Brahms and Opera—Professor Heinrich Bulthaupt—The Liebeslieder—First performance—The Rhapsody (Goethe's 'Harzreise') performed privately at Carlsruhe—First public performance at Jena—Geheimrath Gille—The 'Song of Triumph'—Performance of first chorus at Bremen—Bernhard Scholz—The 'Song of Destiny'—First performance—Death of Johann Jakob Brahms—First performance of completed 'Triumphlied' at Carlsruhe—Summary of Brahms' work as a composer since 1862.

The theory that found wide acceptance during the lifetime of Brahms, and was discussed at length in a feuilleton of the Strassburger Post immediately after his death, that he never had and never could have seriously entertained the idea of composing for the stage, was long ago conclusively refuted by Widmann in his 'Recollections.' He shows that the master's wishes pointed at more than one period of his career in the direction of dramatic composition, and that he was prevented from following them by the same difficulty which proved insoluble to Mendelssohn—that of finding a libretto to suit his fancy.

'He was always particularly animated when speaking of matters connected with the theatre, as for instance when he once very decidedly demonstrated to me the vaudeville character of the first act of "Fidelio," which generally passes for a very good text-book. He possessed a genuine dramatic perception, and it gave him real pleasure to analyze the merits and defects of a dramatic subject.'[35]

The interest of this passage is enhanced by a few words that occur in an article on Brahms by Richard Heuberger:[36]

'We sat together the whole evening and I remember that Brahms spoke in detail of Mozart's "Figaro" and laid stress on the unparalleled manner in which Mozart has overcome the enormous difficulties of his text; "Mozart has composed it, not as a mere ordinary text-book, but as a complete, well-organized comedy."'

It would certainly have been matter for surprise if Brahms, who was peculiarly sensitive to the influence of really poetic dramatic effect, and whose interest in the drama furnished him with a source of frequent pleasure that did not diminish as he grew older—he rarely missed a premiÈre at the Vienna Burg Theater—had passed through life without feeling the inclination to test his powers as a composer for the stage, and this is very far indeed from being the case. Widmann's account of what took place between himself and Brahms on the subject of opera belongs to the late seventies, and we shall revert to it in its place; it points back, however, to an earlier time, which proves, as we might expect, to be that of the composer's intimacy with Devrient and Levi, with whose varied professional activity he manifested the warmest sympathy, and especially to the year 1869, when the publication of the German Requiem had left his mind at leisure for new important effort. Perhaps we may perceive the direction in which his wishes were moving in the fact that 'Rinaldo,' which contains the nearest approach to dramatic composition to be found in the catalogue of Brahms' works, was completed almost simultaneously with the Requiem; and it is possible that an indication of the obstacle that was to prove insuperable to their fulfilment may be read in Billroth's words quoted in the last chapter: 'Brahms is enthusiastic about [the text of] Rinaldo because it leaves so much to the composer.' However this may be, it is certain that he was strongly possessed at this period and on into the early seventies with the desire to compose an opera, and that he not only opened his mind unreservedly on the subject to his friends at Carlsruhe, but made repeated efforts in other directions to procure a libretto adapted to his views. Allgeyer furnished him with a completed text-book on Calderon's 'The Open Secret.' Through Claus Groth he obtained an unused text written for Mendelssohn by the poet Geibel, founded on the episode of Nausikaa in the 'Odyssey,'[37] and amongst others with whom he discussed the subject were Tourgenieff at Baden-Baden, who provided him with sketches, and, Heinrich Bulthaupt, then a rising young dramatic author and an intimate friend of Reinthaler's.

To Bulthaupt he proposed as a subject Schiller's fragment of a play 'Demetrius,' which he esteemed very highly, and, in a long conversation with this gentleman at his house in Bremen, he explained with precision his ideas as to the desirable treatment even of the minutiÆ of dramatic action, taking as the theme of his exposition the libretto, written by Bulthaupt, of Reinthaler's opera 'KÄtchen von Heilbronn.' Some of the peculiarities of his views which created for him unnecessary difficulties must be attributed to his inveterately logical habit of mind, which made it repugnant to him to take certain things for granted for the sake of stage exigencies. He went too far in a desire that the minor details of the drama should be visibly developed. Pointing to a scene in 'KÄtchen von Heilbronn,' in the course of which three soldiers go into a drinking cellar, not to reappear, he inquired: 'What becomes of them?' 'It is assumed that they go away,' replied Bulthaupt; 'do you mean to say that you wish actually to see them come out again on to the stage?' 'I should like to do so,' Brahms answered. A moment's reflection would, of course, have shown him that the scene in question was, in fact, realistic, since the soldiers might in actual life have left the cellar by a back-door, unseen by those who observed them enter through the front one. The anecdote is, however, illustrative of a mental habit which must have confronted Brahms with countless difficulties so long as he merely contemplated the composition of an opera. The work of composing one, had he ever settled down to it, might probably have solved many of them.

The idea of 'Demetrius' fell through. Bulthaupt suggested to Brahms a consideration which, in no way applicable to Schiller's piece, seemed to him of importance in view of its adaptation as an opera. He thought that the necessity of introducing some amount of Russian colouring into the music of a drama having for its subject an episode of Russian history, not only might prove irksome to a composer so strongly imbued as Brahms with the sentiment of German nationality, but would be prejudicial to the tragic breadth of Schiller's play as it stands. Brahms, on thinking over the matter, probably felt the weight of his friend's remarks, for he did not return to his proposal.

Points of interest in the composer's suggestion of Schiller's 'Demetrius' for the subject of a tragic opera are that ambition and not love is the mainspring of its action, and that the feminine interest of the piece is centred neither in maiden nor wife, but in Marfa, the mother of Demetrius, in whom are exhibited powerful emotions arising from unerring maternal instinct and baffled affection. It recalls the period, moreover, when Brahms and Joachim shared each other's daily thoughts on all subjects. Joachim composed an overture to Hermann Grimm's play of 'Demetrius' in 1854, and, about the middle of the seventies, the well-known 'Marfa' scena for contralto and orchestra from Schiller's fragment. A similar association is presented in Brahms' favourite suggestion for the text-book of a serio-comic opera or operetta, of Gozzi's 'KÖnig Hirsch,' the work with which Joachim's 'Overture to a Play of Gozzi's' is to be connected. Arrangements by Brahms of both these compositions of his friend, as pianoforte duets, were found in his rooms after his death, and were published with the very few manuscripts that he allowed to survive him.

Brahms travelled to Carlsruhe in March in order to conduct the repetition performance of the German Requiem, but except for this journey spent the early part of the year 1869 quietly in Vienna. The advance of spring induced him to pay some visits in the north, after which he proceeded to Lichtenthal. The event of the season in Frau Schumann's private circle was the marriage of her third daughter Julie to the Conte Radicati di Marmorito. The legend of an attachment between Brahms and this lady has obtained sufficiently wide credence to demand mention in our pages. It is, perhaps, not unnatural that the composer's dedication to FrÄulein Julie Schumann of his Variations for two pianofortes on her father's theme, published in 1863, should have led a few enthusiasts to draw their own romantic conclusions, and that such conclusions should have spread; the less so since FrÄulein Julie was possessed of a graceful charm that made her interesting to all who were brought into near contact with her. Brahms was not an exception from others in his power of appreciating her attraction, but his admiration of his old friend's daughter at no time advanced into special intimacy. 'I have spent the summer at Baden, and am going to remain for Julie Schumann's wedding,' he writes to Dietrich. Brahms, Levi, and Allgeyer together presented the bride with an objet d'art, a bronze plate, and are represented contemplating it in a group in a photograph of the time. The Contessa Radicati di Marmorito was taken by death from her husband and children after a few years of happiness.

The completed musical fruits of Brahms' year were the Liebeslieder Walzer and the Rhapsody for contralto solo, men's chorus and orchestra. The 'Liebeslieder,' waltzes for pianoforte duet and ad libitum vocal quartet, composed to a number of verses from Daumer's 'Polydora,' translations or imitations of Russian and Polish folk-songs, are amongst the most popular of the composer's works, and are too familiar to need detailed comment. They show Brahms in his perfection of dainty grace and fresh, playful imagination, a mood in which he stands unrivalled. They were performed for the first time in public at the subscription concert of the Carlsruhe court orchestra of October 6. Frau Schumann, who played Beethoven's G major Concerto on the same occasion, and Levi, were the pianists, and FrÄulein Hausmann, Frau Hauser, Herr KÜrner, and Herr Brouillet, the singers. Published shortly afterwards by Simrock, they were heard in Vienna before the close of the year at the first Singakademie concert of the season; and were performed at Frau Schumann's concert in Vienna of January 5, 1870, by the concert-giver and composer and the singers Frau Dustmann, FrÄulein Girzik, Herr Gustav Walter, and Dr. Krauss.

The Rhapsody was first heard privately at the rehearsal of the Carlsruhe concert of October 6, Levi having arranged a performance for the benefit of Frau Schumann and of Brahms himself. The solo was sung by Frau Boni. The composer, writing to Deiters in September, says:

'... I should like to make a request to-day. I remember to have seen at your house a volume of songs by Reichhardt (possibly Zelter) which contained a stanza from Goethe's Harzreise. Could you lend me the volume for a little while?

'I need hardly add that I have just composed it and should like to see the work of my forerunner. I call my piece "Rhapsody," but believe I am indebted also for the title to my respected predecessor.

'I shall hear it in a few days, and should I then decide not to print or perform the somewhat intimate music, I shall nevertheless show it to you.'[38]

It seems probable, from the circumstances of the first public performance of the Rhapsody, that Madame Viardot-Garcia was amongst the small audience on this private occasion. The work was given on March 3, 1870, soon after its publication, at the Academic Concerts, Jena, under the direction of the society's conductor, Dr. Ernst Naumann, when Madame Viardot sang the solo; 'Rinaldo,' with Dr. Wiedemann as tenor, being included in the programme.

Madame Viardot-Garcia, staying early in 1870 with Liszt, who had returned to Weimar in 1869 after an absence of many years, met at his house his devoted friend Geheimrath Gille, a distinguished musical amateur, who occupied an official post at Jena and employed the greater part of his leisure in the interest of the musical culture of the little university town. Gille had in his youth known Goethe and Hummel, and been on terms of close friendship with Henselt. His intimacy with Liszt dated from the commencement of the great man's residence in Weimar, and he soon became a warm supporter of the New-German party, received Wagner into his house at Jena on his flight from Dresden to Liszt at Weimar, and saw him safely over the German border. His sympathy with the new tendencies did not render him insensible to the value of less revolutionary developments of art. He had great interest and respect to spare for Brahms' music, and encouraged its cultivation by Brendel's society (Allgemeiner Deutscher Musikverein), on the committee of which he was very active.[39] There can be little doubt that the performance of the Rhapsody at Jena in March was the outcome of a friendly chat between Madame Viardot and himself and of their mutual sympathetic admiration of Brahms' art, which was shared by Dr. Ernst Naumann, an old personal acquaintance of the composer. Since the performance of the German Requiem in 1869 already chronicled, up to the present day, Brahms' music has been well represented in the programmes of the Jena societies under Naumann's direction.

The Rhapsody was given on March 19 under Grimm at MÜnster, and a little later at Capellmeister Hegar's benefit concert at ZÜrich. It became a favourite work with Frau Joachim, who sang the solo times innumerable with extraordinary power and sympathy and invariable success.

Brahms' Rhapsody, Op. 53, is composed to a fragment—set also by J. F. Reichhardt (1752-1814)—from Goethe's 'Harzreise im Winter,' which has for its subject the poet's reflections on a visit paid by him to a young hypochondriac whose melancholy had, as he feared, been confirmed by the influence of his own 'Werther's Sorrows.' Goethe's efforts to raise the youth from his state of mental depression had no immediate visible result, though he ultimately recovered from his malady, and the three verses selected from the poem for musical composition conclude with a prayer to the Father of love on his behalf. Such a text was eminently suited for musical expression by a composer who, intensely realizing the problems of life, shaped his course by faith in the power of love; and the Rhapsody furnishes another striking illustration of the strength of imagination which enabled Brahms so to absorb himself in his text as to be able to present it in musical sound—to capable listeners—with a strength and reality usually associated only with impressions of sight. Let anyone who is familiar with the composition read through Goethe's poem from beginning to end, and note the accession of force with which the verses set to music by Brahms come home to him. He will be reminded of an object illuminated by sunlight that stands near others placed in shadow.

The first of the three sections of the single movement that constitutes the Rhapsody, an impressive orchestral picture upon which the independent recitative of the solo voice enters, may be accepted as the reflection of the poet's intense realization of the unhappy youth's condition. Its tones convey a penetrating impression of rich warmth and pity lying behind the deepest gloom. The feeling of the second section is no less concentrated, though it is expressed with more calm:

'Ah! how comfort his sorrows
Who in balsam found poison?
Who from the fulness of love
Hath drunk but the hate of men?
Once despised, now a despiser,
Secretly he consumeth
All his own best worth
In fruitless self-seeking.'The noble declamatory passages of the voice are supported by an accompaniment that becomes agitated or intensely still in accord with the course of the poet's self-questionings, which reach their only possible and beautiful resolution in the third section:

'If thy Psalt'ry containeth,
Father of love, one tone
That can reach his ear,
Oh, refresh his heart!
Open his obscurÈd sight
To the thousand sources
Near to the thirsty one
In the desert.'

Here, by a fine inspiration, the chorus of men's voices enters for the first time pianissimo, supporting the solo voice in fervent supplication.

Words and music are fitly associated throughout the movement, which is a treasure amongst works of art, and it is impossible to say that either of its parts is superior to the others, though the divine outpouring of love and pity in the last section often seems to appeal, especially, to the hearer listening for the first time to the composition. This, however, is really due to its position, which contains and brings to an issue the effect of what precedes it. The work has long since been generally recognised as one of the finest of Brahms' shorter compositions, and continues to be more in demand every year, though it had no great immediate success.

'I send you my Rhapsody,' Brahms wrote to Dietrich in February, 1870, a week or two after its publication; 'the music-directors are not exactly enthusiastic about the opus, but it may, perhaps, be a satisfaction to you that I do not always go in frivolous 3/4 time!'

It sprang from the composer's very soul.

'He once told me he loved it so,' says Dietrich, 'that he placed it under his pillow at night in order to have it near him.'

The Studies without opus number, Nos. 1 and 2, after Chopin and Weber, were published in 1869 by Senff; and the first two books of Hungarian Dances by Simrock, in the duet form for Pianoforte in which they obtained enormous popularity. It was not until 1872 that they were issued in the arrangement as solos, in which, as we know, they had formed part of Brahms' rÉpertoire during some years of his virtuoso career.[40] Dunkl, a publisher of Budapest, used to relate in after-years that Brahms, on the occasion of one of his early appearances in that city, called on him and offered a selection of six of the Dances for an absurdly small sum. Dunkl said he would give his answer after hearing them in the evening. They had no success and the publisher refused them, a proceeding which he afterwards found considerable reason to regret.

The stirring events of the year 1870, the series of triumphs won by German arms, and the federation of the various independent States under the headship of Prussia which was to lead to the extraordinary development of German political power and industrial progress that has been witnessed by the present generation, were followed by our composer with a mixture of ardent emotions, in which that of swelling patriotic pride gained the predominance as each day brought news of fresh victories won by the soldiers of the Fatherland. His vehement exultation at the results of the war found embodiment in a great 'Song of Triumph' for chorus and orchestra, with which he was occupied in 1871, and the first chorus, completed early in the year, and sent at once to Reinthaler, was performed from the manuscript in Bremen Cathedral on Good Friday, April 7, under the composer's direction, at a concert given by the Singakademie in memory of those who had fallen in the war.[41] There is no need to dilate on the feelings which dominated Brahms during the writing of this extraordinary work. They blaze out of it with an intensity and an endurance of passion that well fit it to occupy its own peculiar place amongst the great events that startled Europe at the opening of the seventies. It commemorates heroic deeds in truly heroic strains. By his choice of a text the composer at once raised the scope of his work to a level above that of an ordinary Te Deum for victory in war; and the words selected by him from Revelation xix., which admit, throughout each portion of the composition, of an application to the overpowering occurrences of the time, were precisely those for whose setting he alone of modern composers—we may even say of all composers who have succeeded the two giants of the eighteenth century—was, by his temperament, genius, and attainments, pre-eminently fitted.

The Triumphlied consists of three great movements for double chorus and orchestra, the third of which contains a few passages for baritone solo.

'Alleluia; salvation and glory and honour and power unto the Lord our God: For true and righteous are his judgments.'

The solemnly jubilant orchestral prelude, the entry of the full double chorus with loud and sustained Alleluias, lead to the principal theme of the first movement, already suggested in the prelude, and derived—though this is hardly appreciable by the unpractised ear of a general audience—from the Prussian national air, which is identical with England's 'God save the King.' This theme or some portion of it almost invariably accompanies the phrase, 'Salvation, honour, etc., unto the Lord,' which, with its surrounding Alleluias, forms the text of the first portion of the movement, constructed entirely from diatonic harmonies. The words 'For righteous and true are his judgments' are set to the broad themes of the middle portion, to which some heightened effect is imparted by very sparing use of the more familiar chromatic chords. The third section is a varied repetition of the first with a coda. The movement is sustained at the white heat of jubilation until the beginning of the close, when a few tranquil bars, in the course of which the voices die away to rest, and the instruments are subdued to a pianissimo that becomes ever softer, prepare for the glorious outburst with which the chorus terminates. The second movement has three varying sections:

'Praise our God, all ye his servants, and ye that fear him, great and small.

'Alleluia, for the Almighty God hath entered into his kingdom.

'Let us be glad and rejoice and give honour to him.'

The first section opens with pure melodious beauty and lofty serenity, and displays in its course numerous points of imitation, direct and by inversion, which are easily discoverable by the student. It is succeeded by a blast of trumpets, an outburst of Alleluias, and the announcement of the Lord's reign by the voices of the two choirs which enter successively on a sounding tonic pedal; the basses imitating the basses, then the tenors the tenors, and so on, at half a bar's distance. This proclamation section is appropriately concise and of superb grandeur. We hear in it 'as it were the voice of a multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings'; whilst the third section, partly woven, by various kinds of imitation, from the phrases of 'Nun danket Alle Gott,' which is sounded prominently by the flutes and trumpets, is animated by a singularly naÏve spirit of light-hearted happiness and rejoicing.

'And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse: and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war.

'And he treadeth, the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.

'And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name called a King of Kings and a Lord of Lords. Alleluia. Amen.'

Subdued awe; firm, proud confidence in a mighty, beneficent ruler; a flash of fierce remembrance of injury—all are rendered with a power, a vividness, a picturesque strength, that are not transcended, even if they are equalled, by anything ever composed in the domain of choral music for the church or the concert-room; and the greatness and glory of 'a King of Kings and a Lord of Lords' are celebrated in the long final portion of this gorgeous third movement with dazzling brilliancy of effect, sustained and augmented up to the very end.

The first chorus, performed before the audience of two thousand people assembled in Bremen Cathedral on the evening of Good Friday, 1871, reached its effect to a very considerable extent.

'It has a broad and, as it were, popular character, is conceived simply and wrought with sincerity,' writes the correspondent of the Allgemeine Deutsche Musikzeitung.'

The Bremen Courier says:

'One again recognises the titanic capacity of the composer. The work is a vocal joy-symphony, of imposing power and exalted feeling. Praise is due to all concerned in the performance for they have facilitated the understanding of the composer to a large portion of the audience.'

The Dietrichs came from Oldenburg to hear the new work. Circumstances prevented the attendance of Frau Schumann and Joachim. Neither artist had returned from what had at this period become an annual visit of each to England, which, in Frau Schumann's case, generally extended over at least two months, and in Joachim's occupied the six weeks of Lent.

Pending Frau Schumann's return, Brahms remained among his friends in the north, and played his D minor Concerto at the Bremen orchestral subscription concert of April 25 with great success, giving pieces by Bach, Scarlatti, and Schumann in the second part. Frau Schumann was back in Lichtenthal early in May, and Brahms settled into his usual lodgings there a few days before her arrival. The present writer had the happiness of immediately following her, and the reader interested to learn particulars of the summer life of quiet work and simple pleasures that followed is referred to the Recollections placed at the beginning of our first volume. The details there given are too slight and too personal to be appropriate in the body of the present narrative, though they may be found to have a value of their own for those interested in whatever throws additional light on the true, lovable nature of Brahms.

It was about this time that our composer's art began to make perceptible progress in London. No immediate result was perceptible from the performance of the B flat Sextet led by Joachim at a Monday Popular concert of 1867, but from the beginning of the seventies we find Brahms' name appearing with some regularity in London programmes. No opportunity was lost by Frau Schumann, Joachim, or Stockhausen for making propaganda for their friend's music in private artistic circles. The performance of the Requiem at Sir Henry Thompson's house in the summer of 1871, under Stockhausen, has already been noted. Of minor incidents of the time in this connection, the singing of two duets from Op. 28 by Madame Viardot-Garcia and Stockhausen at a party given by the lady in London on June 10 may be selected for mention.[42]

In the same year the call of Bernhard Scholz to Breslau added another to the list of towns, now to increase rapidly, year by year, in which Brahms' art came to be cultivated with particular vigour. Scholz, who had held successive appointments in Hanover and Berlin, had been on terms of familiar acquaintance with the composer from an early period of both their careers. He now found himself in a position, as conductor of the Breslau orchestral subscription concerts, freely to gratify his admiration of the master's art. From this time not only were Brahms' new orchestral works given, with few exceptions as they appeared, at the Breslau subscription concerts, but any existing deficiencies in the Brahms education of the musical public were supplied by performances of the two Serenades and the Pianoforte Concerto. The composer himself played the last-named work at Breslau in 1874 and 1876, when the orchestra was of course conducted by Scholz. No less attention was devoted to the chamber music. At the concerts of the resident string quartet-party arranged by Concertmeister Richard Himmelstoss, at which Scholz or Julius Buths often assisted as pianist, the two Sextets, the Quartets and Quintet, and later works in their turn, were frequently heard, and to the successful results of these efforts, to the warm response they elicited from the musical circles of Breslau, we owe the composition of a genial and now favourite work of our master, the Academic Festival Overture, the appearance of which will be noted in its place.

Amongst the friends who visited Lichtenthal during the summer of 1871 were Allgeyer, Levi, and Stockhausen, and on September 8 the 'Song of Destiny,' completed in May, was rehearsed at Carlsruhe.

'Hyperion's Schicksalslied,' by Friedrich HÖlderlin (1770-1834), sets forth the serene, passionless, unchanging existence of the celestials, surrounded by the clear light of eternity; and its contrast, the ever-shifting, suffering life of humanity, wrapped in the darkness of inscrutable mystery. The poem is entirely fatalistic, containing no comment on what it depicts.

'Ye wander above in light
On tender soil, blessed immortals!
Glistening divine breezes
Touch you gently,
As the fingers of the artist
Sacred strings.

'Calm as the sleeping child
Breathe the celestials;
Chastely guarded
In modest bud,
Their spirits bloom eternally,
And their blissful eyes
Gaze in quiet, eternal stillness.

'But to us it is given
On no spot to rest;
Suffering men
Vanish, blindly fall
From hour to hour,
As water thrown
From rock to rock,
Year-long down into uncertainty.'

In Brahms' setting we have yet another fine choral work, characteristic from every point of view, musical, Æsthetic, and psychological—one, moreover, which is of quite peculiar interest and value, since it contains an express confession of that creed of love to which the present writer has several times referred as being traceable throughout the composer's life and works. The contrasted pictures of celestial and human existence are set with the vivid force which we have noticed in our brief studies of preceding works, the pathos and tragedy surrounding the lot of mankind being treated with the deep, passionate feeling which is invariably displayed by the composer when he is occupied with this or kindred subjects. Brahms' 'Song of Destiny' does not, however, terminate with HÖlderlin's, nor could it have done so. Another passion lived stronger within him than that with which he contemplated the phenomena of human suffering, uncertainty, and death; and he has known how to supplement his text with a short, but most exquisitely conceived, orchestral postlude, which, whilst it rounds the work musically into a whole, brings to the despairing soul a message of consolation, hope, faith, courage, such as it is within the peculiar province of music to convey, and which has the more power over the heart since it cannot be translated into articulate words.

That Brahms actually had some such intention in adding the postlude is in the personal knowledge of the present writer. He regarded it as not merely accessory, but as being, in a sense, the most important part of his composition. In rehearsing the work, it was over this portion that he lingered with peculiar care; and when conducting its performance he obtained from the postlude some of his rarest and most exquisite effects of ethereal tenderness.

The work was performed for the first time from the manuscript on October 18, 1871, under the composer's direction, at a concert of the Carlsruhe Philharmonic Society. The overture and garden-scene from Schumann's 'Faust' headed, and the conclusion of the second part—both under Levi's direction—closed the programme, which further included two of Schubert's songs. FrÄulein Johanna Schwarz and Stockhausen were the soloists of the occasion.

The impression made by the new work upon the audience of Carlsruhe was profound, and the composer returned to Vienna gratified and pleased by an immediate success which the experiences of his career had by no means led him to regard as a foregone conclusion.

The Schicksalslied was published by Simrock in December, and was performed early in 1872 in Bremen, Breslau, Frankfurt, and Vienna.

The only other original publications of 1871, the two books of Songs, Op. 57 and 58, were issued by Rieter-Biedermann.[43] All the texts of Op. 57 are original poems or imitations (Nos. 2, 3, 7) by G. F. Daumer, whose texts are amongst the most passionate of those set by Brahms. The composer seems to have imagined a portrait of the poet more or less in correspondence with his verses, and Claus Groth tells an amusing story of the shock sustained by Brahms on taking the opportunity of a visit to Munich to call on Daumer.

'I loaded myself with all the books of my songs that contain something of his. I found him at last, in an out-of-the-way house, in an out-of-the-way street, and was shown to equally retired apartments. There in a quiet room I found my poet. Ah, he was a little dried-up old man! After my sincerely respectful address, on presenting my music, the old gentleman replied with an embarrassed word of thanks and I soon perceived that he knew nothing either of me or my compositions, or anything at all of music. And when I pointed to his ardent, passionate verses, he signed me, with a tender wave of the hand, to a little old mother almost more withered than himself, saying, "Ah, I have only loved the one, my wife!"'

The opening of the year 1872 marks the beginning of a new period, not in the artistic, but in the private life of Brahms. It found him installed in the historic rooms in the third story of No. 4, Carlsgasse, Vienna, which were to remain to the end of his life the nearest approach to an establishment of his own to which he committed himself. He had lodged in Novaragasse, Singerstrasse, Poststrasse 6, Wohlzeile 23, Ungargasse 2, had stayed with his friends the Fabers—had, in fact, since his first visit to Vienna, changed his residence at least with each new season. When he took possession of his rooms in Carlsgasse 4 on December 27, 1871, he had moved for the last time. Here he lived for a little more than a quarter of a century, here he died. He continued as he began, a lodger in furnished apartments, renting his Carlsgasse rooms in the first instance from a Frau Vogel, who, with her husband and family, occupied the rest of the dwelling. Brahms' accommodation consisted of three small rooms communicating one with the other. The middle and largest contained his grand piano and writing-table, a small square-shaped instrument to which a tradition was attached, and a table and chairs arranged, German fashion, in front of a sofa. Here he received his visitors. In a smaller room were his bookshelves and a high desk for standing to write. There were cupboards for his music, which in time overflowed into the rooms as he required more space for his collections of original manuscripts, engravings, photographs, etc. A few engravings adorned the walls, and his little bust of Beethoven reminded him pleasantly of the old home in the Fuhlentwiethe. Frau Vogel was responsible only for his mending, for the cleaning and dusting of his rooms, and for opening the house-door to visitors. He took his early dinner at a restaurant—the 'Kronprinz,' the 'Goldspinnerin,' the 'Zur schÖnen Laterne,' and, for about the last fourteen years of his life, at the 'Zum rothen Igel,' in the Wildpret Markt—and read the newspapers afterwards over a cup of black coffee at one of the coffee-houses, in his latter years generally the CafÉ Stadtpark. He supped either at home, with a book for company—when his fare usually consisted of bread-and-butter and sausage, with a glass of beer or light wine—or again at a restaurant, when, as at dinner, he liked to be joined by his intimates. Needless to say, the private hospitality of friends was abundantly at his command whenever he chose to avail himself of it.

The second performance of the Song of Destiny—the first since publication—took place at the Gesellschaft concert of January 21, under the direction of Anton Rubinstein, who held the post of 'artistic director' of the society during the season 1870-71, succeeding Herbeck on his appointment as capellmeister of the imperial opera.

The gratification which must have been felt by the composer at the exceptional impression created by his work on his Austrian public was to be clouded a few days later by news of his father's grave illness. Jakob had been ailing for a year past, and had been obliged to resign his post at the Philharmonic, together with smaller engagements, and accustom himself to the sight of his beloved double-bass standing mute in a corner of his parlour. Johannes, perceiving that advancing years were beginning to tell on his father, had prescribed a change of residence from the fourth story of 1, Anscharplatz to a first-floor flat in the same street, but the failure of strength had not been recognised as serious. Jakob did not complain of any particular symptoms, and it was only on the occasion of his fetching the doctor to his stepson Fritz Schnack, who had been brought home ill from St. Petersburg, that he bethought himself to ask advice on his own account, when his alarming condition became immediately apparent to the physician. Johannes, who was immediately sent for, was on the spot without delay, and spent the next fortnight at the bedside of the stricken man, whom he watched with tenderest care and tried to cheer with loving encouragement. But the end was near. Jakob was in the grip of a fatal malady which had ravaged his constitution continuously during the past twelve months, though his sufferings were neither acute nor prolonged. He died on February 11, in his sixty-sixth year, from cancer of the liver, in the presence of his wife and two sons, and an estrangement of some duration between Johannes and the less energetic Fritz—returned from two years' absence in Venezuela—was healed at his death-bed. The son's grief, as may be expected from all that we have related of his clinging family affection, was profound. His consolation was found in endeavours for the protection and comfort of the woman who had brought contentment to the closing years of Jakob's life, and he stayed on with Frau Caroline after the funeral, helping her to make necessary arrangements and to look through his father's little possessions. The old indentures of apprenticeship, the document of citizenship, memorials of Jakob's early struggles and modest personal successes, passed into the composer's keeping. A small portrait in oils, of little value as a picture, but bearing evidence of having been a good likeness of Jakob in his early manhood, was left with the widow. 'Mother,' said Johannes excitedly the day before his departure from Hamburg, turning suddenly to Frau Caroline after standing for some minutes in silence before the painting, 'as long as you live, this of course is yours, but promise that at your death it shall come to me in Vienna!' The promise, readily given, was destined to remain unfulfilled. Frau Caroline, her stepson's senior by more than six years, was to outlive him.

Brahms' care for his father's widow did not cease with his return to his occupations in Vienna. When Fritz Schnack was convalescent, and the year sufficiently advanced for change of air to be desirable, he was sent with his mother to Pinneberg, a pleasant country town of Holstein in great repute with the citizens of Hamburg on account of its health-giving climate. The visit proved so beneficial that Johannes decided to settle his stepbrother there permanently to carry on the business of a watch and clock maker, which he had hitherto followed in St. Petersburg. He established him in a pleasant shop, providing him with all the requisites for a new start, and wished to guarantee a comfortable home for Frau Caroline as mistress of her son's modest household; but the bright, energetic widow did not like the idea of relinquishing her own activity. It was settled, therefore, that she should return to Hamburg and to her business of taking boarders in the first-floor flat in the Anscharplatz, on the condition, rigorously extorted by Johannes, that she was to draw upon him in all cases of need for herself or her son. Brahms was wont to complain to his stepmother in after-years that she did not sufficiently fulfil her part of the bargain, to scold her because she did not ask for money, and to propose and insist on holiday journeys for herself and Fritz; and from the day of his father's death to that of his own the kind, capable housewife continued to be the representative to the great tone-poet of the simple, restful tie of family affection to which he clung from beginning to end of his career.

Elise Brahms was supported by her brother until her marriage, some time later than our present date, with a watchmaker named Grund, a widower with a family, and was the recipient of his generosity until her death in 1892. Fritz, 'the wrong Brahms,' as he was sometimes called, by way of distinguishing him from Johannes, gained a good position in Hamburg as a private teacher of the pianoforte, and was for some years on the staff of visiting teachers at FrÄulein Homann's ladies' school at Hamm—an establishment which enjoyed distinguished English as well as German patronage. He had only so far followed in his brother's footsteps as to have been the pupil successively of Cossel and Marxsen, and to have made a few public appearances in Hamburg as pianist in his own Trio concerts. His talents might have carried him farther if he had been more active and ambitious. 'Is this your pianoforte-teacher's pace?' demanded Johannes sharply on one of his visits to Hamburg, as he was striding along the street in front of his brother, who could not or would not keep up with him. Fritz was a favourite with his friends; he possessed his share of the family humour, and was never known to brag. 'How is your great brother?' an acquaintance asked him one day. 'What do you mean?' retorted Fritz, who was tall and thin; 'I am bigger than he is!' He died unmarried in Hamburg in 1886, at the age of fifty-one.

Preliminary arrangements were made in good time for the performance of the completed Triumphlied at the Rhine Festival of 1872, held in DÜsseldorf; but as the date drew near the committee strangely refused to invite the composer to conduct his work, and Brahms therefore withheld the manuscript. It was performed for the first time on June 5 at a farewell concert arranged by the Grand-Ducal Orchestra and the Philharmonic Society of Carlsruhe jointly, for their departing conductor Hermann Levi, who had been called to the post of court capellmeister at Munich, which he held with brilliant success until failing health compelled his retirement in 1896. Both Frau Schumann and Stockhausen contributed to the programme of the concert, Stockhausen, as a matter of course, singing the short solo of the Triumphlied. The performance seems to have been a fine one, though the chorus at command only numbered 150 members. An enthusiastic account of the work sent from Carlsruhe to the Allgemeine Musikzeitung by Franz Gehring concludes:

'We Germans may feel proud that such an artist has been inspired by the impression of the most momentous events to which our history can point, to the composition of such a triumph-song. To the year 1870 attaches, not only the renown of our arms, but a new epoch of our musical art.... It is based upon the modern development of long familiar forms and modes of expression. That this development has shown itself to be true and healthy (who had not foreseen it in Brahms' German Requiem!) is the merit of the German master Brahms, the greatest of the present day!'

Comparatively few musicians will be found in these days to deny that Gehring's words were justified by the development of Brahms' own career, though it cannot be concealed that a new epoch such as that to which the reviewer looked forward seems to have closed for the present with the master's death.

Contrary to Brahms' established custom, he accepted a concert-engagement in the course of the summer, and appeared with immense success at the Baden-Baden Kursaal subscription concert of August 29 as composer, conductor, and pianist, with his own A major Serenade and Schumann's Pianoforte Concerto. Amongst the visitors to Lichtenthal in the course of the season was Reinthaler, who had been present at the performance of the Triumphlied at Carlsruhe, and returned later to spend a short holiday near his friends.

With the beginning of autumn, 1872, a period of ten years had elapsed since Brahms' first visit to Vienna, and it will help the reader to obtain a clear view of the development of his career as a composer if we pause for a moment at this point, to consider what had been its special features during the decade in the course of which he had gradually come to regard Vienna as his home. We shall find that it had been entirely logical and continuous, and singularly independent of those influences of his changed environment to which imaginary effects on his art and temperament have not seldom been attributed.

We observe, in the first place, that only one solo has been added to the long list of important works for the pianoforte, accompanied and unaccompanied, which Brahms carried with him to Vienna in 1862, and of this one it must be said that the Paganini studies in two books, immensely brilliant and ingenious though they be, cannot be seriously regarded from the musical standpoint of the Handel or other preceding sets of variations, but must be accepted more or less as diversions of the composer's leisure hours. Several of the variations are little more than transcriptions for the piano of some of those written by Paganini on the same theme for the violin.

In the domain of chamber music, where, so far as it is yet possible to anticipate the verdict of posterity, Brahms' place will be found amongst the greatest composers of all periods, we find that his first series of masterpieces for pianoforte and strings has been brought to a close with the addition of two works—the Horn Trio performed in the autumn of 1865, and the Sonata in E minor for pianoforte and violoncello, whilst by the side of the String Sextet in B flat has been placed another in G major, not indeed transcending, but different from, and in every way worthy of, its companion. With the enumeration of these published works must be associated the mention of two others of peculiar interest in our survey because they mark a fresh stage of Brahms' matured development. The two String Quartets in C minor and A minor were kept in the composer's desk for some years before they were finally completed. The significance of their appearance, which we shall have to note in 1873, as landmarks in Brahms' career, is best illustrated by the remembrance that twenty years had elapsed since the fastidious self-criticism of the young musician of twenty had caused the withdrawal of a string quartet from the list of works proposed by Schumann for the consideration of the publishers.

Brahms' fertility as a song-writer for a single voice was constant, though it matured and varied in its manifestations with the onward progress of his life. We have already referred to some of the phases of its long middle period. The decade we are considering witnessed the publication of eight books of miscellaneous songs and three books of the Magelone Romances.

In the Liebeslieder, waltzes for pianoforte duet and vocal quartet, we have the riper artistic fruition of the mood which produced the vocal quartets, Op. 31, 'Alternative Dance Song,' 'Raillery,' and 'The Walk to the Beloved,' composed at Detmold; and to the same early period the Waltzes for pianoforte duet dedicated to Hanslick primarily belong.

The splendid achievement, however, which pre-eminently distinguishes this portion of Brahms' career is to be found in another domain: that in which we may now, in 1872, contemplate the literal fulfilment of Schumann's much discussed prophecy; that in which 'the masses of chorus and orchestra have lent him their powers.' The composer has most truly 'sunk his magic staff and revealed to us wondrous glimpses of the spirit world.' The period which produced the German Requiem, the Song of Destiny, and the Song of Triumph (1866-1871) could hardly be surpassed in the brilliancy of its own special branch of achievement, and with the completion of the last of these works the growth of Brahms' powers upon this particular line of development had reached its summit. The choral works in which the master hand of the great composer was to be again revealed, whilst they afford additional opportunities of enjoyment to the lovers of his art, could not, from the nature of those that had preceded them, increase the lustre of his fame.

Of works for orchestra alone the two Serenades published in 1860 are still the only examples. As we have seen,[44] Brahms, in the summer of 1862, showed Dietrich the first movement of the C minor Symphony, 'which appeared, greatly altered, much later on,'[45] but since then the composer's invariable answer to his friend's inquiries had been that the time for a symphony had not yet arrived. The ten years we are considering are, in fact, characteristic of the composer as well by their silence as by their song. We cannot doubt that just as his choral works were the ultimate outcome of a long period of retirement and study, of which we have traced the early as well as the late results, so the period of his symphonic achievement was being gradually prepared for by special work as fundamental and unwearied. Of this we shall very soon have to note the perfected first-fruits on the appearance of a short orchestral composition, now amongst the most familiar and valued of the treasures with which Brahms has enriched the musical world.