Part 17

It was in 1847 that Brahms, at the age of fourteen, made his début before a Hamburg audience. His performance, which included a set of original variations on a Volkslied, was received with a good deal of applause, but Marxsen, who had no intention of spoiling a career by premature publicity, withdrew his pupil after a second trial flight, and sent him back to a course of training from which he did not emerge for another five years. This last period of studentship was mainly devoted to composition, and produced among other works the three Pianoforte Sonatas, the Scherzo in E flat minor, and several songs, one of which was the famous 'Liebestreu.' They may be said to stand to Brahms later writings as 'Pauline' stands to 'Cleon' or 'Andrea del Sarto.' There is some wilfulness of phraseology, some occasional lapse of expression, but the beauties are real and genuine, and the whole manner astonishingly mature and adult. Already these appear in germ some of Brahms' most notable contributions to structural development, already there is evidence that he understood, as one alone had done before him, the full significance of the Sonata form, and the possibilities of its further extension. Here at last was a composer who could fulfil Berlioz's boast, that he had taken up music where Beethoven laid it down.

So passed away a quiet and uneventful boyhood, a time of novitiate and preparation in which the rules were learned and the discipline endured that should qualify a postulant for the full investiture of his order. The conflicts of 1849 left Hamburg almost entirely untouched, and to the cloistered retirement of the Anselar Platz the year of revolution was chiefly memorable as that in which Herr Intendant Heinrich Krebs resigned his office in order to succeed Herr Hofkapellmeister Richard Wagner, at Dresden. Of the home-life, meanwhile, we can only say that it was too happy to afford any history. Thanks to the reminiscences of a few friends, we may recall for a moment a brief memory of the household:--Johann Brahms, kindly, genial, humorous, full of droll stories and quaint aphorisms, yet, in more serious mood, inspired with that intense poetic love of nature which was so distinguishing a characteristic in his son; Frau Brahms, gentle and affectionate, proud of her children, yet half afraid of the dangers and temptations to which an artistic career is liable; and with them the two boys, Johannes, standing on the verge of a noble and laborious manhood, and Fritz, whose brilliant promise was soon to be cut short by an early death. But it is only a glimpse too slight and transitory to do more than intensify the darkness through which it penetrates. All the rest is veiled with a silence which, in the personal record of a great life, is the best of auguries.

About the beginning of 1853[48] Hamburg was visited by the Hungarian violinist, Reményi, an eccentric genius with an insatiable passion for travel, who, in the course of an itinerant life, has carried his national music as far east as China and as far south as Natal. For the time, however, he was contemplating a tour of more moderate dimensions, and being struck with Brahms' playing, suggested that they should undertake the enterprise together. It was, no doubt, a comradeship of rather incongruous elements, and the boy, who had never left home before, must have felt a little strange as he set out beside his eager, restless, impetuous companion, who only lamented that his wanderings were confined to a single planet. But the offer came at so opportune a moment, that there could be no question as to the propriety of accepting it; and in a few days the pair were travelling southward to see whether the towns of Germany would open their gates to the new alliance.

At Göttingen occurred an accident which indirectly altered the whole aspect of Brahms' position. The piano provided for rehearsal was, of a kind, picturesquely described by Dr Schubring as 'ein erbärmlicher Klapperkasten,' which had lost all the voice that it ever possessed by a long course of university dissipation. Accordingly, the impresario was summoned, offered the usual apologies, promised to procure a more adequate substitute for the evening, and returned at the last minute with a new instrument, which, on investigation, proved to be a semitone below concert-pitch. It is easy to picture the consternation of Reményi with an expectant audience, a flat piano, and the 'Kreutzer Sonata' in immediate prospect. To tune his violin down would be little short of a personal outrage, but there seemed no other solution, and he was proceeding with a reluctant hand to slacken his strings when Brahms came to the rescue and offered to transpose the pianoforte part, which he was playing from memory, into the higher key. No doubt similar feats have occasionally been performed by artists of very different calibre, by a Woelffl as well as a Beethoven, but they have not often been hazarded by a boy at the outset of his career, when success might pass unnoticed, and failure would throw back all chances of reputation and livelihood. It is little wonder that Reményi required a vast amount of persuasion before he would allow the attempt to be made, and that he was overwhelmed with astonishment when it ended in a veritable triumph.

As soon as the concert was over, the two artists were informed that a member of the audience wished to speak with them, and, on coming forward, found themselves face to face with Joachim. He had noted the conditions under which the Kreutzer was given, had admired not only the _tour de force_, but the general breadth and vigour of the rendering, and now, after a few words of cordial commendation, he offered to lighten the rest of their journey by a letter of introduction to Liszt at Weimar and another to the Hofintendant at Hanover. It was a pity that Düsseldorf lay outside their scheme; still if Brahms would come back to Göttingen at the close of the tour, he should have a letter to Schumann which might prove the most serviceable of the three. That Joachim was deeply impressed, is evident from a few words which he wrote on this occasion to his friend Ehrlich. 'Brahms has an altogether exceptional talent for composition,' he says,--'a gift which is further enhanced by the unaffected modesty of his character. His playing, too, gives every presage of a great artistic career--full of fire and energy, yet, if I may say so, inevitable in its precision and certainty of touch. In brief, he is the most considerable musician of his age that I have ever met.' Such an encomium, from such a source, may well have set expectation on the alert. Since Beethoven, there had been no man received into the brotherhood with so sincere and hearty a welcome.

Fortune, however, indignant that her blows had been parried at Göttingen, determined that they should be felt at Hanover. For a time, matters went well enough: the first concert was successful; Count Platen gave every assistance to the friends of Joachim; the ladies of the Court were roused to enthusiasm by the romantic Hungarian, and charitably commended the shy, silent German whom they mistook for his accompanist. Then the police intervened. It appears that Reményi's brother had taken an active part in the revolt of 1848. It was even whispered that the violinist himself had played the _rôle_ of Tyrtæus in the outbreak, and had marched, instrument in hand, at the forefront of an insurgent army. Clearly so dangerous a firebrand could no longer be permitted to imperil the safety of the Hanoverian throne, and accordingly there came a peremptory note from Herr Polizeipräsident Wermuth, followed by a rigorous examination and a couple of passports for Bückeburg. In vain Reményi protested that he had no intention of calling his audience to the barricades, that Bückeburg was the last place in the world which he wished to visit, and that he had several other engagements in Hanoverian territory. The sentence of banishment was adamantine, and the utmost concession that could be obtained was the alteration of the _visé_ to Weimar.

This, of course, brought the tour to an abrupt conclusion. Arrangements had to be cancelled, chances of profit and reputation foregone, and the end of the journey anticipated before half its distance had been traversed. However, the concert at Weimar was a fitting climax, and the cordiality of Liszt made compensation for all disasters. By an odd chance Brahms had included in the programme his Scherzo in E flat minor, the most certain of all his compositions to attract the great pianist's attention, and it is not surprising that he found himself forthwith enrolled as a leader in the extreme left of the romantic party. We may here add, that he felt himself from the first in a false position, and that, a few years later, he formally withdrew his allegiance; but it was hardly to be expected that he should begin by disowning qualities which his early work undoubtedly possesses, and which he only outgrew after further practice and experience. And it is equally intelligible that Liszt, who looked upon all music from his own standpoint, should consider Brahms an ally of Berlioz and Wagner, and should value him not as a maintainer of the old dynasties, but as a fresh embodiment of the revolutionary spirit. In any case, the misapprehension was of little immediate importance. Royalist and republican joined hands with mutual regard, and left to the future all reference to alien ideals, or divergencies of method.

After the concert at Weimar, Brahms bade adieu to his mercurial companion, and set out at once for Göttingen in order to claim the promised letter of introduction to Robert Schumann. Unfortunately, the curtailment of the tour had so seriously affected his slender resources that, on obtaining his credentials, he found himself virtually penniless, and was compelled to make the rest of his journey to Düsseldorf on foot. It was a very dusty and travel-worn figure that presented itself at Schumann's door on the famous October morning; but however weary the pilgrimage, it was more than rewarded by the event. Schumann listened to the new composer first with interest, then with admiration, then with enthusiasm; he broke his rule of silence to praise 'music the like of which he had never heard before'; finally, he issued in the Neue Zeitschrift a panegyric that rang through the length and breadth of Germany, and set the whole artistic world upon a strain of attention. In sure and unfaltering accents he proclaimed the advent of a genius in whom the spirit of the age should find its consummation and its fulfilment; a master by whose teaching the broken phrases should grow articulate and the vague aspirations gather into form and substance. The five-and-twenty years of wandering were over; at last a leader had arisen who should direct the art into 'new paths,' and carry it a stage nearer to its appointed place.

The first result of Schumann's encomium was a request from Leipsic that Brahms would go over and play some of his compositions at the Gewandhaus. Accordingly he made his appearance on December 17, gave the Sonata in C and the Scherzo in E flat minor, and soon, to his great disquietude, found himself in the centre of a raging controversy. There ought, indeed, to have been no dispute in the matter at all. It is notoriously difficult to estimate at a first hearing new work which is possessed of any artistic importance: it becomes almost impossible when the work is not only new but novel, when it stands out of all relation to the accustomed phraseology of its time. The critics, therefore, would have done wisely if they had been content to reserve judgment, or even to acquiesce in the verdict of Schumann, until they had gained the knowledge requisite for an independent opinion. But to declare that 'Brahms would never become a star of the first magnitude' was, under the circumstances, an extreme presumption, and to wish him 'a speedy deliverance from his over-enthusiastic patrons' was little short of an impertinence. However, if the music was attacked it was also strenuously defended, and, before the winter was out, the publication of no less than eight important works had given opportunity for a more comprehensive survey of their scope and purport.

At the beginning of 1854 occurred the terrible calamity which brought Schumann's career to its sudden and tragic termination, and deprived Brahms at once of his kindest friend and of his most capable adviser. The intimacy had only lasted for some five months, but it had sprung into full maturity on the day of its birth, and had run its brief course in unbroken confidence and affection. It was no relation of master and disciple, no unequal bond of patronage and subservience: from the outset the two men had met on equal terms, united in a companionship which the disparity of their years could not impair. Throughout Schumann's correspondence of the preceding winter, there is scarcely a page that does not bear some reference to the 'young eagle': now a word of counsel, now a good-humoured jest, now a presage of coming reputation. It was a hard chance that severed so close a tie at the very moment when promise was yielding its fruition and prophecy passing into fulfilment.

The spring was mainly spent over the labour of proof-sheets; then came a short holiday with Liszt at Weimar; then a few concerts of no special interest or importance. But there could be no doubt that the circle was slowly widening. In July the _Neue Berliner Musikzeitung_, printed a careful and discriminating review of the 'sechs Lieder' (Op. 3), and, about the same time, Brahms received the offer of two official appointments, one from the Rhenish Conservatoire at Cologne, which he refused, one from the Prince of Lippe Detmold, which he decided to accept. His new position, though not of any great dignity or emolument, contained two practical advantages: the first that it gave him experience as choir-master and conductor; the second that, at the most receptive period of his life, it brought him into touch with cultivated men and women. Besides the work was congenial, the surroundings were as quiet as he could wish, and the requirements of the court so little exacting, as to leave him his own master for nearly three-quarters of the year. There were a few pageants and ceremonials, a few state concerts during the winter months, and then followed abundant leisure to study, to compose, and to bring into further growth an organism which was already marking a new stage in artistic evolution.

A brilliant success, won at the outset of a career is usually attended by a natural and obvious danger. The artist has made his mark, he has won for a moment the capricious attentions of his public, he has been hailed as an equal by the acknowledged masters of his craft; it is only human that he should strive to keep himself in evidence, and set all sail to catch the fitful breeze of popular favour. Add to these conditions the opportunity afforded by an accident of office; add a vivid, prolific imagination, and a style which competent judges have pronounced mature; add, in short, every incentive to production which circumstance or capacity can supply, and the result is a temptation which the traditional impatience of genius may well find some difficulty in withstanding. It is therefore the more noticeable, that the four years which followed Brahms' appointment at Lippe Detmold, were spent by him in an almost unbroken privacy. He had, as we know, several other manuscripts in readiness; two of the chief publishing houses in Germany had placed themselves at his disposal; new competitors were arising whose claims would have been felt as challenges by a lesser man. Yet during the whole of this time he printed but one composition, and appeared so rarely in public that he might seem to have forgotten his purpose and foregone his ambitions. In May 1856 he played in a concert at Cologne, where he was severely censured for including in the programme so dull a work as Bach's chromatic Fantasia; in December 1857, he accepted two engagements at the Leipsic Gewandhaus, and took part in Mendelssohn's G minor Concerto, and the Triple Concerto of Beethoven; but except on these three occasions, even the newspapers of the time are silent in regard of him. They had, indeed, other things to occupy their attention. The storm raised over _Das Judenthum in der Musik_ had hardly subsided; the great Tetralogy was in process of completion at Zurich; Rubinstein was filling all Germany with his brilliant masterful presence; no space could be devoted to chronicling the uneventful annals of a recluse who for the moment was making no ostensible contributions to the cause of Art.

But it was not a case of 'tam bonus gladiator rudem tam cito.' Brahms had no intention of deserting the arena in which he had won his first victory and gained his first laurel. Only, like all men whose lives are dominated by an ideal, he was profoundly dissatisfied with his present achievement, and he set himself once more to a resolute course of training in order to complete and perfect his adolescent power with those gifts of certainty and facility which are only won by steadfast endeavour. In his early work there is, as Herr Deiters remarks, 'a certain lavish expenditure of strength,' a careless vigour which shows itself, not in redundancy--for he is never redundant--but in a disregard of some necessary limitations, in a disposition to cut Gordian knots of style which it is better to untie. Had he been content to follow the path of romance, there would have been no need for him to modify these tendencies: for romance treats the emotional aspect as paramount, and cares less for the purely technical problems of form and phrase. But Brahms was born to restore the classical traditions in music, and for the maintenance of those traditions something more is requisite than the almost obstinate force which he had hitherto manifested. In January 1859 appeared the first fruits of this long and strenuous cultivation. Hitherto Brahms had given to the world nothing beyond the scale and compass of chamber music; now, in Schumann's phrase, he 'let the drums and trumpets sound,' and presented himself at the Gewandhaus with his Pianoforte Concerto in D minor. Its reception for the moment was most unfavourable. The audience listened in pure bewilderment, waiting in vain for the virtuoso passages that it felt a conventional right to expect; the _Leipsiger Signalen_ dismissed the work as a 'Symphony with Pianoforte Obbligato,' in which the solo part was as ungrateful as possible, and the orchestral part a 'series of lacerating discords.' The fact is that Brahms had turned a new page in the history of concerto form, and that Leipsic was unable to read it at sight. His only response, however, was to take the composition to Hamburg, which at once rallied in defence of its hero, gave him a warm welcome in the concert-room, and, in the newspapers, opened a battle-royal to which the conflict of 1853 had been a mere skirmish. If the commercial prosperity of the town had been threatened, it could hardly have been defended with more vehement protests or a more determined patriotism.

No such controversy arose over Brahms' next work--the charming and graceful Serenade in D which was first given at Hamburg on March 28. In later days, no doubt, the Vienna press offered some carefully-balanced criticisms of its style; for the time Germany yielded to the enchantment, and allowed itself to enjoy, without afterthought, the sweetness of the melodies and the pellucid clearness of the form. Indeed, no more salient contrast could be found than that between the two works with which the composer signalised his reappearance.[49] Both alike show that he had completely assimilated the past records of his art, but in the one he uses his knowledge as a basis for new application, in the other he takes the old types as they stand without extending their range or enlarging their content In the Serenade he sums up: in the Concerto he advances. Hence it was not unwise that he should at once prepare the lighter composition for the press, and reserve the more serious until the world had grown in experience, and had made itself more ready to receive him.

About this time he resigned his office at Lippe Detmold, feeling that even so slight a chain was a hindrance to the freedom of an artistic career, and returned for a short period of residence to his native Hamburg. The prophet, indeed, had achieved some share of honour in his own country, and the least that he could do was to pay it the acknowledgment of a visit; beside which his parents were still living in the old home, there was abundance of theatrical and musical gossip to interchange, and there was the young Fritz, growing up into an excellent pianist, who deserved some congratulations on his progress, and some advice as to his future.[50] But, as the months wore on, they brought with them the need of a more extended range. Home-keeping youths stand in a proverbial danger of homely wit, and an atmosphere of comfort and sympathy, however delightful, is apt to relax and weaken the sterner qualities. So, in 1860, shortly after the publication of the Serenades, Brahms again turned his back upon Hamburg, and set out to try his fortunes afield.