as of unconscious dignity.'
Of all modern painters, Adolph von Menzel was the most admired by Brahms. He visited him on several occasions, and spoke of him and his works with unfailing enthusiasm.
That the master had realized a competence some years before his death—more than a competence for one of his extraordinarily simple habits—is generally known. How he regarded it, how he used it, may have been but littlesuspected outside a small circle. His friend and publisher, the late head of the firm of Simrock, shared his confidence on the subject more than anyone else, for it was often through his agency that Brahms' munificence was applied to its object; the substantial help, perhaps, of a needy musician, or a promising talent. He contributed more than one large donation to the 'Franz Liszt Pensionsverein' of Hamburg, a society founded by Liszt in 1840 for the benefit of aged or disabled members of the Stadt Theater orchestra. Several authentic stories are told by accidental witnesses of some of his particular acts of generosity. One has been related to the author by the Landgraf of Hesse, who was sitting with the master one morning when a caller appeared with a tale of distress which touched his heart. He listened quietly, asked some questions, then went to his writing-table, and, handing his visitor the entire sum of money towards which he was asked for a contribution, said quietly, 'Take this from me; I do not need it. I have more money than I want for myself.' This was his usual formula on such occasions, 'I do not need it,' to which was sometimes added, 'If you should ever have it in your power, you can pay me back.'
Brahms' heart was of gold, if ever such existed. He was rough sometimes—often, perhaps—let it be freely granted. The spoiled humours of his last two or three years have already been noted; they do not amount to much. He permitted himself deliberately to repulse strangers or slight acquaintances when he felt so disposed; necessarily, if his time and tranquillity were to be protected. Now and then he was inconsiderate or blunt to his friends. The concentration of mind, the sacrifice of immediate inclination, the devotion of energy, involved in the fulfilment of the career of genius are often but imperfectly realized even by the friends of a famous man. The great poet, the great painter, the great musician, has his brilliant rewards. He has also his bitter disappointments, and one of the hardest of these—which is especially apportioned to the lot of the creative musician—is the discovery that, as in the case of other princes and sovereigns of the world, his path in life must be solitary.Brahms may sometimes have imagined he had reason for his impoliteness; more frequently a gruff manner, an awkward joke, was the result of a constitutional want of presence of mind in trifling matters, which frequently caused him to be misunderstood. His real attitude is expressed in a note published after his death by Hanslick in theNeue Freie Pressearticle from which we have already more than once quoted.[85]Hanslick had sent him a packet of letters to read, and had inadvertently enclosed in it one from a mutual friend which contained a comparison of Beethoven and Brahms. In it were these words:
'He is often offensively rough to his friends like Beethoven, and is as little able as Beethoven was to free himself entirely from the effects of a neglected education.'
Hanslick was very much upset on remembering what he had done, and immediately wrote to Brahms to throw himself on his mercy and beg his silence on the matter. The master immediately answered:
'Dear Friend
'You need not be in the least uneasy. I scarcely read ——'s letter, but put it back at once into the cover, and only gently shook my head. I am not to say anything to him—Ah, dear friend, that happens, unfortunately, quite of itself in my case! That one is taken even by old acquaintances and friends for something quite different from what one is (or, apparently, shows one's self in their eyes) is an old experience with me. I remember how I, startled and confounded, formerly kept silence in such cases; now however, quite calmly and as a matter of course. That will sound harsh or severe to you, good and kind man—yet I hope not to have wandered too far from Goethe's saying, "Blessed is he who, without hate, shuts himself from the world."'
Brahms was ready for another journey to Italy in the spring, but Widmann was unable to accompany him, and he passed his sixty-third birthday anniversary in Vienna. When it dawned, the work that was for a short time generally accepted as his swan-song had been completed. Deiterswrites that the immediate occasion of the composition of the 'Four Serious Songs' was the death of the artist Max Klinger's father, which occurred earlier in the year. The not unnatural assumption that has sometimes seen in these solemn utterances of the great composer a presentiment of his own fast-approaching end may or may not represent a fact. It has not been accepted by those of his friends amongst whom he passed the last few months of his life, and certainly nothing that is known of his individuality lends likelihood to the notion of his going out, as it were, to meet the thought of his death. On the other hand, his repeated assertion that the songs had been composed for his own birthday points to the possibility that his mind may have been under the influence of forebodings of which he was, perhaps, but vaguely conscious. 'Yes, Grüber, we are in the front line now,' he said to his landlord on hearing of the death of some of the old people in the course of one of his last summers at Ischl.
The 'Four Serious Songs' were published in the summer of 1896 with a dedication to Max Klinger, his personal friend, of whose work, including that inspired by his own compositions, he became a warm admirer, though he at first disliked the painter's 'Brahms Fantasie.'
Three of the songs deal grimly with the thought of death (Eccles. iii. 19-22, iv. 1-3; Ecclus. xli. 1, 2); the fourth has for its text St. Paul's beautiful glorification of love (1 Cor. xiii. 1-3, 12, 13):
'For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; as the one dieth, so dieth the other, for all is vanity....
'Though I spake with the tongues of men and of angels, and had not love, I should be as sounding brass or a tinkling bell....
'We see now through a glass, in a dark word, but then face to face. Now I know it partly, but then I shall know it as I am known.
'Now remain faith, hope, love; but the greatest is love.'
It is certain that Brahms speaks to us in the songs from the depth of his convictions. Herr Geheimrath Dr. Engelmannarrived one evening in the course of the summer on a day's visit to Ischl. Brahms called at his hotel at six o'clock the next morning, and after breakfast brought his friend back to his rooms, where they spent several hours together. The composer was in delight over some lately-arrived volumes of the complete edition of Schubert's works, then in progress, and could not sufficiently express his joy in their contents. 'See here,' he said, with his energetic enthusiasm, as he pointed to one place after another with beaming face and lightening eyes—'see here, what a splendid fellow he was! People talk of him as a mere melodist, but look what material he had even in his early works; look what the melodies are, how they grow.' By-and-by, taking up a copy of the 'Four Serious Songs,' he said: 'Have you seen my protest? I wrote these for my birthday.'
The explanation of these words is that the master viewed with mistrust, or even dislike, modern efforts to revivify and popularize the services of the Evangelical Church by the introduction of sacred musical works composed for the purpose, of which those of Heinrich von Herzogenberg may be taken as the type. Brahms, who subscribed to no church dogmas, regarded this tendency as artificial, and therefore as weak and unhealthy, and much as he admired Herzogenberg's powers, he regretted that they were dominated during the last ten years of his creative activity by his strong ecclesiastical bias.[86]Brahms' love of the Bible and his preference for Scriptural texts was, as we know, not that of what is conventionally called a 'pietist.' He spoke in the language of the people's book as a realist who was at the same time an idealist. He has so arranged the texts of his German Requiem that it would be difficult to construe the work as the embodiment of a definite belief, and he expressly refused to enlarge it into an account of the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Christ; and yet,as we have endeavoured to show, it contains the presentiment, the inspiration, of something positive. From Brahms' standpoint the attempt to go behind the mysteries of life and death, to construct the unspeakable, the unthinkable, into verbal formulæ, is not only predoomed to failure, but is almost irreverent. Yet, as we may remember, 'he had his faith,' and if anything may be judged of it from the story of his life, the spirit of his works, this faith lay in acceptance of the immutability of truth, the sacredness of life, and the sovereignty of love.
Brahms had been settled in his rooms at Ischl scarcely a fortnight, when he was profoundly shaken by the tidings of Frau Schumann's death. She passed away peacefully at her home in Frankfurt on May 20, in the seventy-seventh year of her age, and was laid to rest by her husband's side at Bonn on Whit Sunday, May 24. The story of her life, triply crowned by fame, love, and sorrow, remains amongst the ideal possessions of the world.
A great crowd of musicians and friends assembled at the funeral, those of Frankfurt, Bonn, and Cologne being strongly represented. The custom of the ceremony had changed with time since Johannes had borne Frau Clara's laurel-wreath to Schumann's grave, and on the conclusion of the service, which consisted of the singing of chorales and an address by Dr. Sell of Bonn University, more than two hundred floral tributes were piled up around the spot. Joachim with Herzogenberg, bound by Italian engagements, had attended a service held in the Schumanns' house at Frankfurt. Woldemar Bargiel and Bernhard Scholz were at the cemetery, and of our own particular musicians, Stockhausen and Brahms. Another last meeting.
On the termination of the service, Brahms, whose agitation had been very unpleasantly heightened during his journey from Ischl by the delay of a train, and his consequent anxiety lest he should be late, went to Honnef to stay till the next day with Herr and Frau Wehermann, the near relatives of his Crefeld friends, the von Beckeraths and von der Leyens, who were at the time on a visit there. ProfessorRichard Barth and his wife, Dr. Ophüls, and two of the Meiningen musicians, Concertmeister Eldering and Herr Piening, were also of the party. The master was very much excited and overcome on his arrival at Honnef, but the soothing influence of the Rhine country, so closely associated with the recollections of his youth, did him good, and he prolonged his visit to nearly a week. Confiding to Barth the day after his arrival that he had with him something new, which he would like to play very quietly to one or two chosen listeners, his three most intimate friends retired with him to a room secure from interruption, impressed by his manner with the feeling that something unusual was about to ensue. When the little party had taken their places, Brahms, with every sign of the most profound emotion, which communicated itself to his companions, played through the 'Four Serious Songs' from the manuscript. 'I wrote them for my birthday,' he said in the same words which he afterwards used to Dr. Engelmann. He then played some new organ preludes.
He was agreeably interested in Dr. Ophüls' project of arranging a collection of his composed texts. 'I have often wished for such a thing, for though I do not care to look closely at my music, it would be quite pleasant to recall it now and then by reading the texts.' The collection was completed during the ensuing months, and the manuscript placed in the master's hands.[87]