Читать книгу The Life & Legacy of Johannes Brahms - Florence May - Страница 17

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Brahms and Reményi visit Joachim in Hanover—Concert at Court—Visit to Liszt—Joachim and Brahms in Göttingen—Wasielewski, Reinecke, and Hiller—First meeting with Schumann—Albert Dietrich.

Leaving Düsseldorf on May 18, the day following the close of the festival, Joachim proceeded on a week's visit to Weimar, and, returning thence to spend a day or two at home in Hanover before settling for the summer at Göttingen, where he proposed to attend University lectures, was surprised by a call from Reményi and Brahms.[18] His first attention was naturally devoted to his old school-fellow, but by-and-by he turned to the stranger, and an account of the interview may be given in his own words:

'The dissimilar companions—the tender, idealistic Johannes and the self-satisfied, fantastic virtuoso—called on me. Never in the course of my artist's life have I been more completely overwhelmed with delighted surprise, than when the rather shy-mannered, blonde companion of my countryman played me his sonata movements, of quite undreamt-of originality and power, looking noble and inspired the while. His song "O, versenk dein Leid" sounded to me like a revelation, and his playing, so tender, so imaginative, so free and so fiery, held me spell-bound. No wonder that I not only foresaw, but actually foretold, a speedy end to the concert-journey with Reményi. Brahms parted from him soon afterwards, and, encouraged before long by an enthusiastic recognition, marched proudly onwards in his own path of endeavour after the highest development.'[19]

Reményi had not been mistaken in building hopes for the success of the concert-journey upon the chance of an interview with Joachim, who proved the medium through which both he and his companion were guided to the respective spheres for which each was peculiarly fitted. The great violinist was at this, his first interview with Brahms, so deeply penetrated by the certainty of his genius, so impressed by its daring, and so profoundly touched by the evident sincerity and childlike freshness of his nature, that he took him then and there to his heart, and made his cause his own. He at once exerted his influence in Hanover to such purpose that the travellers were engaged to appear before King George and the royal circle.

'There is in his (Brahms') playing,' he wrote to the Countess Bernstorff, a lady of great musical accomplishment attached to the Hanoverian Court, 'that concentrated fire, what I may call that fatalistic energy and precision of rhythm, which prophesy the artist, and his compositions already contain much that is significant, such as I have not hitherto met with in a youth of his age.'[20]

Joachim's engagements did not allow him to wait in Hanover till the date of the proposed court concert; but before his departure he cordially invited Johannes, who called to bid him farewell, to visit him in Göttingen if his relations with Reményi should come to as early a termination as Joachim thought likely.

Mention of the concert before King George and the royal family is to be found in a volume, 'Aus allen Tonarten,' by Heinrich Ehrlich, court pianist at Hanover, who was present, and has recorded that Brahms played the E flat minor Scherzo. In a subsequent letter to this musician Joachim wrote:

'... It was his exceptional talent for composition, and a nature which could have been developed in its integrity only in close retirement, pure as the diamond, tender as snow.'

From Hanover, Reményi and Brahms travelled to Weimar, where Joachim had ensured them a welcome by writing to Liszt on their behalf. Of the first meeting between the world-famous musician, who lived in a style of ostentatious luxury in a house on the Altenburg belonging to the Princess Caroline von Sayn-Wittgenstein, and the obscure young composer from the Lane-quarter of Hamburg, we have, fortunately, the account of an eye-witness, William Mason, of New York, who was at the time resident in Weimar as a pupil of Liszt, and one of the ardent young champions of the new school.

'One evening early in June,' says Mason,[21] 'Liszt sent us word to come up the next morning to the Altenburg, as he expected a visit from a young man who was said to have great talent as a composer, and whose name was Johannes Brahms. He was to come accompanied by Edward Reményi.

'The next morning, on going to the Altenburg with Klindworth, we found Brahms and Reményi already in the reception-room with Raff and Prückner. After greeting the new-corners, of whom Reményi was known to us by reputation, I strolled over to a table on which were lying some manuscripts of music. They were several of Brahms' unpublished compositions, and I began turning over the leaves of the uppermost of the pile. It was the pianoforte solo, Op. 4, Scherzo in E flat minor.... Finally Liszt came down, and after some general conversation he turned to Brahms, and said: "We are interested to hear some of your compositions whenever you are ready and feel inclined to play them."

'Brahms, however, who was in a highly nervous state, declared that it was quite impossible for him to play, and as the entreaties of Liszt and Reményi failed to induce him to approach the piano, Liszt went over to the table, saying, "Well, I shall have to play"; and taking the first piece at hand from the heap of manuscripts, he performed the scherzo at sight in such a marvellous way, carrying on, at the same time, a running accompaniment of audible criticism of the music, that Brahms was surprised and delighted. Raff found reminiscences, in the opening bars, of Chopin's Scherzo in B flat minor, whereupon Brahms answered that he had neither seen nor heard any of this composer's works. Liszt then played a part of Brahms' Sonata in C major, Op. 1.

'A little later, someone asked Liszt to play his own sonata, a work which was quite recent at that time, and of which he was very fond. Without hesitation he sat down and began playing. As he progressed, he came to a very expressive part, which he always imbued with extreme pathos, and in which he looked for the especial interest and sympathy of his listeners. Glancing at Brahms, he found that the latter was dozing in his chair. Liszt continued playing to the end of the sonata, and then rose and left the room. I was in such a position that Brahms was hidden from my view, but I was aware that something unusual had taken place, and I think it was Reményi who told me what had occurred. It is very strange that among the various accounts of this first Liszt-Brahms interview—and there are several—there is not one which gives an accurate description of what took place on the occasion; indeed, they are all far out of the way. The events as here related are perfectly clear in my own mind; but not wishing to trust implicitly to my memory, I wrote to my friend Klindworth, the only living witness of the incident except myself, as I suppose, and requested him to give me an account of it as he remembered it. He corroborated my description in every particular, except that he made no specific reference to the drowsiness of Brahms, and except also that, according to my recollection, Brahms left Weimar on the afternoon of the day on which the meeting took place; Klindworth writes that it was on the morning of the next day—a discrepancy of very little moment.'

It is to be observed, in the first place, with reference to this interesting account, that Brahms' panic was probably caused by his finding that he was expected to play before not only Liszt himself, but a party of his pupils, the most unnerving kind of audience with which he could possibly have been confronted; and in the second, that Reményi, in saying his companion had fallen asleep, unquestionably merely intended to convey the meaning that he had not taken prudent advantage of his opportunity to ingratiate himself with the great man. The very different methods employed by the violinist for the advancement of his own ambition are illustrated by a letter written by him to Liszt—evidently soon after this first interview—which throws an illuminating sidelight upon the scene and its immediate sequel. It is clear that Reményi at once took steps for the purpose of ingratiating himself with the leader of Weimar and his rising young musicians by acquainting himself with, at all events, the names of Liszt's compositions, and announcing himself a convert to the New-German music. He remained associated with the party for a considerable time, and Liszt recognised his gifts whilst ridiculing his extravagances. The letter referred to opens with a kind of preamble:

'This scribbler ventures to address the great man, after having heard the sonata, the scherzo, the rhapsodies, the Dante fantasia, etc. One must have courage to dare to write to such a man. Let us see, let us try, nevertheless. We shall see whether I have the talent to continue. Now to work!

'Tisztelt Liszt Ur!

'Admirable compatriot!

'I am here on the Altenburg, the place where I have had the happiness (read effrontery) of being received by Liszt, and where I have the happiness of finding myself again!

'Conceive the immense joy you have given me by forwarding the letter addressed to me from Hungary. Every bad thing is of some use; when I reflect that this bit of a Hungarian letter has procured me the sublime lines of Liszt—Ah! yes, I have read this letter four or five times—no! devoured it, but not altogether; some fragments fortunately remain for me to point to proudly in the future (when I shall have become a great man??!!): do you see, gentlemen? I am a happy mortal. I possess the writing—no, a personal letter from Liszt. You may be assured that that is everything for me—it will be my talisman! If you by chance ask what I am doing, really I cannot tell you—of what interest can it be to you if I scrape on the violin or compose some new mazourek fantastiques? That is zero for you....

'As for my political confession, it is already sent—Raff has edited it!

'Now, I think this letter is much too long. I shall finish it by telling you quite simply, but very sincerely, that the good God has you in His holy keeping, and that He ever directs your genius for the honour and glory of the human race in general, and particularly (but particularly) of your dear country.

'Adieu, great compatriot!

'I subscribe myself,

'E. Reményi,

'Citizen of the Altenburg, ci-devant of Hungary.

'P.S.—Brahms has left for Göttingen.'[22]

And no wonder! one feels inclined to exclaim, on reading the postscript, the first of three appended to the epistle. Johannes must have felt that his power of endurance was being strained to its utmost limit by daily association with such a comrade, and determined to break it, helped, very likely, to his resolution by the recollection of the very different personality of that other violinist, the young king of fiddlers, who had invited him to Göttingen. The story frequently related, that Brahms and Reményi, or one of them, stayed on for several weeks as Liszt's guests at the Altenburg, is contradicted by all contemporary testimony, negative as well as positive. No such visit is mentioned in any known letter of the period, whilst Reményi's communication to Liszt would of itself be fairly good evidence that none such took place, and, taken together with the independent accounts of Mason and Klindworth, must be accepted as conclusive against the supposition. The morning at the Altenburg can, indeed, have left little behind it in the mind of our musician beyond a feeling of mortification, and Mason expressly states that the impression it produced on the young men present was that it had not been a success. It is likely that Klindworth was substantially correct as to the exact date of Brahms' departure from Weimar. Perhaps hoping to appear to better advantage in a tête-à-tête interview, he seems to have called a second time on Liszt, who presented him with a leather cigarette-case in which was placed an autograph inscription in remembrance of their meeting.[23]

Somewhere about the middle of June, then, Joachim, at work one day in his rooms at Göttingen, had hardly time to call out, 'Come in' in answer to a knock at the door, before the door opened and in walked Brahms. This was the beginning of the intimate acquaintance between the two youthful musicians, which ripened into the historic friendship that endured until the death of Brahms forty-four years later. What a discovery was each to the other! Alike in no respect, perhaps, save in earnest devotion to art, and a profound feeling of obligation in her service, the dissimilarity of their dispositions was such as to make them mutually interesting and to cement the growing bond between them. To Joachim the worship of art, adored goddess though she might be, could never be all in all; it could never appease the craving for human sympathy which, since Mendelssohn's death, he had at times felt to be almost intolerable. Johannes, haunted by a vision of the delight of intimate sympathy, was not convinced of its being either possible or indispensable, and knew that he could, if necessary, live his life without it. To Joachim, possessed of strong likings and antipathies, and firm to convictions involving a principle, it was not difficult, in a conflict of mere inclinations, to yield. In Johannes, with all his childlike sweetness of nature, there dwelt an ineradicable combative instinct. To Joachim life had been one continued triumph; he had never known even the taste of failure. A personality from childhood, he had conquered his world once and for all with scarcely an effort. Hannes had passed his days in obscurity, and had seen and known only struggle. And now, to Joachim, who had never had to plan for his own advancement, what a fresh joy it was to think and hope and suggest for the future of Johannes, and to Johannes, who had known little of the satisfaction of intelligent appreciation from colleagues of his own standing, what an astonishing experience was this enthusiastic and authoritative approval from such a comrade! The companions, engrossed in the first place by their compositions—for Joachim was engaged upon two overtures, and Johannes busy with sonatas and songs—found plenty of time for other occupations. They studied and made music together, and walked and talked and dined together, and compared opinions and argued and agreed together. No doubt Johannes heard much about the Leipzig of Bach and Mendelssohn, and he found to his surprise that Joachim, the unparalleled interpreter of Bach and Beethoven, shared Louise Japha's opinion of Schumann's music. He certainly touched Joachim's heart by his loving talk of Hamburg, rich in proud traditions, and not without art memories of its own, associated with the great names of Klopstock and Lessing, of Telemann and Keiser, of Handel and Mattheson and Emanuel Bach. The fêted violinist, familiar since his ninth year with one or other centre of musical learning, brilliant pupil of the conservatoire of Vienna, beloved favourite of that of Leipzig, listened, moreover, with no little interest to all that Johannes chose to relate of his solitary studies with his Marxsen. The happy young Hamburger felt that he could tell Joseph anything. He spoke to him of his struggles, his kind friends at Winsen, his acquaintance with Louise Japha, the difficulties of his journey with Reményi. Joachim was so much interested in the Winsen episodes that he could not refrain from writing to Uncle Giesemann to tell him that his young musician would be a great man some day.

In one thing only Johannes would not bear his friend company. He declined to attend the university lectures of Ritter and Waiz, voting lectures a bore, and preferring to take his mental food, as usual, from books. He was very ready, however, to join the jovial fellowship that met at the Saxsen, the students' club-restaurant frequented by Joachim and his friends. He entered with great zest into all the fun of the social evenings, and on the night when he and Joachim were called upon, as the youngest of the party, to perform the 'Fox-ride,' he sat astraddle on his little chair, and galloped round the table with the court concertmeister from Hanover as though he were bent on keeping his terms with the most serious-minded student of them all. The happy holiday was crowned by a concert given by the two 'students,' which attracted an overflowing audience and provided Brahms with welcome funds for the prosecution of his immediate plans. He wished to make a walking excursion along the Rhine before the summer should have passed away, and left Göttingen about the middle of August, armed with several of his friend's visiting-cards with which to introduce himself to musical houses on his route. The acquaintance which Joachim desired to secure for him above all others was that of Schumann, but Johannes, probably sore from his recent experiences of an interview with a leader surrounded by his followers, was uncertain if he should stay at Düsseldorf. The separation between himself and Joachim was to be a short one only. They were to meet in October at Hanover, where Johannes was to pass the winter in his friend's society.

We have to picture our traveller as passing, during the next two or three weeks, from point to point along the beautiful Rhine valley in a frame of mind rendered almost ecstatic by the combined influences of his daily surroundings, his recent experiences, and his well-grounded hopes for the future. We meet him again early in September in the house of J. W. von Wasielewsky, who at this period filled a post as music-director at Bonn, and who has given an interesting account of Brahms' arrival in that city.

'Towards the end of the summer,' he says,[24] 'I was surprised by a visit from an attractive-looking, fair-haired youth, who delivered to me one of Joachim's visiting-cards, on the reverse side of which was his own humorously-written signature.[25] Coming in the direction from Mainz, he had travelled on foot through the Rhine valley, and presented himself to me staff in hand and knapsack on his back. His fresh, natural, unconstrained manner impressed me sympathetically, so that I not only bade him welcome, but invited him to stay a day or two with me, to which he then and there consented. After the first hours of our intercourse, I naturally felt a desire to learn to know my guest from the musical side. He at once favoured me with a performance of one of his then unpublished early works, a pianoforte sonata, the quality of which immediately revealed to me his great talent for composition. I also heard him in other things. I particularly remember his characteristic execution of the Rakóczy March, which he was fond of playing and gave with great effect.'

Asked by Wasielewsky whether he intended to visit Schumann, Johannes replied that he had come to no decision on the point, giving as the reason for his uncertainty, the failure of his effort to approach the master on his visit to Hamburg in 1850, and no persuasion of his new friend availed to bring him to a resolution. He did not quit the neighbourhood of Bonn immediately. Acting, no doubt, on Wasielewsky's advice, he retraced his steps a little in order to present himself at a great house in the vicinity—that of Commerzienrath Deichmann, a gentleman widely known, not only from his wealth and hospitality, but also by the warm interest taken by himself and his family in matters connected with literature and art. Distinguished visitors of many varieties of social rank, from royal personages downwards, were entertained by Frau Deichmann at her residence at Mehlem, opposite Königswinter. Celebrities on a visit to the Rhine country were generally to be met in her drawing-rooms in the course of their stay, many of the artists resident in the neighbourhood belonged to her intimate circle, and young musicians of promise were received by her with especial kindness. Needless to say that the arrival of Brahms as Joachim's intimate was hailed by her with lively satisfaction, and the familiar friends of the house, amongst whom were Franz Wüllner, the 'cellist Reimers, Wasielewsky himself, and other young musicians, hurried to Mehlem on receiving her hasty summons, prepared to extend to the new-comer's performances as much approbation or criticism as the event might justify.

'I found,' said Wüllner, in a memorial speech delivered after Brahms' death in the conservatoire of Cologne, 'a slender youth with long fair hair and a veritable St. John's head, from whose eyes shone energy and spirit. He played us the just-finished C major Sonata, the earlier completed F sharp minor Sonata, the E flat minor Scherzo, and several songs—amongst them the now familiar "O versenk dein Leid." We young musicians were immediately delighted and carried away by his compositions.'

As might have been expected, Brahms was not allowed to leave Mehlem immediately. He was persuaded to remain on as the Deichmanns' guest, to improve his acquaintance with their friends, and to further explore the Rhine and its beauties from their house, and it was during this visit that he found the opportunity, eagerly desired by him since his stay at Göttingen, to begin the real study of Schumann's compositions, till now but little known to him. What must have been his wonder and his joy as he found himself brought face to face in many of their pages with his favourite authors, Jean Paul and E. T. A. Hoffmann, and perceived in them as in a mirror the dreamings of his own soul! His surprise was probably but little less on making the discovery that Schumann's tone-poems, with all their fresh originality of method and their fascinating romance, were no mere erratic imaginings, but were firmly rooted in the great traditions of classical art. It is, perhaps, impossible to realize in its strength the revulsion of feeling that must have attended this first real spiritual meeting of 'Kreisler jun.' with the composer of the 'Kreisleriana'; but it is safe to say that it settled him in the determination to pay the visit to Schumann which Joachim had planned, and that it had its share in producing the temper of mind manifest in a letter written by Johannes in the third week of September, whilst he was on a few days' excursion with the boys of the Deichmann family, to the Amtsvogt Blume of Winsen:

'Dear Herr Amtsvogt,

'Permit me to offer most heartfelt wishes for your own and for Frau Blume's happiness on the joyful festival which you celebrate this month. The great esteem and love which I have for you may excuse me for troubling you from so great a distance, and perhaps at the wrong time, with these lines; I only know that you celebrate your golden wedding in the middle of this month. May God long preserve you in health, that I may often again, as hitherto, spend many happy hours at your house. In case you still feel some interest in my fate, you may, perhaps, be pleased to hear that I have passed a heavenly summer, such as I have never before known. After spending some gloriously inspiring weeks with Joachim at Göttingen, I have now been rambling about for five weeks according to heart's desire on the divine Rhine. I hope to be able to pass this winter at Hanover in order to be near Joachim, who is equally noble as man and artist. Begging you to remember me most warmly to your wife and daughter, I would also request you to express my heartiest greeting to your son with his wife and children, to dear Uncle Giesemann, and to all acquaintances. With best greeting, Your Joh. Brahms.

'In the Lahnthal, Sept. 1853.'[26]

Johannes' thoughts were engaged at this time on the Pianoforte Sonata in F minor, Op. 5, that was finally completed early in November. Who that has really tasted of the enchantment of that wonderful composition, great in spite of its immaturity, can doubt, on reading these lines, that the shining Rhine with its wooded heights, that the Rolandseck and the Nonnenwerth and the Drachenfels, and the deep blue sky and gorgeous starry nights, had their part, with the romance and wonder and gratitude and delight dwelling in his young heart, in the making of the work—not in the sense of supplying the composer with a programme for his inspiration; but as the sunbeam caught by the plant—as mingling with his nature and becoming a portion of the very elemental force that blossomed into the flower of his imagination?

Yet another important halt was made by Brahms at Cologne, where two more interesting names were added to the long list of acquaintances already formed by him during the short five months of his absence from home. He delivered a letter from the university music-director of Göttingen, Arnold Wehner, and a greeting from Wasielewsky, to Carl Reinecke, at the time professor of pianoforte and counterpoint in the conservatoire of the Rhenish capital, and Reinecke, after hearing some of his compositions, conducted him to Ferdinand Hiller's house, and subsequently accompanied him to the railway-station at Deutz. Here he took train for Düsseldorf,[27] full, no doubt, of fluttering expectation at the thought that he was about to seek an interview with the great master of his day; sole successor, since the death of Mendelssohn, to the mighty giants in whose traditions he had been steeped since early childhood by Cossel and Marxsen. And as we accompany the young musician in imagination on this last stage of his Rhine journey, we may fittingly pay the tribute of passing remembrance to these two men. To their talents and attainments and character he owed it that he was able to approach the supreme hour of entrance upon the manhood of his artistic life, shortly to dawn for him, with the certainty of equipment and devotion of purpose that had already stamped upon his genius the unmistakable pledge of mastership.

Several accounts, agreeing in essential points, have been given by Dr. Schübring and others of Brahms' first acquaintance with Schumann. After some preliminary conversation, the master desired his visitor to play something of his own. Scarcely was the first movement of the C major Sonata concluded, when he rose and left the room, and, returning with his wife, desired to hear it again. And as Johannes had played it three months previously to the amazement and delight of Joseph Joachim, so he now played it to the amazement and delight of Robert and Clara Schumann; and when he had finished one movement these two great artists bade him play another, and at the end of that, another, and still desired more, so that when, at length, the performance was at an end their hearts had gone out to him in affection, whilst in his the first link had already been forged of that chain of love by which he soon became bound to the one and the other till the end of both their lives.

Johannes lost no time in finding out his old friends Louise and Minna Japha. What wonderful adventures he had to relate to them, more than could be got through in one or even two interviews! There was the tour with Reményi, the performance at Court—how far away these things seemed!—then the visit to Weimar, the student-life at Göttingen, the journey along the Rhine. He had made the acquaintance of many young musicians, who had one and all welcomed his coming amongst them; he had been introduced to Hiller, become Joachim's closest friend, and now had, he thought, won Schumann's approval. 'He patted me on the shoulder,' Johannes told Louise, 'and said, "We understand each other." What did he mean?' Schumann's meaning was made very obvious to Joachim, who received the following note from the master in answer to the introduction and messages of greeting he had sent him by Brahms: 'This is he that should come.'

We may now turn to the delightful account given by Albert Dietrich,[28] one of Schumann's favourite disciples, who lived at Düsseldorf in daily intercourse with the great composer, of his first acquaintance with the new-comer:

'Soon after Brahms' arrival in September, Schumann came up to me before the commencement of one of the choral society practices with mysterious air and pleased smile. "Someone is come," said he, "of whom we shall one day hear all sorts of wonderful things; his name is Johannes Brahms." And he presented to me the interesting and unusual-looking young musician, who, seeming hardly more than a boy in his short gray summer coat, with his high voice and long fair hair, made a most agreeable impression. Especially fine were his energetic, characteristic mouth, and the earnest, deep gaze in which his gifted nature was clearly revealed.'

Here was another companion of the right sort for Brahms. He and Albert met daily from this time forward during his four weeks' stay at Düsseldorf, breakfasting together at an open-air restaurant in the Hofgarten, and sharing each other's confidences and pleasures. Albert's recognition of the powers of his new friend was no less thorough than Joachim's had been, and he sent enthusiastic reports of him to Kirchner, Naumann, and other young musicians of the Schumann set. Himself a persona grata in the various artistic circles of Düsseldorf, he was able to open to Johannes a new and inexhaustible source of interest. He introduced him to Schirmer, Lessing, Sohn, and other of the leading painters, at whose houses the young musician heard much talk about the sister arts which bore due fruit in a mind whose first need was, in Joachim's words, 'the harmonious cultivation of its various powers and the loving assimilation of all sorts of knowledge.' A charming young society was quite ready to welcome a new playfellow—and such a playfellow—into its midst, and Johannes was invited by Albert's friends to many parties and excursions. He managed to waive the objection to ladies' society which he had once found insuperable, and discovered that a festivity from which they were not rigorously excluded was not therefore a necessarily tiresome affair! Music in general and his music in particular, was much in demand at frequent evening gatherings, and his hearers knew not whether they were more delighted by his interpretations of the great masters or of his own compositions.

'Everyone was filled with astonishment,' says Dietrich, 'and the young people, especially, were dominated by the impression of his characteristic, powerful, and, when necessary, extraordinarily tender playing. He used to receive the enthusiastic praise accorded to his performances in a modest, deprecatory manner.

'His constitution was thoroughly sound; the most strenuous mental exertion scarcely fatigued him, but then he could go soundly to sleep at any hour of the day he pleased. With companions of his own standing he was lively, sometimes arrogant, dry, and full of pranks. When he came to see me, he used to rush up the stairs, thump on the door with both fists, and burst in without waiting for an answer.... Brahms never spoke of the works with which he was busy, or of his plans for future compositions, but he told me one day that he often recalled folk-songs when at work, and that then his melodies suggested themselves spontaneously.'

At the Schumanns' house Brahms learned chess and table-turning. He was soon made free of the master's library, and borrowed from it many a book to lend to the Japhas, who had to submit to a term of quarantine during Minna's recovery from an attack of measles. Johannes refused, for his own part, to acquiesce in the decree, and paid long daily visits to the sisters as soon as they were able to receive him. He often sat at Louise's side reading with her from an open volume placed between them, as he had once been used to do with Lischen in the Winsen fields. One day he brought some volumes of Hoffmann, to reread his favourite tales from Schumann's own copy. He carried the old memories and friends, and the simple home with its dear affections, faithfully in his heart throughout his excitements and successes, and throughout the weeks and months of his absence Johanna kept her promise to her boy. 'Look,' said Hannes one day, pulling a letter out of his pocket, and holding it open before Louise and Minna as he told them of the stipulation he had made, 'I get one like this every week; my old mother keeps her promise. Some of it is copied from the newspapers; what is she to do when she has no more news? she cannot write a philosophical treatise, but she always sends me three whole pages.'[29]

The passionate admiration quickly conceived by Brahms for the character and genius of Schumann, which was intensified by the recollection of his past misconception of the great composer's art, was returned in appropriate measure. Schumann became every day fonder of his young friend, and inclination united with conviction to strengthen the strong first impression he had received as to the extraordinary nature of his gifts. 'Facile princeps' is written in one of Schumann's pocket-books against the name Johannes Brahms, added, in the master's handwriting, to a list of his favourite young musicians. It has sometimes been suggested that the secret of the immediate fascination exercised over him by Brahms' compositions lay in his perception of their dissimilarity from his own. This, however, is only part of the truth. Though it be the case that Schumann's influence is not traceable either in the melody, harmony, or structure of Brahms' first published movements, it is equally the fact that the 'delicate youth with dreamy expression, who, without a tinge of affectation, spoke naturally in poetic phrases; who signed his manuscripts "Joh. Kreisler jun."; who exactly answered Joachim's description, "pure as the diamond, tender as snow"';[30] had elements in his many-sided nature of near kin to the characteristic spirit of Schumann's genius, which were by no means without influence on the individuality of his works, and especially the works of his first period. Schumann, astonished beyond measure by the mastery and originality of Brahms' technical attainment, was, in regard to his ideal qualities, certainly penetrated as much by the romance as by the independence, by the tenderness as by the power, by the subjective, as by the objective side, of his art, and the elder musician loved the younger as much because of the affinity as of the difference between them. Both contrasting sides of Brahms' nature are strikingly manifest in the very beautiful drawing of him which was executed for Schumann at this time by the painter de Laurens, a representation of which we are enabled, by the kindness of Frau Professor Böie, to whom the original now belongs, to place before the reader at the beginning of this volume.

Schumann had not been forgetful of the overtures to closer intimacy made to him by Joachim in the spring of the year, and composed two concert-pieces for violin and orchestra about this time, during the writing of which, the famous young violinist and his performances at the Düsseldorf festival were constantly present to his mind. In a letter to Hanover concerning these and other matters, written by him on October 8, the following passages occur:[31]

'I think if I were younger I could make some polymetres about the young eagle who has so suddenly and unexpectedly flown down from the Alps to Düsseldorf.[32] Or one might compare him to a splendid stream which, like Niagara, is at its finest when precipitating itself from the heights as a roaring waterfall, met on the shore by the fluttering of butterflies and by nightingales' voices....

'The young eagle seems to be content in the Lowlands; he has found an old guardian who is accustomed to watch such young flights, and who knows how to calm the wild wing-flapping without detriment to the soaring power.'[33]

On the same day he wrote to Dr. Härtel, head of the great Leipzig publishing firm:

'A young man has just presented himself here who has most deeply impressed us with his wonderful music. He will, I am convinced, make the greatest sensation in the musical world. I will take an opportunity of writing more in detail about him.'[34]

Five days later, writing again on business to Joachim, who was to take part on the 27th, in the first Düsseldorf subscription concert of the season, he adds:

'I have begun to put together my thoughts about the young eagle. I should wish to help him on his first flight through the world, but fear I have grown too fond of him to be able to describe the light and dark colours of his wings quite clearly. When I have finished the paper, I should like to show it to his comrade [Joachim], who knows him even better than I do.'

A postscript is subjoined: 'I have finished the essay and enclose it. Please return it as soon as possible.'

A second letter to Dr. Härtel enters into some of the promised detail:

'You will see before long, in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, an article signed with my name on young Johannes Brahms from Hamburg, which will give you further information about him. I will then write to you more fully about the compositions he intends to publish. They are pianoforte pieces and sonatas, a sonata for violin and piano, a trio, a quartet, and a number of songs—all full of genius. He is also an exceptional pianist.'

And now, whilst Schumann, with Albert and Johannes, was eagerly looking forward to Joachim's arrival for the concert of the 27th, Schumann proposed that they should prepare a surprise for him in the shape of a new sonata for pianoforte and violin, to be written by the three of them jointly. Thereupon Dietrich undertook the first movement, Schumann the intermezzo and finale, and Brahms the scherzo.

The popular young concertmeister had been passing his time pleasantly enough during the progress of some of the events just related; had attended a festival at Carlsruhe, where he met his friends of the Weimar circle in force—Liszt, Wagner, Cornelius, Bülow, and the others; and had played for Berlioz at a concert in Brunswick. He was to be Schumann's guest during the two days of his stay in Düsseldorf, and was greeted, on his arrival on the 26th, by the assembled party of his intimate friends. Amongst them was an attractive, youthful lady attired in rustic costume, who stepped forward from the rest and handed him a basket of flowers. Hidden beneath these was the manuscript sonata of welcome, on the title-page of which Schumann had written:

'F. A. E.[35]

'This Sonata has been written in expectation of the arrival of the honoured and beloved friend Joseph Joachim by Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms, Albert Dietrich.'

There was a small gathering of intimate friends in the evening at the Schumanns' house, when the sonata was performed and Joachim was required to guess the authorship of the several movements, a problem he had no difficulty in solving correctly. Schumann was in a bright mood. He was always at his happiest in his home circle with one and another of the young musicians who might be said to belong to it about him, and he had taken both Brahms and Joachim into his most special affection. 'One cannot be fond enough of him,' he whispered to Fräulein Japha as Joachim, accompanied by Frau Schumann, came to the concluding bars of the new fantasia for violin. Johannes was nervous and excited this evening. 'What shall I play?' he said, crossing over to Louise when Schumann summoned him to the piano. She suggested the scherzo, which the master had not yet heard, but eventually got a scolding for her pains. Johannes persuaded himself that his performance was a failure. 'Why did you give me that advice?' he asked reproachfully, returning to his faithful friend. 'Liszt did not care for the scherzo, and now Schumann does not like it!'

The concert of the following day was the last given in Düsseldorf under the direction of Schumann, who was about to start with his wife on a concert tour in Holland. He was at this time seriously contemplating a permanent removal to Vienna, whence he had received overtures that were attractive to himself and Frau Schumann. Whether he would have made up his mind to the step cannot be determined. The decision was, as we know, taken out of his hands by one of the tragedies of fate.