It was to the kindness of Frau Schumann that I owed my introduction to Brahms, which took place the very day of my arrival on my first visit to Germany. I had had lessons from the great pianist during her visit to London early in the year 1871, and on her departure from England she allowed my father to arrange that I should follow her, as soon as I could possibly get ready, to her home in Lichtenthal, a suburb of Baden-Baden, in order to continue my studies under her guidance.

I can vividly recall the bright morning in the beginning of May on which I arrived at Baden-Baden, rather home-sick and dreadfully tired, for owing to a railway breakdown en route my journey had occupied fourteen hours longer than it ought to have done, and my father's arrangements for my comfort had been completely upset. It was too early to go at once to Frau Schumann's house, and I remember to have dreamily watched, whilst waiting at the station, a passing procession of young girl communicants in their white wreaths and veils, as I tried to realize that I was, for the first time in my life, far away from home and from England. When the morning was sufficiently advanced, I took an open Droschke, and driving under the great trees of the Lichtenthaler AllÉe to the door of Frau Schumann's house, I obtained the address of the lodgings that had been taken for me in the village. Without alighting, I proceeded at once to my rooms, where I was almost immediately joined by Frau Schumann herself, who came round, as soon as she had finished breakfast, to bid me welcome.

My delight at seeing the great artist again, combined with her irresistible charm and kindness, at once made me feel less strange in my new surroundings, and I joyfully accepted the invitation she gave me at the close of a few minutes' visit, to go to her house the same afternoon at four o'clock and take coffee with her in her family circle.

On presenting myself at the appointed hour, I was at once shown into a pleasant balcony at the back of the house, overlooking garden and river. In it was seated Frau Schumann with her daughters, and with a gentleman whom she presently introduced to me as Herr Brahms. The name awakened in my mind no special feeling of interest, nor did I look at its owner with any particular curiosity. Brahms' name was at that time almost unknown in England, and I had heard of him only through his arrangement of two books of Hungarian dances for four hands on the pianoforte. As, however, from that day onwards I was accustomed, during a period of months, to meet him almost daily, it may be convenient to say at once a few words about his appearance and manner as they seemed to me after I had had time to become familiar with them.

Brahms, then, when I first knew him, was in the very prime of life, being thirty-eight years of age. Below middle height, his figure was somewhat square and solidly built, though without any of the tendency to corpulency which developed itself at a later period. He was of the blonde type of German, with fair, straight hair, which he wore rather long and brushed back from the temples. His face was clean-shaven. His most striking physical characteristic was the grand head with its magnificent intellectual forehead, but the blue eyes were also remarkable from their expression of intense mental concentration. This was accentuated by a constant habit he had of thrusting the rather thick under-lip over the upper, and keeping it compressed there, reminding one of the mouth in some of the portraits of Beethoven. His nose was finely formed. Feet and hands were small, the fingers without 'cushions.'

'I have none,' he said one day, when I was speaking to him about pianists' hands; and he spread out his fingers, at my request, to show me the tips. 'Frau Schumann has them, and Rubinstein also; Rubinstein's are immense.'

His dress, though plain, was always perfectly neat in those days. He usually wore a short, loose, black alpaca coat, chosen, no doubt, with regard to his ideas of comfort. He was near-sighted, and made frequent use of a double eyeglass that he wore hanging on a thin black cord round his neck. When walking out, it was his custom to go bare-headed, and to carry his soft felt hat in his hand, swinging the arm energetically to and fro. The disengaged hand he often held behind him.

In Brahms' demeanour there was a mixture of sociability and reserve which gave me the impression of his being a kindly-natured man, but one whom it would be difficult really to know. Though always pleasant and friendly, yet there was a something about him—perhaps it may have been his extraordinary dislike to speaking about himself—which suggested that his life had not been free from disappointment, and that he had reckoned with the latter and taken his course. His manner was absolutely simple and unaffected. To his own compositions he alluded only on the very rarest occasions, nor could he be induced to play them before even a small party. His great satisfaction and pleasure were evidently found in the society of Frau Schumann, for whom he displayed the most devoted admiration, an admiration that seemed to combine the affection and reverence of an elder son with the sympathetic camaraderie of a colleague in art. He had established himself for the spring and summer months at Lichtenthal, in order to be near her, and was always a welcome guest at her house, coming and going as he liked. I met him there continually at the hour of afternoon coffee, as on the day of my arrival; and very often, when the coffee-cups were done with, it was my good fortune to listen to the two great artists playing duets; Brahms, the favoured, being always allowed to retain the beloved cigar or cigarette between his lips during the performance, and taking his turn in playing the treble part.

It was Frau Schumann's kind habit to invite me to her mid-day dinner on Sundays, and frequently to supper during the week. Brahms was rarely absent, and was sometimes accompanied by one or two of his friends. The talk on these occasions was more or less general, but naturally my chief interest was in listening to Frau Schumann and Brahms, who used to discuss all sorts of topics with great animation. Brahms' interest in politics was keen, and although he had been settled in Vienna for some years, and had become much attached to that city and to his friends and surroundings there, yet it was evident that he remained an ardent German patriot.

He was a great walker, and had a passionate love of nature. It was his habit during the spring and summer to rise at four or five o'clock, and, after making himself a cup of coffee, to go into the woods to enjoy the delicious freshness of early morning and to listen to the singing of the birds. In adverse weather he could still find something to admire and enjoy.

'I never feel it dull,' he said one day, in answer to some remark about the depressing effect of the long-continued rain, 'my view is so fine. Even when it rains, I have only another kind of beauty.'

He was considerate for others, even in trifles. I remember that one evening, before we had quitted the supper-table, someone produced a copy of 'Kladderadatsch,' and, pointing out to Brahms a set of sarcastic verses dedicated to John Bull, begged him to read them aloud for the entertainment of the assembled party. Brahms, after glancing down the column, playfully declined to do as he was asked, indicating, with a wave of the hand, his English vis-À-vis as his reason for objecting; and it was not until I had laughingly and repeatedly expressed my earnest wish to hear whatever might be in store for me as Mr. Bull's representative, that he at length, and still reluctantly, complied with the request.

Frau Schumann often spoke to me of his extraordinary genius and acquirements both as composer and executant, as well as of his general intellectual qualities, and especially of his knowledge and love of books. She wished me to hear him play, but said it was no easy matter to do so, as he was extremely dependent on his mood, and not only disliked to be pressed to perform, but was unable to do justice either to himself or his composer when not in the right humour. The first time, indeed, that I heard him, at a small afternoon gathering at Frau Schumann's house, I was utterly disappointed. After a good deal of pressing, he crossed over to the piano and gave the first movement of the G major Fantasia-Sonata and the first movement of the A minor Sonata, Op. 42, both of Schubert, but his playing was ineffective. It appeared to me to be forced and self-conscious, and he himself seemed to remain, as it were, outside the music. I missed the living throb and impulse of feeling by which I had been accustomed to be carried away when listening to Frau Schumann, and he left one of his audience, at all events, cold and unmoved. When I told this to Frau Schumann afterwards, she answered that I had not yet really heard him; that he had not wished to play, but had yielded to over-persuasion, and that I must wait for a better opportunity of judging before forming an opinion.

The opportunity came the very next evening, when the same friends were assembled and Brahms played again. The next day I wrote home as follows:

'... Then Brahms played. It was an entirely different thing from the day before. Two pieces were by some composer whose name I can't remember, and then he played a wild piece by Scarlatti as I never heard anyone play before. He really did give it as though he were inspired; it was so mad and wild and so beautiful. Afterwards he did a little thing of Gluck's. I hope I shall hear him often if he plays as he did last night. The Scarlatti was like nothing I ever heard before, and I never thought the piano capable of it.'

Such were the general impressions I formed of Brahms during the first seven or eight weeks of my stay at Lichtenthal. To say the truth, I thought but little about him at the time, my whole attention being absorbed in my studies and in the charm of my new experiences of life. To me he seemed a very unaffected, kind-hearted, rather shy man, who appeared quietly happy and content when under the influence of Frau Schumann's society. As yet I had had scant opportunity of testing my own capacity for appreciating his musical genius, and next to none of individual personal intercourse with him. Frequently, when my landlady's servant came to attend me to my lodgings after an evening spent at Frau Schumann's house, and Brahms and I took our leave at the same moment, he would say, 'I am coming, too,' and, our ways lying partly in the same direction, would walk the short distance by my side; but these occasions did not add much to my knowledge of him. He would make a few casual remarks, often playful, always kindly, on any topics of the hour, but did not touch on musical subjects. One evening, however, I asked him if he intended to visit England. 'I think not,' he immediately replied, as though his mind were definitely made up on this point. I ventured to pursue the subject, telling him he ought to come, in order to make his compositions known. 'It is for that they are printed,' he said rather decidedly, and with these words he certainly gave me some real insight into his character. The composer of a long series of works which included such masterpieces as the second serenade, the two string sextets, the first and second pianoforte quartets, the inspired German Requiem, and a host of others already before the world (but of which I then knew nothing), could, of course, do no otherwise than allow his compositions to rest quietly on their merits; and doubtless the intense pride which is equally inherent with intense modesty in the higher order of genius had its share in causing Brahms' reticence about all things concerning himself.

From his determination not to visit England I do not believe he ever seriously wavered. Only on one occasion—a few years before his death—did I ever hear him speak doubtfully on the subject, and I then felt sure that he was only playing with the idea of coming. Of when or why he formed his resolution I cannot speak with absolute certainty; it had become fixed before I made his acquaintance. His want of familiarity with our language may have had something to do with it; he could read English a little, but I never heard him attempt to speak it. He had a horror of being lionized and of involving himself in an entanglement of engagements; perhaps, also, he was possessed with an exaggerated notion of the inflexibility of English social laws, especially as to the wearing of dress-clothes and the restrictions with regard to smoking. Before and behind all such superficial considerations, however, I suspect that early in his career the idea had taken root in him, right or wrong as it may have been, that to visit England would not further his artistic development. Brahms had certainly formed the clearest conception not only of his purpose in life, but of the means by which he felt he could best pursue and achieve it, and from first to last he inflexibly adhered to the conclusions he had come to on these points. If his aim was to give the most complete possible expression in his musical creations to the very best that was in him, his method, while it satisfied an inner craving of his being, was yet, as I believe, deliberately adopted; and it was to lay himself open to every kind of influence which could healthily foster the ideal side of his nature, and more or less completely to eschew all others. It would be ridiculous, at the present time, to touch upon the completeness of his technical musical equipment, to dilate on his easy grasp of all the resources of counterpoint, on his mastery of form, of harmonic and rhythmic combinations, and the like. These things are matter of course. But Brahms knew that not alone his intellect, but his mind and spirit and fancy, must be constantly nurtured if they were to bring forth the highest of which they were capable, and he so arranged his life that they should be fed ever and always by poetry and literature and art, by solitary musing, by participation in so much of life as seemed to him to be real and true, and, above all and in the highest degree, by the companionship of Nature.

'How can I most quickly improve?' I asked him one day later on. 'You must walk constantly in the forest,' he answered; and he meant what he said to be taken literally. It was his own favourite prescription that he advised for my application. For such a man, with a name practically unknown in England, life in London, and especially during a concert season, would have been not only uncongenial, but impossible. It would only have been a hindrance to him for the time being. It was not his business to push his works before either conductors or the public, and, after early successes and failures in this direction, he had almost entirely given up planning for the future of his compositions, and had yielded himself wholly to his destiny, which was to create.

In adopting this attitude, there was nothing whatever of outward posing. He simply did faithfully what he found lying before him to do, and did not look beyond.

Life at Lichtenthal passed quickly onwards, and the time approached when Frau Schumann would pay her annual visit to Switzerland. At the close of one of my lessons she said to me:

'I have been thinking that perhaps you might like to have some lessons from Herr Brahms whilst I am away. It would be a very great advantage for you in every way, and he would be able to help you immensely with your technique. He has made a special study of it, and can do anything he likes with his fingers on the piano. He does not usually give lessons, but if you like I will ask him, and I think he would do it as a favour to me.'

I must here explain that my visit to Germany had been undertaken with the special object of correcting certain deficiencies in my mechanism which Frau Schumann had pointed out, she having advised me to study for a year with this aim particularly in view.

It need hardly be said that I now eagerly accepted her proffered kindness, and it was decided that she should sound Herr Brahms on the question of his willingness to give me lessons. If he should show himself favourable to the project, the arrangement was to be considered as decided, subject only to the approval of my father, who was on the point of starting from London to join me at Lichtenthal. The next morning Frau Schumann informed me that Brahms had consented to the plan, and a few days later, on my receiving my father's ready assent to my request, all preliminaries were settled, and it was arranged that I should have two lessons every week from Brahms.

'You must ask him to play to you,' Frau Schumann said; 'and if he will do it, it will give you a real opportunity to hear him. And now, now you will begin to know Brahms.'

Brahms as Teacher of the Pianoforte.

Brahms united in himself each and every quality that might be supposed to exist in an absolutely ideal teacher of the pianoforte, without having a single modifying drawback. I do not wish to rhapsodize; he would have been the first to object to this. Such lessons could only have come from such a man. I have never to this day got over the wonder of his giving them, or the wonder and the joy of its having fallen to my lot to receive them.

He was strict and absolute; he was gentle and patient and encouraging; he was not only clear, he was light itself; he knew exhaustively, and could teach, and did teach, by the shortest possible methods, every detail of technical study; he was unwearied in his efforts to make his pupil grasp the full musical meaning of whatever work might be in hand; he was even punctual.

I cannot hope in what I may say to convey more than a faint impression of what his lessons were to me. From the very first hour of coming under his immediate musical influence I felt that it was a power which would continue to act upon and develop within me to the end of life. Perhaps, however, I may succeed in helping lovers of his music to add to their conception of his character and his gifts, by writing of him as he was in a capacity in which, so far as I know, he has not hitherto been described. Such personal details as I may introduce will be given with the object of illustrating that side of Brahms' character which I once knew so well; of exhibiting him as the all-capable, single-hearted, encouraging, inspired and inspiring teacher and friend.

Remembering what Frau Schumann had said of his ability to assist me with my technique, I told him, before beginning my first lesson, of my mechanical difficulties, and asked him to help me. He answered, 'Yes, that must come first,' and, after hearing me play through a study from Clementi's 'Gradus ad Parnassum,' he immediately set to work to loosen and equalize my fingers. Beginning that very day, he gradually put me through an entire course of technical training, showing me how I should best work, for the attainment of my end, at scales, arpeggii, trills, double notes, and octaves.

He not only showed me how to practise: he made me, at first, practise to him during a good part of my lessons, whilst he sat watching my fingers; telling me what was wrong in my way of moving them, indicating, by a movement of his own hand, a better position for mine, absorbing himself entirely, for the time being, in the object of helping me.

He did not believe in the utility for me of the daily practice of the ordinary five-finger exercises, preferring to form exercises from any piece or study upon which I might be engaged. He had a great habit of turning a difficult passage round and making me practise it, not as written, but with other accents and in various figures, with the result that when I again tried it as it stood the difficulties had always considerably diminished, and often entirely disappeared. 'How must I practise this?' I would ask him, with confidence, which was never disappointed, that some short-cut would be found for me by which my way would be effectually smoothed.

His method of loosening the wrist was, I should say, original. I have, at all events, never seen it or heard of it excepting from him, but it loosened my wrist in a fortnight, and with comparatively little labour on my part.

How he laughed one day, when I triumphantly showed him that one of my knuckles, which were then rather stiff and prominent, had quite gone in, and said to him: 'You have done that!'

It may seem incredible, but it is none the less true, that after a very few weeks of work with him the appearance of my hands had completely changed. My father says, writing to my mother:

'Her hand has an entirely different conformation from what it used to have; it has lost all its angular appearance, and it really is the case, as she says, that her knuckles are disappearing. I have given up all idea of inducing her to go anywhere with me; she will allow nothing to interfere with her practising. She is enthusiastic in her admiration of Brahms, and says his patience is wonderful. He keeps her strictly to finger-work.'

He was never irritable, never indifferent, but always helped, stimulated, and encouraged. One day, when I lamented to him the deficiencies of my former mechanical training and my present resultant finger difficulty, 'It will come all right,' he said; 'it does not come in a week nor in four weeks.'

Perceiving at once the extraordinary value of my technical studies with him, I was desirous of not being hampered by feeling obliged, at first, to get up many pieces to play through. That, he said, was quite right; I must practise a great deal in little bits for a time. Here is an extract from one of my letters. I copy it exactly as it stands, without altering the careless wording of a girl's letter hastily penned for home perusal in an interval between practice times:

'My lessons with Brahms are too delightful; not only the lessons themselves, but he makes me feel I must practise all day and all night. I have begun to eat a great deal for the mere purpose of being able to practise! He is so patient, and takes such pains, and I ask all sorts of questions, and the lessons are too delightful. I can't understand his giving lessons, and yet he is never angry at any sort of foolishness, only says, "Ah! that is so difficult." As for an hour's lesson, that is nothing. He systematically arranges for an hour and a half. I absolutely revel in my lessons. He makes the saraband sound on the piano just as on a violin. Then he never expects too much, and does not give much to learn, but is always satisfied with little if one is really trying.'

He was extremely particular about my fingering, making me rely on all my fingers as equally as possible. One day whilst watching my hands as I played him a study from the 'Gradus,' he objected to some of my fingering, and asked me to change it. I immediately did so, but said, knowing there was no danger of his being offended by the remark, that I had used the one marked by Clementi. Brahms, not having had his eyes on the book at the moment, had not perceived this to be the case. He at once said I must, of course, not change it, and would not allow me to adopt his own, as I begged him, saying: 'No, no; he knew.'

I had with me at Lichtenthal my own copies of Bach, which I had brought from England, but the edition was unfingered, and Brahms desired me to get copies with Czerny's fingering, and always to use it. The other indications in the edition I was not to adopt.

A good part of each lesson was generally devoted to Bach, to the 'Well-tempered Clavier,' or the English Suites; and as my mechanism improved Brahms gradually increased the amount and scope of my work, and gave more and more time to the spirit of the music I studied. His phrasing, as he taught it me, was, it need hardly be said, of the broadest, whilst he was rigorous in exacting attention to the smallest details. These he sometimes treated as a delicate embroidery that filled up and decorated the broad outline of the phrase, with the large sweep of which nothing was ever allowed to interfere. Light and shade, also, were so managed as to help to bring out its continuity. Be it, however, most emphatically declared that he never theorized on these points; he merely tried his utmost to make me understand and play my pieces as he himself understood and felt them.

He would make me repeat over and over again, ten or twelve times if necessary, part of a movement of Bach, till he had satisfied himself that I was beginning to realize his wish for particular effects of tone or phrasing or feeling. When I could not immediately do what he wanted, he would merely say, 'But it is so difficult,' or 'It will come,' tell me to do it again till he found that his effect was on its way into being, and then leave me to complete it. On the two or three days that intervened between my lessons, I would, after practising at the pianoforte, sometimes take my music into the forest to try to think myself more completely into his mind, and if, when he next came, I had partially succeeded, he took delight in showing his satisfaction. His face would light up all over, and he would be unstinting in his praise. 'Very good, quite right; Frau Schumann would be very surprised to hear you play like that,' or, 'That will make a great effect with Frau Schumann.'

In spite of his extraordinary conscientiousness about detail, Brahms was entirely free from pedantry and from the tendency to worry or fidget his pupil. His great pleasure was to commend, and if I played anything to him for the first time, in the way he liked, nothing would induce him to suggest, with one word, any change at all. 'That is quite right; there is nothing to say about it,' he would say; and though I have felt disappointed not to get any remark from him, and have entreated him to make some suggestions, he would remain firm. 'No, it must be like that; we will go on,' and there was an end of the matter.

One morning my father, coming into the room at the close of my lesson, asked Brahms: 'Has she been a good girl to-day?' 'Sehr fein,'[1] answered he, and suddenly turning to me added imperatively: 'Tell your father that.' I was equal to the occasion, however, and promptly translated: 'Herr Brahms says he is not very satisfied to-day, papa.' My father's face fell a little. Brahms looked straight before him, displeased and impassive. 'I have told him,' said I. 'No, you have not told him.' 'But you don't know that; you don't understand English.' 'I understand enough to know that'—stonily. 'Herr Brahms says I have done pretty well,' I reassured my father; then to Brahms: 'Now I have.' 'Yes, now,' he admitted, with relenting countenance.

Another day, in the middle of my lesson, the door of my sitting-room opened, and my landlady begged to speak to me. 'No, Frau Falk,' I said; 'I am engaged and can see no one: you must please go away.' 'One moment, gnÄdiges FrÄulein,' she said, and persisted, to my displeasure, in coming in. I then perceived she had with her a pretty little girl of about five years old, who held some beautiful yellow roses in her hand. Frau Falk led the child straight up to the piano and made her little speech. The small maiden was the daughter of the gentleman living in the neighbouring villa, and, being with her father in his beautiful rose-garden, had begged him to let her carry some of his roses to the FrÄulein to whose playing they had been listening. The little one, seeing I was not alone, became suddenly shy as she handed me the lovely flowers, and, turning away her face, looked downwards with very red cheeks as she stood quietly at Brahms' knee. But this was not the kind of interruption to displease him. 'Na,' he said, coaxing her, 'you must look at the FrÄulein, and let her thank you. Look at her; she wants to thank you.' Between us we reassured the little one, who held up her face to me to be kissed, and sedately allowed Frau Falk to lead her away.

Soon after beginning my work with Brahms, I asked him at the end of my lesson if he would play to me, telling him I did so by Frau Schumann's desire. There was an instant's hesitation; then he sat down to the piano. Just as he was about to begin, he turned his head round, and said almost shyly: 'You must learn by the faults also.' That was the beginning. From that day it became his regular habit to play to me for about half an hour at the close of the hour's lesson, which he never shortened. Oftenest he chose Bach for his performance. He would play by heart one or two of the preludes and fugues from the 'Well-tempered Clavier,' then take up the music and continue from book as the humour took him. When he reached the end of a composition, I would say little or nothing beyond 'Some more,' for fear of stopping him, and he would turn over the leaves to find another favourite. I do not remember his ever making a remark to me either between-whiles or after he had finished playing, beyond, perhaps, telling me to get him another book. Once, and once only, he resisted. I had made my usual request at the end of the lesson, when he quaintly and unexpectedly replied: 'Not every time; it is silly. Frau Schumann would say it is silly to play every time'. 'It is so disappointing,' I wished to say, but was uncertain of the right German word. He, as was his wont on similar occasions, made me show it him in the dictionary. There was some little argument between us, and he returned to the piano and took his place there. It was of no use, however. He could not play that day, and almost seemed to take pleasure in doing as badly as possible. Every time he was conspicuously faulty he turned round to me with a sardonic smile, as though he would say: 'There! you have got what you wanted; how do you like it?' 'Very unkind,' I murmured, and he soon rose. 'I will not play next time,' he angrily declared as he took leave. 'I will never ask you again,' I rejoined. A shrug of the shoulders was his only answer, and, with the usual 'good-day,' he left the room.

After two days came my next lesson. It passed off delightfully, as usual, and at the close Brahms departed, without a word about his playing being said on either side; but I was left with a feeling of something having been very much wanting. In the middle of the following lesson, giving way to a sudden impulse which I could not have explained, but which, perhaps, arose from the fear of renewed disappointment, I abruptly ceased playing in the middle of my piece, saying, 'I cannot play any more to-day.' Brahms glanced at me with rather an inquiring expression, and asked, 'Why?' 'I don't know; I cannot,' I replied. There was an instant of dead silence, during which I did not look round. Then Brahms spoke. 'I will play to you,' he said quietly, 'in order that you may have something.' We immediately changed places, and he never refused me again.

My father, writing to my mother, says:

'Brahms is recognised in Germany as the greatest musician living. It is said to be most difficult to get him to play; however, after every lesson he plays piece after piece. He is a delightful man—so simple, so kind and quiet. He lives in a beautiful situation amongst the hills, and cares only for seclusion, and time to devote himself to composition. He was pleased the other day by F.'s asking him about a passage in Goethe that she could not comprehend, and went into it in a way which delighted her. With all his genius he is thoroughly practical. Punctual to a minute in his lessons, and of extreme delicacy.'

It was my happiness to hear, amongst other things, his readings of many of the forty-eight preludes and fugues, and his playing of them, and especially of the preludes, impressed me with such force and vividness that I can hear it in memory still. His interpretation of Bach was always unconventional and quite unfettered by traditional theory, and he certainly did not share the opinion, which has had many distinguished adherents, that Bach's music should be performed in a simply flowing style. In the movements of the suites he liked variety of tone and touch, as well as a certain elasticity of tempo. His playing of many of the preludes and some of the fugues was a revelation of exquisite poems, and he performed them, not only with graduated shading, but with marked contrasts of tone effect. Each note of Bach's passages and figures contributed, in the hands of Brahms, to form melody which was instinct with feeling of some kind or other. It might be deep pathos, or light-hearted playfulness and jollity; impulsive energy, or soft and tender grace; but sentiment (as distinct from sentimentality) was always there; monotony never. 'Quite tender and quite soft,' was his frequent admonition to me, whilst in another place he would require the utmost impetuosity.

He loved Bach's suspensions. 'It is here that it must sound,' he would say, pointing to the tied note, and insisting, whilst not allowing me to force the preparation, that the latter should be so struck as to give the fullest possible effect to the dissonance. 'How am I to make this sound?' I asked him of a few bars of subject lying for the third, fourth, and fifth fingers of the left hand, which he wished brought out clearly, but in a very soft tone. 'You must think particularly of the fingers with which you play it, and by-and-by it will come out,' he answered.

The same kind of remarks may be applied to his conception of Mozart. He taught me that the music of this great master should not be performed with mere grace and lightness, but that these effects should be contrasted with the expression of sustained feeling and with the use of the deep legato touch. Part of one of my lessons was devoted to the Sonata in F major—

Musicetc.
[Listen]

Brahms let me play nearly a page of the first movement without making any remark. Then he stopped me. 'But you are playing without expression,' said he, and imitated me, playing the same portion, in the same style, on the upper part of the piano, touching the keys neatly, lightly, and unmeaningly. By the time he left off we were both smiling at the absurd performance.

'Now,' he said, 'with expression,' and he repeated the first few bars of the subject, giving to each note its place as an essential portion of a fine melody. We spent a long time over the movement that day, and it was not until the next lesson, after I had had two, or perhaps three, days to think myself into his conception, that I was able to play it broadly enough to satisfy him. At the close of the first of these two Mozart lessons I said to him: 'All that you have told me to-day is quite new to me.' 'It is all there,' he replied, pointing to the book.

Brahms, in fact, recognised no such thing as what is sometimes called 'neat playing' of the compositions either of Bach, Scarlatti, or Mozart. Neatness and equality of finger were imperatively demanded by him, and in their utmost nicety and perfection, but as a preparation, not as an end. Varying and sensitive expression was to him as the breath of life, necessary to the true interpretation of any work of genius, and he did not hesitate to avail himself of such resources of the modern pianoforte as he felt helped to impart it; no matter in what particular century his composer may have lived, or what may have been the peculiar excellencies and limitations of the instruments of his day.

Whatever the music I might be studying, however, he would never allow any kind of 'expression made easy.' He particularly disliked chords to be spread unless marked so by the composer for the sake of a special effect. 'No arpÉge,' he used invariably to say if I unconsciously gave way to the habit, or yielded to the temptation of softening a chord by its means. He made very much of the well-known effect of two notes slurred together, whether in a loud or soft tone, and I know from his insistence to me on this point that the mark has a special significance in his music.

Aware of his reluctance to perform his compositions, I let some weeks pass before I asked him to play me something of his own. When I at length ventured to do so, he objected: 'Not mine; something by another composer.' But I had resolved to carry my point. 'No, no,' I insisted; 'a composition played by the composer himself is what I wish to hear,' and my importunity gained the day. He gave me a splendid performance of a splendid theme with variations, which, as I found out some months afterwards, was from the now familiar string Sextet in B flat. It was the first time I had heard anything of Brahms' composition with the exception of one or two songs, and it raised in me a tumult of delight. Probably I said to him little beyond thanks, but the power of the music and the performance must have worked itself in me to some manifest effect, for on my taking my seat directly after the lesson at the table d'hÔte of the HÔtel BÄr, the village inn where my father and I used to dine, a lady of our acquaintance exclaimed: 'What is the matter with you to-day that you look so excited?' I remember answering her: 'Brahms has just played me something quite magnificent—something of his own—and it keeps going in my head.'

Since then I have heard the movement times innumerable in England and on the Continent, performed by various combinations of artists, but I never listen to it without being carried back in thought to the gardener's house on the slope of the CÄcilienberg where, in my blue-papered, carpetless little room, Brahms sat at the piano and played it to me. The scent of flowers was borne in through the open lattice-windows, of which the green outside sun shutters were closed on one side of the room to keep out the blazing August sun, and open on another to views of the beautiful scenery.

The merits of our respective views had been the subject of some friendly argument soon after my arrival at Lichtenthal. Brahms had declared that no prospect from any windows in the village could possibly be as fine as his, whilst I was equally sure that mine must be quite unrivalled. Two of my windows looked right across the valley of the Oos as far as the plain of Strassburg, and showed, in fine weather, the distant peaks of the Vosges glimmering in the sunlight. Two others commanded a prospect of the pine-covered ranges of Black Forest hills. The first time Brahms came to my rooms, in order to give me a lesson, the variety and loveliness of my view drew from him an exclamation of delight. 'But yours is really grander and sterner, is it not?' I magnanimously asked. 'This is more suitable for a girl,' he prettily replied.

On the next occasion after the day when he had performed his own work, I reminded Brahms that he had promised he would allow my father, who was anxious to hear him play to better advantage than from the room overhead, to share with me this great pleasure some time. 'But he is not here,' he said, and taking this as a token of assent, I quickly called my father, who was writing letters above, to come down. When we were all three seated, I told Brahms I wished to have the piece he had played to me two or three days before, but he said he would not play anything of his own—'something else.' 'No,' I said, 'something of yours, and the same; my father wishes to hear the same.' 'Ah, I forget what it was; I have composed a great many things. I will play something else.' 'But no, no, no!' I urged. 'I know what it was. I must have the same. Play the first two or three chords.' 'Well, then, I think it was this,' said he, giving way; and he repeated the movement from beginning to end, carrying us both completely away.

Brahms' playing at this period of his life was, indeed, stimulating to an extraordinary degree, and so apart as to be quite unforgettable. It was not the playing of a virtuoso, though he had a large amount of virtuosity (to put it moderately) at his command. He never aimed at mere effect, but seemed to plunge into the innermost meaning of whatever music he happened to be interpreting, exhibiting all its details and expressing its very depths. Not being in regular practice, he would sometimes strike wrong notes—and there was already a hardness, arising from the same cause, in his playing of chords; but he was fully aware of his failings, and warned me not to imitate them.

He was acutely, though silently, sensitive to the susceptibility or non-susceptibility of his audience. As I have already mentioned, but few words passed between him and myself during the momentary intervals between his playing of one piece and another, but he would now and then suddenly turn his head round towards where I sat and give me a swift, searching glance, as though to satisfy himself that I understood and followed him. Once only he refused to go on. It was soon after his performance before my father. I had begged for another of his compositions, and he had begun to play one. I was sitting rather behind him, listening intently and trying to follow, but I knew I did not understand. Very soon he turned to give his usual scrutinizing look, and immediately ceased playing, saying: 'No, really I can't play that.' I did not attempt to make him think I had entered into the meaning of the music, but only entreated him to begin it again and give me one more chance, as it was difficult to follow. Nothing would induce him, however, to play another note of it, and he went on to something by another composer, much to my disappointment and mortification.

Brahms disliked to hear anything said which could possibly be interpreted as depreciation of either of the great masters. Once, when two or three people were present, a remark was made on the growing indifference of the younger musicians to Mendelssohn, and particularly on the neglect with which his once popular 'Songs without Words' had for some time been treated. 'If it is the case, it is a great pity,' observed Brahms, 'for they are quite full of beauty.'

He especially loved Schubert, and I have heard him declare that the longest works of this composer, with all their repetitions, were never too long for him.

He greatly admired my copy, which was of the original edition and in good preservation, of Clementi's 'Gradus,' and asked me to lend it him for a day or two to compare with his own. I did not at that time attach much value to original editions; and, fancying he merely wished to prevent me from overworking, against which he often cautioned me, I said I could not spare it. 'You won't lend it me!' he exclaimed, very much astonished indeed. I answered that if he did take it away it would make no difference, as I could practise as well without it. Finding, however, that he really wished to examine the copy, I said it was too hot for him to carry so large a book in the middle of the day, and that I would send it in the evening. 'I am not so weak!' he replied, but consented to the proposal. He sent it back after a few days, strongly scented with the odour of his tobacco, which it retained through many a long year, and which rather enhanced its value to me.

Rather curiously, he liked the scent of eau-de-Cologne. My father brought me a case from CÖln, and if, on my lesson day, I had an open bottle near at hand, and offered some to Brahms, he would place his hands together, palm upwards, for me to pour into, and, dipping his head, would rub the scent over his forehead, protesting as he did so, 'But it really does not become a man.' Seeing that he liked it, I used it sometimes to wash the keys of the piano when he was coming, but I do not think he ever found me out.

He delighted in the music of Strauss' band, which was engaged to play daily at Baden-Baden through some weeks of the season. It was then conducted by the great Johann Strauss, Brahms' particular friend, and he used to walk over every evening to hear it. 'Are you so engrossed?' said a voice behind me one evening as I was standing in the Lichtenthal village street with a friend, looking at the performances of a dancing bear. On turning round I found Brahms, hat in hand, smiling with amusement at our preoccupation, himself on his way, as usual at that hour, to listen to the delicious music of the Vienna waltz-king.

Brahms disliked mere compliment, but he had a warm appreciation of the genuine expression of friendly feeling towards himself, and did not try to hide the pleasure it gave him. His countenance would change, and he would answer in a simple, modest way that was almost touching. One day when I told him how I valued his teaching, and felt it was something for my whole life, 'You ought to tell Frau Schumann,' replied the composer of the German Requiem, as though he were asking me to give a good report of him. On my assuring him that I had already done so by letter, he added hastily: 'But not too much; never praise too highly; always keep within bounds.'

Shortly before Frau Schumann's return I said to him that I hoped he would not lose all interest in my music at the termination of my lessons with him, and that I should like, if it were possible, to make some additional arrangement by which it might be maintained. He did not give me any definite reply at the moment one way or the other, but on my saying the same thing to him another day he replied: 'It is very nice and very kind of you, but I don't think it can be done. You must, however, play to me very often. Everything you learn with Frau Schumann you must play to me.'

About this time, however, my father, who was about to start on his homeward journey, persuaded me to go away with him for a week's holiday before his departure for England, and on my return to Lichtenthal Frau Schumann arranged that I should continue my studies under Brahms for the remainder of my stay, saying I had become more his pupil than hers. There were, indeed, but few more lessons to look forward to. Autumn had set in, and everyone was thinking of departure. Brahms had to go sometimes to Carlsruhe, where he was occupied with rehearsals, but he punctually kept his remaining appointments with me. His concluding lessons were as magnificent as the earlier ones, and when I went back to England my ground was clear. I do not mean to assert that my hand was already completely developed from a pianist's point of view, or my technique as yet fully in my possession. These things were physically impossible; but Brahms had shown me the path which led straight to my goal, and had himself brought me a considerable distance on the way. A cast of one of my hands taken on my return to England, when compared with one that had been done shortly before I left, could not have been recognised as being from the same person.

Those were, indeed, golden days, when Brahms sat by my side and taught me; memorable to me no less for their revelation of an exquisite nature than for the musical advantages they brought. I have often been told that there was another side to his character, and that he could, even at that time, be bitter and rough and satirical. I dare say he was not faultless, but I do not think that he can at any period of his life have been bitter in the sense of being soured. He no doubt had a strong feeling about the indifference and downright antagonism against which his works long had to struggle; but if it had ever been a feeling even of disappointment, I am sure this had mellowed, before I knew him, into a firm though silent belief in the future of his compositions, and had only served to intensify, if possible, his determination to put into them of his very best.

Rough he may have been sometimes, and in later years I had occasional opportunity of perceiving that he was not always gentle, though he was never otherwise with me. His roughness was, in certain instances, no doubt caused by his resolution in protecting his time from celebrity-hunters, and even from friends. It may have been partly traceable, also, to the circumstances of his youth, when he must often have been placed amid surroundings where rough-and-ready frankness of speech was more cultivated than conventional polish of manner. It is, however, certain that during the latter part of his life he sometimes availed himself of the privilege of the enfant gÂtÉ to yield to the caprice of the moment, and that he now and again said things which could not but wound the feelings of others. This was to be regretted, and it hardly excused him that his pungent words came from the lips only, and not from the heart. I am, however, quite certain that many of his acerbities were assumed to cover his naturally acute sensibility of temperament, of which he stood a little in dread, and which he liked to conceal even from himself. He was a firm believer, for himself and for others, in the salutary process of bracing both mental and physical energies.

A year or two before Brahms' death I revisited Lichtenthal, staying a night at the HÔtel BÄr, where I used to dine in the old days. I looked up old acquaintances, and amongst them the former mistress of the dear old inn, whom I found retired and living in a charming villa close by, her brother being still the proprietor of the hotel. She, of course, had known Brahms well, and during the hour or two that I spent with her we talked chiefly about him. She repeated the verdict given by everyone really acquainted with him: 'So simple and natural, so kind and cheerful, able to take pleasure in trifles. He was such a simple-hearted man.' A tease, certainly, but his teasing was never unkind, never more than mere raillery. He would often bring a friend to dine at the BÄr in the old days, and she always had the cloth laid for him in a private room or in the back part of the garden, so that he should not be worried by the visitors. 'He never minded what he did. He would sometimes drop in, if he were passing, to say good-morning to us, and if we were very busy he would make a joke of sitting down and amusing himself by helping us cut up the vegetables for dinner. Only he could not bear to go into formal society, or to have to wear his dress-clothes. I have not seen him now for several years. The last time was in September, 1889, when he paid a flying visit to the BÄr. He was very angry to find that three pine-trees had been cut down near the house where he used to lodge, thinking the poetry of the view had been impaired, and he said he would never stay in the place again. What a warm heart he had! He liked to know all the country people of the neighbourhood, and took a pride in feeling that every man, woman, and child whom he met in his early morning walks interchanged greetings with him. I begged for his autograph the last time he was here. You will like to see what he wrote;' and my old friend sent for the album in which the master had written:

Berlin.

Years were destined to elapse before my next meeting with Brahms. After my return to England I worked unremittingly on the lines he had indicated, and found that by the observation and practice of his principles I was guided straight onwards in the path of progress. His teaching had been of such a kind that its development did not cease with the actual lessons. As the weeks and months went by I found myself growing continually into a clearer perception of the aims and results it had had in view. It caused me no surprise to find, on becoming acquainted with his pianoforte compositions, that I must postpone for a time the delightful task of getting them up. Brahms himself had prepared me for this. He had always been extremely careful, when selecting music for me to work at, to choose what would develop my technical power without straining my hands, and when I had wished to study something of his had answered that his compositions were unfit for me for the present, as they required too much physical strength and grasp. He fancied, indeed, at that time that nearly all of them were beyond a woman's strength. When I asked why it was that he composed only such enormously difficult things for the pianoforte, he said they came to him naturally, and he could not compose otherwise ('Ich kann nicht anders').

In the winter of 1881-82 I found myself in Berlin. It is difficult to describe the feelings with which I one day read the announcement that von BÜlow, in the course of a tournÉe with the Meiningen Orchestra, of which he was conductor, would shortly visit the city to give a three days' series of concerts in the hall of the Singakademie; that Brahms' compositions would figure conspicuously in the programmes; that Brahms himself would be present, and that he would probably take part in one or more of the performances. The life at Lichtenthal had come to seem to me a sort of far-away fairy-tale impossible of any sort of renewal, and I could hardly realize that I should soon see Brahms again. Finding, however, from subsequent announcements, that the concerts were really to take place, I lost no time in securing a subscription ticket for the series.

Feeling sure that every moment of Brahms' short stay in Berlin would be occupied, I decided that my only chance of getting a word or two with him would be to gain admission to one of the rehearsals, and to watch for a favourable moment in which to make myself known to him. As ill luck would have it, I was claimed on the first day by engagements that could not be postponed. I was, however, the less inconsolable since Brahms was to take an active part only in the second and third concerts. Their respective programmes included a new pianoforte concerto still in MS. (No. 2 in B flat), to be played by the composer, with von BÜlow as conductor; and the first pianoforte concerto, with BÜlow as pianist and Brahms at the conductor's desk.

Betaking myself to the Singakademie in good time for the rehearsal on the second morning of the series, I explained, to the friendly custodian at the entrance-door, my claims to admission. He allowed me to enter the hall and to take my place amongst the small audience of persons privileged to attend.

The members of the orchestra were already assembled, and after some moments of waiting von BÜlow came in with several gentlemen. Lusty applause broke forth from platform and stalls, and a small stir of greetings took place. But where was Brahms? I could perceive him nowhere at first, and it was only as the rehearsal proceeded, and he took his place on the platform, that I felt certain he was really present. I had prepared myself to find him looking changed and older, but not beyond recognition. It is, however, no exaggeration to say that as I gazed at him, knowing him to be Brahms, I was utterly unable to recognise the man I had known ten years previously. There, indeed, was the great head with the hair brushed back as of old, though less tidily than in former days; but his figure had become much heavier, and both mouth and chin were hidden by a thick moustache and shaggy, grizzled beard that had completely transformed his appearance. When I first knew him at the time of his early middle age, one might fancy that his countenance and expression had retained more than a trace of his youthful period of Sturm und Drang, but this had now quite vanished. I felt, with a shock, that my foreboding that I should never see my old friend again had been realized, though in a way different from that anticipated by me.

Brahms received an ovation when he had finished his performance of the new concerto, and as he was retiring from the platform BÜlow, unable to restrain his excitement, darted forward and gave him a kiss. It seemed to take him rather aback, but he submitted passively.

At length the rehearsal came to an end, and Brahms was immediately surrounded by friends eager to offer their congratulations and to receive a word of greeting from him. 'Now or never,' I thought, and, taking my courage in my hand, I managed to get near, though a little behind him. 'I, also, should like to say a word of thanks to you, Herr Brahms,' I said. Brahms turned his head. 'Are you here in Berlin, then?' he rejoined instantly, answering as he might have done if we had met the previous week. Someone else pressed forward to claim his attention as I was replying, and I fell behind again. I did not like to wait for a second opportunity, feeling there was no chance of his being free, so I straightway departed and went back to my lodgings.

Thinking things over on my road, I came to the conclusion that Brahms had not recognised me, but that when my words caught his ear he had uttered the first casual reply that rose to his lips, and which might be appropriate to any acquaintance whom he did not at the moment remember. However exceptional his memory for faces might be, it appeared to me incredible that, after the lapse of so many years, he should have known me without the hesitation of a second at a moment when his attention was preoccupied by the concert business of the day and by the claims of his Berlin friends.

It was in this frame of mind that I took my seat in the evening to hear the concert. Having got over the first excitement of seeing Brahms again, and knowing what I had to expect in regard to his personal appearance, I was able to listen to the music in a more composed mood than had been possible to me in the morning. My pleasure in the performance of the concerto was, of course, in some measure impaired by the circumstance that the long, intricate work was quite new. I think, however, that I should have enjoyed it more if Brahms had conducted and BÜlow performed the solo. I did not think Brahms' playing what it had been. His touch in forte passages had become hard, and though he might, perhaps, be said to have mastered the difficulties of his part, he had not sufficiently surmounted them to execute them with ease. It could not, in fact, have been otherwise. No composer having attained to the height of Brahms' greatness could have kept his technical command of the pianoforte unimpaired; life is too short for this. I knew, however, that I had listened to a magnificent work of immense proportions, and longed for opportunity to hear it again that I might assimilate it.

There was a scene of tumultuous enthusiasm at the close of the work. The public applauded wildly, and shouted itself hoarse; the band joined in with its fanfare of trumpet and drum; Brahms and von BÜlow were recalled again and again, separately and together; and in the moment of the great composer's triumph I saw the earlier Brahms once more standing before me, for, whilst his eyes shone and his face beamed with pleasure, I recognised in his bearing and expression the old familiar look of almost diffident, shy modesty which had been one of his characteristics in former days.

I did not, of course, seek for a further opportunity of speaking to Brahms on the evening of which I am writing, but I laid my plans for the next morning, and at the proper hour again made my way to the Singakademie and successfully begged for admission to the rehearsal.

During the first part Brahms sat as one of the audience in the front row of stalls, and in a convenient break between the pieces I sent my English visiting-card to him, having written on it a few lines recalling myself to his remembrance. He read it and looked round. 'I know that already,' he said coldly, but rising and coming towards me. 'I saw you yesterday.' 'But you did not know who I was?' I returned, still sceptical. 'Yes, I knew.' 'It seemed to me quite impossible you could have recognised me!' I ejaculated. 'Oh yes, yes—oh yes!' said Brahms in quite a different tone, and for a couple of seconds I forgot to look up or say anything.

'Are you taking notes?' he asked by way of recalling me to myself, touching my pencil. But the rehearsal had to proceed, and Brahms presently took his place on the platform with BÜlow for the performance of the Concerto in D minor. When the rehearsal was over, I did not leave the hall so quickly as on the previous day, but waited in the hope of getting another word with Brahms, and was rewarded by having a good many.

In the evening, as he faced the audience before the commencement of the concerto, catching sight of me in the third row of stalls, he was at the pains to bestow upon me a kind bow and smile of recognition. He glanced slightly at me again once or twice during the evening, and I knew, though his appearance still seemed a little strange to me, that Brahms was in the world after all.

The execution of the D minor Concerto was one of those rare performances that remain in the memory as unforgettable events. Brahms, when conducting, indulged in no antics, and was sparing of his gestures, often keeping his left hand in his pocket, or letting it hang quietly at his side; but he cast the spell of his genius over orchestra and pianist alike. The performance was remarkable for its power and grandeur, but not chiefly so, for these qualities were to be expected. It was made supremely memorable by the subtle imagination that touched and modified even the rather hard intellectuality of von BÜlow's usual style. Good performances of Brahms' orchestral works may not seldom be heard, and great ones occasionally; but the particular quality of his poetic fancy, by which, when conducting an orchestra, he made the music sound from time to time as though it were floating in some rarefied atmosphere, vibrating now with fairy-like beauty and grace, now with ethereal mystery, was, I should say, peculiar to himself, and is hardly to be reproduced or imitated.

As soon as Brahms had finished his share in the evening's programme I quitted the hall, for I was thoroughly exhausted by the excitement of the past two days, and felt I could bear nothing more. Early the next morning he left Berlin to fulfil engagements in another town.

Vienna.

During the next four years much of my time was passed in Berlin. I delighted in the concerts and general musical atmosphere of the German capital, and did not allow my plans to be disturbed by a vague invitation to visit Vienna which Brahms had given me in the course of our short interview in the hall of the Singakademie. I felt that however kind and friendly his recollection of me might have remained, yet I could not hope to derive direct musical benefit from one absorbed in the intense thought and brooding to which the life of a really great composer must be largely devoted.

It was not until December, 1888, that I paid my first visit to Vienna. I arrived there towards the end of the month, armed with letters of introduction which met with a kind response and obtained for me immediate admission into those English and Austrian circles to members of which they were addressed. I waited for a week before letting Brahms know of my arrival, as I wished not only to be settled before calling on him, but also to be in such a position in regard to my acquaintance as would make it impossible for him to suspect that I could want anything whatever of him beyond the delight and honour of seeing him again, and of recalling myself to his remembrance.

Meanwhile I gathered, from all I heard, that his dislike of anything approaching to general society had steadily grown upon him. Some, even, of his old friends spoke of the increasing rarity of his visits. A lady at whose house he had been intimate for many years told me it had once been his custom to announce himself for the evening from time to time at a few hours' notice, with the proviso that he should find her and her husband alone in their family circle, or at most with one or two chosen friends. On these occasions he had been used to play to them one after another of his newest compositions. This habit, however, he had almost entirely given up.

I heard but one opinion, both from friends and outsiders, as to his essentially high character and sterling qualities of nature; but his manners were described with unanimity, by those not within his immediate circle, as difficult, sarcastic, and arrogant. I was, indeed, so repeatedly assured that I should do no good by trying to see him that I almost began to fear I should find he had become rude and impossible, if not hopelessly inaccessible. To all that was said to me on the subject I answered merely that I had once known him well, and had never found him otherwise than kind and simple, but that I had prepared myself to find him changed and rough in his behaviour to me.

At length, on a dark afternoon of one of the closing days of the year, I made my way to the Wieden, the quarter of Vienna inhabited by Brahms, and, turning in at the doorway of No. 4, Carlsgasse, I ascended the worn stone staircase as far as the third Étage. Here I pulled the shining brass handle of the old-fashioned door-bell, and the feeling of doubt which had possessed me changed to one of positive alarm as I listened to the prolonged peal I had awakened. I thought it must sound to Brahms like the announcement of a most daring and determined intruder, and that it would inevitably prove the death-knell of any chance of my admission.

The door was soon opened by a friendly maid-servant, who told me, indeed, that the Herr Doctor was not at home, but satisfied me that I was not being put off with a mere phrase by adding that she thought he would probably be back by six o'clock, and that she advised me to return about that hour if I particularly wished to see him, as he was to start on a journey early the next morning. I thanked the girl, said I would follow her suggestion, and, without leaving my name, returned to my rooms to wait for the evening.

The second visit was again unsuccessful, but on trying a third time, at seven o'clock, I found that Brahms had returned. 'Please to walk in,' said the landlady, who this time opened the door. But this unexpected facility of access to the master was even more embarrassing than would have been the conflict of argument I had anticipated. 'Please take my card,' said I, 'to the Herr Doctor, and ask if he will see me.' 'Oh, it is not necessary,' she said; but took it in, returning immediately and asking me to enter. As I advanced, the formidable and overbearing Brahms hastened to meet me. 'Why did you not leave your address? I should have come to find you out,' he said, giving me his hand. And returning with me to the sitting-room, he bade me take a seat on the sofa, whilst he placed himself on a chair opposite.

He did not try to hide that he was pleased to see his old pupil. He evidently wished me to understand that our acquaintanceship was to be taken up from the exact point at which it had been last left, and reminded me, when I alluded to his lessons at Baden-Baden, that he had seen me since those early days. 'Oh, for a moment at the rehearsals at Berlin,' I answered. 'But since then,' he insisted. 'Only at the concert,' said I, rather surprised. 'Yes, at the concert,' he agreed, 'and you sat downstairs, I remember.'

I told him I had lately been getting up the same B flat Concerto which he had played at the time, and had performed it in London before a private audience. He was interested in hearing the particulars of the occasion, and when I said, laughingly, that the fatigue entailed by the practice of its enormous difficulties had given me all sorts of aches and pains, and made it necessary for me to go into the country for change of air after the performance was over, he replied in the same vein: 'But that is very dangerous; one must not compose such things. It is too dangerous!'

He informed me rather slyly, 'I am the most unamiable of all the musicians here,' as though he would like to know if I had heard of his reputation for cross-grained perversity, and was frankly gratified when I answered: 'That I will never believe, Herr Brahms—never!' He was to be absent at the longest for ten days only, and when I took leave of him it was with the pleasant consciousness that he would be glad to find me still in Vienna on his return.

In appearance, Brahms had again greatly altered since our meeting in Berlin. Though not fifty-six, he looked an old man. His hair was nearly white, and he had grown very stout. I had a good opportunity of observing him, myself unnoticed, soon after his return from his journey. The first public performance in Vienna was given of his newly-published Gipsy Songs, at the concert of a resident singer, one of his friends. Brahms had not been announced to take part in the performance, but when the evening came, he walked quietly on to the platform as the singers were arranging themselves in their places and took his seat at the pianoforte as accompanist. Of course his appearance was the signal for an outburst of enthusiastic welcome from the crowded audience, some hopes, but no certainty, having been entertained that he would show himself.

As I sat in my corner and watched, I was aware that not only his general aspect, but his expression also, had undergone another and a curious change during the last years. He now wore the happy, sunshiny look of one who had realized his purpose, and was content with his share in life; of one to whom the complete measure of success had come, and not too late to be valued. If in Baden-Baden he had made upon me the impression of a man awaiting full recognition, who had already waited long for it; if in Berlin, the impression of one who, having attained a glorious pinnacle of fame whilst still in the plenitude of his powers, was untiringly pressing onward towards higher summits of fulfilment—I had the feeling, when I looked at him in Vienna, that the second phase, too, was more or less belonging to the past, and that he had entered upon a period of reward, and perhaps of less strenuous exertion.

One of the very few opportunities I ever had of seeing Brahms avail himself of a great man's license to follow his whims regardless of convention, and, perhaps, of due respect to others, was afforded me at a meeting of the Vienna TonkÜnstlerverein, the musicians' club, of which he was honorary president. It was one of the special social evenings of the society, when the members supped together. Brahms was late in coming, and when he arrived supper was proceeding. He allowed himself to be conducted to the place, at the top of a long table, which had been reserved for him as president, but did not sit down. Leisurely scanning the assembled company, he picked out the position he preferred, which happened to be at the side near the bottom. A slight space was certainly there, but not enough for a seat. 'There,' he said, pointing to it, and he sauntered down the room, apparently quite unconcerned at the disturbance and inconvenience which he caused, a bench having to be moved and several people being obliged to shift their places to make room for him. When once in occupation of the seat he fancied, he contributed his share to the cordiality of the evening, and was in no hurry to leave.

Another occasion was very similar. He was again dissatisfied with a place that had been assigned him at a supper-party. This time it was at a private house, and, as he could not have declined the seat without making himself unbearably rude, he submitted, with a kind of half-protest, to occupy it. During the greater part of the entertainment, however, he was not only in a wayward mood, but in a thoroughly bad temper, which he could not control. There was, when all is said, certainly no ill-natured intention in what he did on either occasion, but at the worst a mere childish petulance and over-excitability under slight disappointment.

I discovered, though Brahms had no fixed hour, that the right time to call upon him was about eleven o'clock. Always an early riser, he had then completed his morning's work, and if at home, as was generally the case, was ready to receive a visitor. He was sometimes to be found seated at the piano with an open volume (often Bach) on the music-stand, which was placed on the closed top lid of the instrument, playing softly, or silently studying the work in front of him. I have never felt that I was disturbing him when I called. It is true that I only went occasionally, and when provided with a legitimate excuse. Still, I do not altogether understand how he acquired such a reputation for incivility. He was, in his own way, of a sociable disposition.

One day when I was with him, some terrible pianoforte strumming was going on in the flat above him. I commented on the strange constitution of people who could deliberately plant themselves in his immediate neighbourhood—for he had occupied the same rooms for years—and then worry him with such noise. He said there was sometimes bad singing and violin-playing, both of which he found even harder to bear than the piano, but added: 'They have their rights, and I know how to help myself;' and he held out his hands in keyboard position, to indicate that when too much disturbed to do anything else, he shut out the sounds and employed his time by playing.

Brahms generally went out at about a quarter to twelve at latest, and would arrive before one o'clock at his favourite restaurant, Zum Rothen Igel. After his early dinner he walked, finding his way to a cafÉ in another part of the town, where he would read the papers over a cup of black coffee. After this was his best time for paying visits, and about six o'clock he often returned to his rooms to write letters or do other work. Later on he would go out again to fulfil his evening engagements. Sometimes it happened that he did not go home, after leaving in the morning, until after supper. These details I learnt incidentally in the course of my stay in Vienna.

Brahms made a great point of being polite to ladies on the question of smoking, and was very particular in asking permission before lighting his cigar. Of course, if I found him alone, he never smoked. One day, however, when I had been with him only a very few minutes, the door-bell rang, and two gentlemen appeared, one a friend of Brahms', the other a youth whom he had brought to introduce to the master. Brahms wished me to remain, and I therefore kept my seat. Very soon he produced his box of cigars, according to Continental custom, and handed it to his visitors, saying, however: 'But I do it unwillingly, as a lady is present.' The elder of the two gentlemen put his cigar into his breast-pocket, the younger lighted his and vigorously puffed away alone, from sheer confusion, I think, at finding himself in the presence of the master. Brahms returned to his seat without taking one. 'But won't you smoke, Herr Brahms?' I said, after a few seconds. 'If you allow it,' he answered, making as much as possible of the few words, and taking a cigar.

Though Brahms was not, during the latter part of his life, a frequenter of concert-rooms, he nearly always attended the concerts of the Philharmonic Society and of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna, sitting, usually, in the 'artists' box' in the gallery. In the intervals between the pieces he would lean forward, both arms on the front, with his opera-glasses to his eyes, spying out his acquaintances in different parts of the hall.

When I called to say good-bye to him at the close of my first visit to Vienna, I happened to mention that I had made a small collection of works written for the keyed instruments of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and had picked up one or two rather valuable first editions. He was greatly interested, and saying, 'We have done the same thing,' took down from the bookcase one or two of his own old music-books to show me. I especially remember an original edition of Scarlatti's Sonatas, in first-rate preservation, but without the title-page, of which he was particularly fond and proud. He asked if I would bring one or two of mine to show him on my next visit, and I told him that I happened to have one with me—an original Rameau—and that if he had not got a copy I would send it him at once.

'No,' he answered; 'it is too late now—you are going away to-morrow—but next year when you come again.' 'But I mean,' I rejoined, 'that I will give it you.' Brahms did not immediately answer, and I added: 'Would you rather not? If so, I will not do it.' 'No, I would not "rather not," but you must not immediately give your things away,' he replied. 'Then I will do it,' I declared, delighted that I possessed something he would like to have, and to accept from me. Later in the day I sent him the book, with a few lines telling him how much pleasure it would give me if I might leave it with him as a remembrance. Early the next morning I left Vienna. I was not to arrive in London for another week, having engagements en route, and this Brahms knew. On the evening of my return home, as soon as my mother's first greetings were over, she said: 'There is a letter for you from Brahms; it arrived this morning.' 'From Brahms! How do you know?' I answered. 'From his having written his name on the outside,' she returned, handing me the precious missive.

On the outside of the envelope, above the adhesive, he had written 'J. Brahms, Vienna, Austria,' and, opening the envelope, I read as follows:

'Very esteemed and dear FrÄulein,

'It was too late the other evening for me to be able to do as I wished, and come and express my thanks to you in person.

'Let me, therefore, send them very heartily after you, for your so kind and valuable gift.

'It was indeed much too kind of you to part with the pretty treasure in order to give me pleasure, and it shall still be at your disposal next year!

'In the hope of seeing you here again next year, and of being able to repeat my hearty thanks,

'Yours very sincerely,

'J. Brahms.'[2]

On my first visit to Brahms in the following winter, he led the way to his bookcase and showed me the Rameau, saying: 'I shall die in ten years, and you will get it back again.' I told him that should I outlive him I should prefer not to have it back, but to let it go with his collection, and thus the matter remained.

The success of my first visit to Vienna induced me to pay several subsequent ones, the last of which took place rather more than a year before Brahms' death. A minute account of each would be wearisome, and I will only allude, therefore, to the opportunity that I had, in the course of two separate winters, of hearing the concerts of the Joachim Quartet in Vienna, and of seeing Brahms as one of the audience. On one of these enchanting evenings the Clarinet Quintet was given, with MÜhlfeld as clarinettist. Brahms had his seat downstairs, at the end of the room reserved for resident and other musicians, and separated from the general audience by the performers' platform. My place was only two or three away from his, and so situated that I could see him all the time the work was being played. His face wore an unconscious smile, and his expression was one of absorbed felicity from beginning to end of the performance. When the last movement was finished, he was not to be persuaded to come forward and take his part in acknowledging the deafening clamour of applause, but, as it were, disclaimed all right in it himself by vigorously applauding the executants. At the last moment, however, as the noise was beginning to subside, up he got, and stepping on to the platform, in his loose, short, shabby morning-coat, made his bow to the audience. Another item in the programme was the Clarinet Trio, played by himself, MÜhlfeld, and Hausmann. Joachim, sitting on the right-hand side of the piano, turned over for him. I changed my seat during the performance of this work, taking the place that Brahms had vacated, which was close to the piano and gave me a full view of the keyboard. In spite of my several experiences of the master's tenacious memory for small things, I confess that I felt a thrill of surprise at the end of the first movement, and again at the end of the second, when he turned his head suddenly round and glanced straight at me in the very same quick, searching way to which I had been accustomed in the old Lichtenthal days, as though to satisfy himself as to whether or not I had understood.

Ischl.

I spent several weeks at Ischl during the summers of 1894 and 1895, and was much interested in observing the life of my old friend in surroundings that were new to me. His habits, during these closing years of his life, were in all essential respects the same as when I had first known him in Baden-Baden. Rising soon after four o'clock, his days were passed in the same simple, natural routine of walking, studying, and composing, in the enjoyment of the society of his friends and of the cordial relations which he maintained with the people of the country, between whom and himself a perfect understanding existed.

His love of children has often been recorded. I have seen him sitting reading on the bench of the little garden of his lodgings, apparently quite undisturbed by his landlady's boys, who romped round and about him, jumping on and off the bench, playing hide-and-seek behind his back, and the like. Now and then he would interrupt his studies to caress a couple of kittens that were taking part in the frolics.

'I know this man,' said a droll, tiny boy of about five or six, in a funny red suit, who, taking a stroll along the promenade one afternoon with some companions, came upon Brahms sitting under the trees before Walter's coffee-house, the centre of a large group of musicians and friends. The great composer was quite ready to acknowledge the acquaintanceship, and called his small friend to his table to receive a spoonful of half-melted sugar from his coffee-cup.

'My Katie knows Brahms,' said a village dressmaker to me, alluding to her pretty little fair-haired daughter of eight. 'We have met him out walking very early in the morning, but Katie was frightened the other day and cried because he ran round her and pretended he wanted her piece of bread.'

'The Herr Doctor has already seen him,' a young peasant mother observed to me as she showed me her three-months-old son, 'and says he is a strapping boy.'

One morning when I called on Brahms to say good-bye, I found him in the midst of preparations for his own departure. An open portmanteau, in process of being packed, was in the sitting-room, and there was a litter of small things about. Brahms invited me to take a seat on the sofa. A book which he had been reading lay open, face downwards. I ventured, with an apologetic glance at him, to take it up and look at it. This he did not at all mind. He had been amusing himself with an essay on Bismarck. After we had chatted a little while, as I rose to say farewell, my eye was caught by a table on which were a number of cheap German playthings—small boxes of puzzles, toy knives and forks, etc., evidently destined for parting or returning gifts to quite poor children.

'What is this?' I involuntarily exclaimed, taking up, before I knew what I was doing, a toy fork of most ungainly make, broad, squat, and almost without handle. An inquisitiveness, however, which seemed to hint at the soft side of Brahms' nature could not be allowed. 'What does that matter to you?' he cried. Then, instantly, as though afraid he had been rough, he added: 'It is for small things—fruit, fish, or the like.' Only I, having seen the clumsy toy, can quite appreciate the comicality of the answer, which of course simply meant: 'No allusion, if you please.' Brahms, however, had saved appearances, and without being hard on me, had drawn a thin veil over his kind intentions to his little friends. I held the fork another instant, and then replaced it on the table, saying with gravity: 'I thought it was a plaything, Herr Brahms.'

A young lady, an inhabitant of Ischl, who taught singing, and gave an annual concert there, and who, during the season, presided over a milliner's business on the Promenade, was a great ally of Brahms', and never omitted to stand outside the door of her atelier as the hour approached for him to pass to his cafÉ, in order to get a greeting from him. The little ceremony was duly honoured by the great composer, who was always ready with, at the least, his genial 'Good-day.'

FrÄulein L. talked of him to me in just the same way as all others did who were content to be natural and unostentatious in their manner towards him. He was so good-natured and bright, she remarked, and though he loved to tease, his teasing was so kindly. He made a point of calling on her formally once every season. Taking advantage of this ceremony, she one day placed before him a cabinet photograph of himself, and asked if he could do her the honour of writing his name underneath.

'Yes, I can do that,' he answered in his cheerful tone, 'I learned that at school. But why do you keep this ugly old face? Why not have a handsome, curly-haired one? Ah, what have we here?'—catching sight of a little saucer containing cigar-ash. 'You smoke!'

FrÄulein L. laughingly assured him that neither she nor her assistant had been guilty of the cigar. 'So much the worse!' he retorted. 'Who was it? Is he dark or fair?'

By such genial intercourse and harmless banter, Brahms endeared himself to all the towns-people with whom he came in contact, and his preference for Ischl was a source of pride and gratification to them. His sociability had in it no suggestion of patronage; it was that of a friend with friends, and was valued accordingly.

A few words spoken to me by his landlady at Ischl are not without their value, coming, as they do, from one who had the opportunity of knowing him in small things. The occasion was as follows. My lodging was opposite to Brahms' on the other side of the valley, but on a much higher mountain slope. I could see his house from my balcony and windows, but was too far away to have the least apprehension that he could be disturbed by hearing anything of my piano. Someone suggesting to me, however, that, with the wind in a certain direction, the sound might possibly reach his windows, I went across one afternoon, when I knew he would be out, to interview his landlady on the subject. She assured me nothing had ever been heard, and added: 'You can play quite without fear, gnÄdiges FrÄulein; nothing is heard here—the water makes too much noise. And even if a tone were to be heard now and then—it could not be more—the master is not so particular: it would not disturb him. He is not capricious: no one can say that of him.'

That Brahms had his little prejudices and limitations, however, cannot be denied, and these grew more pronounced as he advanced in years and became less pliable. The mere circumstance of his having inflexibly adhered to the particular method of life adopted by him as a young man, by which he shut himself away as much as possible from whatever was at all distasteful to him in ordinary social intercourse, contributed, as time went on, to increase his sensitiveness and make him impatient of contradiction. He became rather too prone to suspect people to whom he did not take a fancy, of conceit and affectation; and, without knowing it, he acquired a habit, which sometimes made conversation with him difficult, of dissenting forcibly from trifling remarks made more with the object of saying something than for the sake of asserting a principle. He had his own particular code of polite manners, and was rigorous in expecting others to adhere to it, yet he was apt, in his latter years, to be intolerant of those whose ideas of what was due to the amenities of life were more extended than his own, or somewhat differed from them.

What, however, were his prepossessions, his little sarcasms, and occasional roughnesses, but as the tiniest flecks on the sun? We may well be thankful, we musicians and music-lovers of this generation, to have passed some part of our lives with Brahms in our midst—Brahms the composer and Brahms the man. As his music may be searched through and through in vain for a single bar that is not noble and pure, so also in his mind dwelt no thought which was otherwise than good and true. We may even be glad that he was not perfect, but human, the dear, great, tenderhearted master, whose lofty message, vibrating with the pulsations of the nature he so loved, was of such rare beauty and consolation.

The few lines with which I conclude these slight personal reminiscences were the last I ever received from Brahms. They were written on his card and sent, enclosed in an envelope, when I was at Ischl. I had been expecting him to come to see me, and he had not appeared.

'Esteemed FrÄulein,

'Prevented by many things, I venture to ask if it is not possible for you to call on

'Your most sincerely

'Johannes Brahms.'[3]