These two selections by Eduard Hanslick (1825–1904) were published together in At the End of the Century (1899), the fifth installment of the illustrious critic’s decades-long project to document the unfolding “living history” of his contemporary musical culture.1 Collectively, they serve as a richly detailed, deeply personal obituary for the recently departed artist. Rather than attempting to assess the impressions left by Brahms’s music upon the world of his time, “The Last Days,” which Hanslick dated 3 April 1897 (the day of the composer’s death), recounts Brahms’s final summer, spent among friends in Ischl, his convalescence, and the last concerts he attended in Vienna. It features Hanslick’s recollections of discussions he had with Brahms, quotations from Brahms’s letters to him, and excerpts from a letter sent to Hanslick by Brahms’s doctor in Karlsbad. The second essay, “Memories and Letters,” elaborates on the form of “Last Days, “providing substantial excerpts from Brahms’s correspondence with the critic; a number of letters are cited in full. Spanning more than three decades, from 1863 to 1896, these letters consider, among other topics, Brahms’s distaste for written correspondence and his ideas about the value of composers’ letters and sketches for music-historical study; his commitment to music pedagogy; his responses to various events in contemporary musical life (including the publication of Hanslick’s 1854 aesthetic treatise, On the Musically Beautiful); his political views; and his remembrance of his departed friends, Theodor Billroth and Clara and Robert Schumann.
As discussed elsewhere in this volume, Hanslick and Brahms became acquainted around the time of Brahms’s first concert in Vienna, held at the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde on November 29, 1862.2 A close friendship soon developed, with Hanslick becoming a member of Brahms’s innermost circle and regularly accompanying him to concerts, on holidays, and to intimate gatherings of friends, fellow musicians, and loved ones. The selections translated below of Hanslick’s Am Ende des Jahrhunderts (Berlin, 1899) are from pages 365–409. All endnotes are editorial and all ellipses are given as in the original.
Alas, we have lost him, too, the true, great master and loyal friend! He, who until recently was able to vaunt the fact that he had never been sick in his entire life, not even for a single day! That had continued to be the case until the end of the summer, when he suddenly became sick without realizing it himself. In Ischl, some friends pointed out to him that his face had acquired a sickly yellow hue. With the explanation that he never looked at himself in the mirror, he cut the conversation short, since it irritated him. Brahms, the sixty-four-year-old, never wanted to hear about sickness, care, or precaution. He felt that his enviable constitution made him immune. About five years ago, when he told me, with naïve satisfaction, that he had earned a nice fortune, which Simrock was managing for him in Berlin, I remarked: “You have written a will, right?”—“A will?” he cried, completely astonished, “I am still fresh and healthy!”—“Exactly,” I explained. “If you put it off until you are really old and sick, then you will either never get to it, or you will do something stupid.” Brahms was silent and seemed to be wrestling with the thought as if it were totally foreign to his world. A few days later, he brought a sealed will to me for safekeeping. I held on to it for the time being, until Simrock arrived in Vienna to take the document from me at my request. As the youngest of the three of us, he would most likely outlive us.
In Ischl, Brahms finally took his friends’ advice to get medical attention. The doctors explained his jaundice as the symptom of the early stages of liver disease and sent Brahms to Karlsbad. With great reluctance he obeyed this advice, though his love of Ischl was as great as his dislike of any “serious health resort.” At the end of August 1896, he arrived in Karlsbad. I had contacted two musical friends there (Professor Emil Seling and Music Director Janetschek) and asked them to meet Brahms at the train station and to help him find lodging and anything else he needed. When they helped him get off the train, both were so horrified by his terrible appearance, as they later wrote to me, that it was hard for them to keep him from noticing their reaction. After Brahms had overcome the impression of the unfamiliar, he began to like Karlsbad more than he had anticipated. “How sorry I am,” he wrote to me in early September, “that I won’t be able to be there on the eleventh, and there is not much more that I need to say to you.* I wanted to write a nice, conversational letter to you, but this morning I was deluged with so many taxing letters that I really cannot begin. However, I am very thankful for this jaundice, since it finally brought me to illustrious Karlsbad. I’ve been greeted by more glorious days here than we had all summer. Additionally, I have an absolutely charming apartment (“The City of Brussels”) in the house of the most gracious people, which I am really enjoying. Hoping that you are satisfied with these cursory greetings, your J. Br.”
Eduard Hanslick
The letter from Brahms’s excellent physician in Karlsbad, Dr. Grünberger, on September 24, was not so reassuring. He wrote: “After repeated close examinations and three weeks of continuous observation of the patient, my conclusion is that there is a critical swelling of the liver, with complete blockage of the bile ducts, which has resulted in jaundice, digestive problems, etc. Nevertheless, I could not directly establish that the liver was regenerating…. I cannot help but portray the condition as a really serious one.” No doubt, the excellent physicians whom Brahms consulted after his return here were certain about his incurable sickness, even if they were not willing to call it by its bleak name. Most important, Brahms himself could not be allowed to suspect it. I witnessed his lively reaction to psychological impressions when I visited him one morning and found his voice to be noticeably more powerful and his movement much more unrestricted than the day before. “Yes,” he said in a more satisfied tone than I had heard from him in some time, “I am really reassured. A group of doctors was just here, and after very close examination they found nothing dangerous in me!” In fact, in the first two to three months after his six-week regimen at Karlsbad, his condition did not seem to worsen; however, it also did not improve. Brahms went on walks quite often, and his swaying gait and bent posture were apparent. He also became very testy, especially tempestuous, and disquieted whenever someone asked about his state of health or claimed that he looked better. If one was brave enough to ask him, he typically answered: “Every day a little bit worse.” That was also objectively correct. A slow but constant worsening of his state became clearly noticeable. The yellow, almost orange-colored tint kept getting darker and gave his once lovely blue eyes an uncanny expression. His once powerful, heavyset body shrank down to a horrifying gauntness. Long white hair hung down over his wrinkled, haggard, distressed face. Nevertheless, four weeks before his death he was still attending lunch at friends’ houses, and sometimes he even went to the Burgtheater, which he attended as eagerly as he avoided the opera. “I urgently ask you,” he wrote to me at that time, “please spare Bösendorfer and Reinecke and use the enclosed ticket to go see Anzengruber’s G’wissenswurm! It is an excellent piece and will please you greatly—it will be truly refreshing. But you probably know that it is a sad piece.” The last opera performance that Brahms attended was Heimchen by Goldmark, whom he personally loved and admired.3 In the theater and at the dinner table, Brahms nodded off more frequently than ever. He was already quite weak when Strauss’s new operetta The Goddess of Reason came out; still, he repeatedly asked me to reserve a seat for him in my box. He had the warmest regard for Johann Strauss, and he had really enjoyed his last piece, Waldmeister. On a fan owned by Mrs. Adele Strauss, under the opening measures of The Blue Danube, he wrote, “J. Brahms, who would have liked to have composed this.” On March 13 he appeared punctually at the Theater an der Wien for the premiere of The Goddess of Reason, but he felt too unwell to stay until the end. After the second act, he left the theater, protesting, as usual, against offers to get a carriage for him or to accompany him home, which seemed prudent. By means of a cunning pretense, we were able to convince him to be accompanied by my brother-in-law. It was the last time Brahms entered a theater. He had already stopped going to concerts. He would have liked to have gone to Marcella Sembrich’s concert, and he paid her a personal visit to excuse himself from attending.4
The last concert that Brahms attended was the Philharmonic on March 7, 1897. The memory of this must be deeply etched in the minds of everyone who was there. It began with Brahms’s Fourth Symphony in E Minor. Immediately after the first movement there was a round of applause so vigorous that Brahms eventually had to emerge from the back of the director’s box and bow in gratitude. This ovation was repeated after each of the four movements, and at the finale, it seemed as if it would never end. A shudder of awe and painful sympathy ran through the entire audience; clearly, many had the inkling that this was their last opportunity to greet the pained figure of the beloved, sick master. This extraordinary homage was all the more powerful, since his E-Minor Symphony had never been popular. His friends, who were able to measure this glowing success against the cold reception of the work in 1886, were inexpressibly happy for Brahms about this triumph. But inner joy could not really set in; the pain of worry and sympathy could not be driven away by music.
Brahms’s condition went downhill from there. His feet no longer obeyed him, so his friends took him for carriage rides in the Prater.5 Even this rare pleasure lasted only for a short time. Eight days ago, Brahms had to be brought to bed. He bristled against this at the time, but never left his bed after that. He was so powerless in those final days that he seemed numb even while he was awake. With indescribably touching care, his friends Victor von Miller-Aichholz, Arthur Faber, Dr. Fellinger, and their wives kept Brahms from feeling abandoned. It seems that Brahms was not conscious of the hopelessness and danger of his condition; his friends and doctors lovingly nurtured this illusion. Even the newspapers, through which he occasionally thumbed, were so courteous as to withhold reports about his serious illness.
Brahms’s last compositions (op. 121) were the Four Serious Songs, which were set to words from the Bible. They are permeated with a bitter lament about the ephemeral nature of human beings and the dread of death. That winter, when they were sung for the first time, they seemed to us to be a bad omen, and there is no doubt that music history will regard them as a remarkable foreshadowing of Brahms’s death. Yet, when Brahms composed the songs, he was still in fair health, and even months later he was still completely untouched by thoughts of death. Still, the Serious Songs remained his last—a prelude to his death.
When we jovially celebrated Brahms’s sixth-third birthday with our circle of friends in May, no one had any inkling that it was to be his last. We will no longer celebrate the seventh of May.
Friends and admirers of our dear master are constantly importuning me not to withhold a collection of his letters from the general public and from the loving interest of those who stood closer to him. Often the collection of Billroth letters is mentioned, whose incalculable significance, not only for his friends, has been demonstrated by the extraordinary success of a third edition.6 The letters from Billroth to Brahms that are published in this selection could not but increase the demand for the answers of the latter. Unfortunately, the two sides are unequal. United in deeply felt friendship and mutual admiration, the two men were fundamentally different in many things, and specifically in their correspondence. For Billroth’s open, communicative spirit, letter-writing was a need; for Brahms it was a burden. When Billroth came home late at night after a productive or socially active day, he lit his lamp and wrote until midnight—confiding, often quite voluminous letters about the impressions that the concert or play he had just seen, the latest book or the newest acquaintance had made on him. In this way he seemed to enjoy his pleasure all over again, and as with his joys, so also with his trials, which he shared willingly with us.
Not so Brahms. Often, when I entered his apartment to find him at his desk, he would point with a heavy sigh or an ill-tempered curse to a stack of letters: “I am supposed to answer all that!” On occasion the accursed pile had grown to alarming proportions: business letters from publishers, concert directors, festival committees, interspersed with invitations from Viennese friends and acquaintances, tributes and autograph requests from out-of-towners. Brahms dealt with all of this as curtly as possible; he had attained virtuosity in the art of the extremely brief response. Where it was not a complete breach of etiquette, he used postcards, whose format considerately cut off any possibility of more extensive description. He wrote very fast and always used goose quills, in order not to be held up in his rush by a hard steel nib. The place and date are lacking on almost all of his letters; for a signature he made do with the abbreviation J. Br. His distaste for signing his full name grew stronger, along with his worry that his letters might be snapped up and sold by autograph collectors.
Brahms had had an unfortunate experience. In a Berlin auction catalogue, among other autographs that were offered for sale, stood a “detailed letter from Johannes Brahms to his father.” Horrified to see his most intimate family relationships and childish outpourings exposed to the curiosity of strangers, he wrote immediately to the bookseller in question; but a friend had gotten there before him, had already acquired the letter for Brahms and sent it to him. After that, Brahms was even more cautious and taciturn in his letters. He avoided confidences concerning his personal relationships, especially his youth, even in oral, and all the more in written communications. Judgments on modern musical trends or living composers—in a word, those things that would be of greatest interest to us—are only very rarely found in his letters, and then only in bare outlines. That with every passing year he was sought after more annoyingly by autograph hunters can be imagined. Brahms took care of this piece of business alla breve, too: five lines for notes tossed off unevenly, a theme of two or at most three bars, and his signature. Period.
Once, however, there was a case of an autograph that went far beyond this easy model, a formal letter that was intended for publication. The music writer La Mara (Fräulein Marie Lipsius in Leipzig), to whom we are indebted for numerous interesting publications, asked Brahms for his permission to reprint in a volume of musicians’ letters several missives of his that had found their way into her hands. The courteous request of this lady, with whom he was personally acquainted, seemed to upset him greatly, as the following letter to me of May 1885 shows:
Dearest friend! The enclosed two letters will make the situation clear to you. Impractical as always, I recently did not wait for your card, but gave Dr. Fellinger, who was visiting me, a letter addressed to you and the unsealed one addressed to Lipsius—with my instructions to mail the latter in case he did not have a chance to show it to you in Vienna. But Mrs. Fellinger copied the letter. Thus I can send it to you after the fact and ask you for a favor. Read it and tell me whether it is foolishness or contains any of the same! I consider myself capable of all kinds of things in this regard—but I would be happy to hold my tongue! I can very well write another one in retrospect, or make changes in this one: So, I ask for your opinion!
Give Simrock my best regards, and [tell him] I am writing to him either yesterday or tomorrow! But the devil take it, if one is plagued like this with letters from and to Miss Lipsius, then the already scant desire to write letters is entirely for the birds.
So, you, too, forgive the peevish letter—but this business annoys me. My heartfelt greetings; live as well, contentedly, and happily as you deserve.
Cordially, your J. Brahms.
For further explication I permit myself to append Brahms’s letter to Fräulein Lipsius, from the Musikerbriefe which she later published:7
Vienna, 27 May 1885
Dear Fräulein!
Indeed I have the temerity to ask you to leave the letters in question unpublished. I know and admit that I never write otherwise than reluctantly, hurriedly, and carelessly, but I am ashamed when an example like yours comes to my attention. It takes a kind of courage to write to an unknown, educated, well-intentioned man as carelessly as I did in this case. But even admitting that such letters get printed, to give one’s express approval to that—that would be something else than courage! If you will permit me to state expressly here that no one can do me less of a favor than to print letters of mine—nevertheless I will be glad to make an exception for this one. You can include it in your book all the more easily, since your readers will learn from it that it is I, rather than you, who have taken care not to draw from the intended inclusion of my letters any conclusion as to the content and value of the remainder of your book.
There are, as I know not only from Schiller and Goethe but also from the most enjoyable personal experience, plenty of people who write letters gladly and well. But then there are also people like me, and their letters, if the writer otherwise deserves it, should be read and interpreted with indulgence and great care. For example, it pleases me to save a letter from Beethoven as a memento; but I can only be horrified when I imagine all the things such a letter may be taken to mean and explain!
I feel similarly about the posthumous works of a musician. How eagerly I have always tracked down such traces, studied and copied them many times. For example, how dear to me, in the cases of Haydn and Franz Schubert, were these countless, superfluous proofs of their diligence and genius. I have always wished that such valuable and instructive treasures would be copied for larger libraries, so that they would be available for the person who is seriously interested in them. I do not wish to elaborate on the very different sentiments with which I see these beloved treasures in print—or myself work to ensure that this is done, at least, in an orderly fashion! It is unbelievable how, in this case, things get misunderstood and misinterpreted—and whether such publication is necessary, good, or superfluous and even harmful, I don’t know!
Taking into account the risk that you will find the beginning of this epistle to be vain hypocrisy, I remain your respectful, devoted
J. Brahms.
How characteristic, how substantive this letter is in all its brevity. It proves that Brahms lacked only the desire, not the talent for writing. Once he saw himself compelled, in place of his precious postcard, to get out a clean sheet of stationery and exercise some care in style and expression, he could write masterfully—clearly, concisely, not at a loss for any sharply descriptive term. Since for him thoughts were there in order to be kept silent or to be expressed in musical tones, he mistrusted his ability to express them in firm literary form. And yet he was compelled to express his written thanks, now for a high honor, now for the election to an academy—for Brahms nothing could be more unpleasant! In such cases it was his custom to come grumbling to me with his draft. Not only did I not want to alter a word, but I was forced to admire many a sentence for its precise expression and sculpted form. Brahms always instinctively found the right medium between excessively humble modesty and proud self-confidence. Once he wanted to sweeten the onerous task by at least making a joke. He walked in with an entirely unaccustomed, mysteriously pleased expression and whispered that he had written something quite new and wanted to show it to me—not a soul had seen it yet. After he had kept me dangling for some time in the most delighted anticipation, he cautiously pulled out his draft of an acknowledgment letter (if I am not mistaken, for the Order of Maximilian) and gloated over my disappointment.
It is regrettable that Brahms was only very rarely and reluctantly induced to respond by letter to musical questions. His profound musicological and technical knowledge, combined with such clear, sharp judgment, could have provided a treasure trove of information, whether he was speaking about his own projects and compositions or those of others. Brahms was capable, in private conversation, of commenting on musical matters with such fluidity and liveliness, especially if they were of current interest—matters of the Musikverein, programs of our larger concerts, etc. With pen in hand he became monosyllabic. As for speaking about his own compositions or plans, his own reticence held him back all his life. Just as sensitive was the response of his modesty to praise from others. His unwillingness to pass on flattering letters that had been sent to him was very difficult to overcome. The request by the widow of Hans von Bülow that Brahms entrust to her, for purposes of publication, several letters of her husband’s caused Brahms great uneasiness, for Bülow’s letters overflowed with enthusiasm and devotion. Nevertheless, Brahms could not give Mrs. Marie von Bülow a negative answer. So he sought out from among his large correspondence with Bülow five or six insignificant notes, in which nothing was discussed but concert programs, apartment furnishings, and other practical matters, and brought them to me. I declared that it was an injustice to Bülow to attempt to represent this brilliant virtuoso of letter-writing, as well, in a published collection, by means of such trivial and uninteresting scraps. Brahms thanked me sincerely for my plainspoken veto and decided, with a heavy heart, to deliver more extensive and substantive letters of Bülow’s to his widow.
On the occasion of his adaptation of German folk songs, Brahms sent a number of letters with a significant musical content to Professor [Philipp] Spitta in Berlin. Another extensive and content-rich letter was occasioned by youthful compositions of Beethoven’s, with which he had become acquainted through me—the Cantata on the Death of Emperor Joseph II and the Cantata on the Accession of Emperor Leopold II.8 Both works had never been printed and were thought to be lost. A musically educated businessman, Herr Friedman, had purchased the two scores, copied in a clear hand, from a secondhand dealer in Leipzig and sent them to me to examine. I was just about to leave for Karlsbad and sent the cantatas, after leafing through them hurriedly, to Brahms, who wrote me the following letter about them in May 1884:
Dear friend! You departed and left me a treasure, without having looked at it yourself. I must write you a few words of thanks on the subject so that you will have an idea what the treasure signifies. For it is quite beyond doubt that, with this, the two cantatas have been found, which Beethoven wrote in Bonn on the death of Joseph II and the accession to the throne of Leopold II. In other words, two important works for chorus and orchestra from a time to which, until now, we could not ascribe any compositions of significance. If it were not for the historical dates (1790), we would certainly guess at a later period—but only because we would know nothing of this earlier time! But even if there were no name on the title, one could guess no other author—it is all Beethoven through and through! There is the beautiful and noble pathos, the grandeur of the feelings and fantasy, the power, yes even violence of expression. And then there is the voice-leading, declamation, and, in these last two areas, all the peculiarities that we can observe and ponder in his later works.
First, I am naturally interested in the cantata on Joseph II’s death. On this subject there can be no “occasional music”! If we were to celebrate today that unforgotten man, who is still not replaced, we would do so as warmly as Beethoven and everyone else did at that time. And for Beethoven it is not occasional music, either, when one considers that the artist never stops developing artistically, nor struggling, and that one is probably more likely to observe this in a younger artist than in a master. The first lament is already entirely [Beethoven] Himself. You would not doubt it at any note or at any word. A recitative follows, extremely lively: “Ein Ungeheuer, sein Name Fanatismus, stieg aus den Tiefen der Hölle …” [A monster, his name fanaticism, climbed out of the depths of hell…]. (In an aria he is trodden to death by Joseph.) I cannot help myself: At this point it is a particular pleasure for me to think back to that time and—as the strong words indicate—to the way the whole world realized what it had lost in Joseph. But the young Beethoven also knew what great things he had to say, and he said them loudly, as is appropriate, in a powerful prelude. And now, to the words “Da stiegen die Menschen ans Licht” [Then mankind ascended toward the light], comes the magnificent F-major movement from the finale of Fidelio.9 There, as here, the touching, beautiful melody is given to the oboe. (Admittedly, it doesn’t agree with the vocal part, or does so only with great difficulty.) We have many examples of the way our master used his ideas a second time in a different place. Here I find it especially pleasing. How deeply Beethoven must have felt the melody in the cantata (in other words, the meaning of the words)—as deeply and beautifully as he did later when he sang the love of a woman—and of liberation—to its end. After more recitative in arias, a repeat of the first chorus closes the work; but I don’t want to describe it further; nor, in any case, the second cantata. For here the music itself is more interesting than any particulars concerning Beethoven.
But now, dear friend, in my thoughts I already hear you asking when the cantatas will be performed, and when they will be printed?* And here my joy is at an end. Printing has become so much the fashion, especially the printing of things that have no claim to it. You know my long-standing, fond wish that the so-called complete works of our masters—even in the case of their secondary, but certainly in the case of their most important works—should not be printed all too completely, but—and here really comprehensively, should rather be incorporated in good copies into the larger libraries. You know how eagerly I have sought, at all times, to get to know their unpublished works. However, to possess everything of many a beloved master in print is more than I wish for. I cannot find it right and proper for amateurs and young artists to be seduced into filling their rooms and their brains with all the “complete works,” and thus confusing their judgment.
The honor of a complete edition has not yet fallen to our Haydn.10 And a really complete edition of his works would be as impossible as it would be impractical; but perhaps—and how desirable, in comparison—a selection copied from among them, and this in multiple copies, in our public libraries. How little, in comparison, is done regarding new editions of various works whose study and transmission would be desirable. So, for example, older vocal music of all sorts. You will object that they are not needed, either—but they should be and they will be more and more, without a doubt. Here sacrifices would be quite in order and would certainly be worthwhile in every respect.
But these are vast themes, and I won’t fantasize more variations on them for you; they develop all too exclusively from a minor key, and I know very well that the same are quite possible and necessary in major.
But come soon and share the very special feeling and pleasure of being the only person in the world besides myself to know these deeds of a hero.
| Cordially your | Johannes Brahms. |
Brahms, whose works were composed in large part (and probably the most beautiful part) in Austria, by no means limited himself to his own musical creation. He also developed a varied practical activity that richly benefited the arts in Austria. An almost negligibly tiny part in all this was played by instruction. This is the activity, even if it is only practiced to a modest extent, that disturbs the musician most sensitively in the sphere of his own musical thought, and therefore it seems to be qualitatively the most unwelcome. As far as I know, the well-regarded concert singer and voice teacher Frau Neuda-Bernstein is the only talent in Vienna who can boast of having enjoyed piano lessons with Brahms.11 In his capacity as a member of the board of directors of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, which enjoyed an inestimable advantage as a result of having such a great authority in its midst, Brahms worked zealously for the promotion of musical education in its broadest extent. Brahms was able to have a strong influence on the programs of the concerts of the society, and also on the naming of professors at the conservatory, as well as artistic directors. He occupied a position as conductor in Vienna on two occasions, each time only for a short period: with the Singakademie (1863) and the concerts of the Gesellschaft (1872–74).
Another musical office that Brahms occupied, not in the public eye, but influentially and with quiet seriousness, was his membership of more than twenty years on the Commission for the Conferring of Artists’ Scholarships.12 In 1863, the Ministry of Education had given life to this new institution, whose activity consisted in the awarding of annual scholarships to deserving and talented artists who had already emerged as creators of independent works. As a result of this measure, a separate, permanent budget was created for the first time, dedicated by the state to the education and support of individual artists. Three members of the commission were named in each of the three sections (poetry, visual arts, music), and together they evaluated and judged the requests that had been submitted. The section on music was entrusted to me, and thirty-four years later it still rests in my hands. At first, Esser and Herbeck were my colleagues; later Brahms took Esser’s place, and Goldmark Herbeck’s.13 Unfortunately, Goldmark, on account of his extended stay in Gmunden, was rarely in a position to participate in the evaluation of the compositions that had been submitted. Therefore, the business at hand was almost always dispatched only by Brahms and myself. In general, I would go over the submissions, which were usually very numerous, alone, discard whatever was not in accordance with the guidelines or was unquestionably bad, and then consult with Brahms about the rest. If there were only a few submissions that invited more serious consideration, I would make myself comfortable on the sofa with a cigar and read the pieces that had been sent in. In this I had frequent occasion to admire Brahms’s rapid comprehension and the accuracy of his judgments. When there was a larger quantity of compositions that demanded more exact evaluation and mutual consideration, then I would send them, with my recommendation, to Brahms, from whom I would receive the whole, often very weighty package back complete with his written comments. These were generally kept very short—for his suggestions almost always corresponded to mine—but were usually peppered with satirical remarks about this or that talentless supplicant.
Thus Brahms was untiring in his efforts to serve his adoptive fatherland Austria with word and deed in affairs of music pedagogy. In the summer of 1889, when Brahms received the Austrian Order of Leopold at the request of the Minister of Education Dr. von Gautsch, there was a general feeling of happiness and gratification. When I wrote to congratulate Brahms (with a certain amount of feigned surprise) on receiving this distinction, I received the following answer from him:
Ischl, 1889
Dear friend! A thousand thanks for news of you, which I had been looking forward to quite eagerly. I hope your plans remain as they are, or become even more favorable once you get to Ischl.
What surprised and astonished me was your astonishment and surprise about my medal and the fact that the people “in high places had such a clever idea.” The latter thought had never crossed my mind at all, when I wondered to whom I might actually owe the medal. There are, after all, very complicated machines at work in the state; this time I believed you, above all, to be in complicity and one of the instigators. Otherwise I am looking about myself in a futile effort to figure out who might have suggested and promoted it. In general, there is more to it than mere artistic attainment, and as far as all this “more” is concerned—whatever name it may go by—I have precious little to show for myself.
This time, for the first time, I was at least well behaved afterward, as I answered the many telegrams, letters, and cards! I had such a friendly impression that the Austrians as such were happy about it that I necessarily had to thank them politely. I would like to ask you, in all earnestness, to tell me how I should comport myself toward those “high places.” May I at least be permitted to wait until after the official notification? Should I write to the Ministry of Education, or to His Majesty directly? Or should I request an audience?
You will find me here until—I must finally leave for the music festival in Hamburg! I must, for my Honorary Citizen adventure was entirely too lovely and agreeable, with everything that came along with it.14 However, I am alarmed to see my telegram to the mayor in print! It sounds altogether foolish, “the greatest beauty, which can only come from human beings”—as if apart from that I had been thinking of eternal salvation! But our dear Lord did not occur to me at all in that connection, I was only thinking in passing about the so-called gods and the fact that when a pretty melody occurs to me, it is far preferable in my mind than an Order of Leopold, and if they should grant me a successful symphony, it is dearer to me than all honorary citizenships. With cordial greetings; come soon!
Before he became a regular summer guest at Ischl, Brahms’s custom had been to spend his summer vacation alternately in Baden-Baden, Wiesbaden, Thun (in Switzerland), and a few times in Pörtschach and Mürzzuschlag. From all these places I received greetings from him; letters or notes, which without claim to any significant content still contained one or the other interesting piece of personal information, striking expression, or lovable trait. I have the sense, and submit myself willingly to it, that after any great loss our hearts hold fast to even the most modest tokens of memory. In the case of the following letters from the ’60s and ’70s, I was thinking first of Brahms’s special friends and admirers. But where didn’t he have those!
The first letter refers to Brahms’s selection as director of the Vienna Singakademie in the year 1863. The invitation reached him in Hamburg and found him not entirely decided to accept it. “It is,” he wrote to the head of the association, “a particular kind of decision that entails giving up one’s freedom for the first time. However, whatever comes from Vienna sounds twice as beautiful to a musician, and whatever calls him there, tempts twice as strongly.”
He wrote to me in the summer of 1863 on that subject:
My dear friend! You will be surprised that the most delighted and grateful reply does not arrive more rapidly than your own and other friendly letters reach me. But I feel like someone who is praised undeservedly and would prefer to hide for a while. I, who after receiving the telegraphed dispatch (from F., who always has to have the upbeat!) firmly desired to be satisfied to have received such an honorific offer and not to tempt the gods further. But now I shall accept it all the more certainly, and come. And since for my part there is no remaining question except whether I have the courage to say “yes,” why, it shall come to pass. If I had declined, my reasons would only have seemed strange to the Academy and to you Viennese in general. Here I must also send you my most sincere thanks for your book On the Musically Beautiful, to which I owe many hours of enjoyment, of clarification, indeed of literal relief.15 Every page invites one to build further on what has been said, and since in doing so, as you have said, the motives are the main thing, one always owes you double the pleasure. But for the person who understands his art in this manner, there are things to be done everywhere in our art and science, and I will wish we might soon be blessed with such excellent instruction on other subjects. For today, with cordial greetings and thanks, your
Joh. Br.
The following letter from August 1866 refers to the Waltzes for Four Hands, op. 39, which were dedicated to me.
Just now, writing the title of the four-hand waltzes, which are to appear shortly, your name occurred to me quite of its own volition. I don’t know, I was thinking of Vienna, of the pretty girls with whom you play four-hands, of you yourself, the lover of all that, the good friend and whatnot. In short, I feel the necessity of dedicating it to you. If it is agreeable to you that it should remain thus, then I thank you most sincerely; but if for some reason you do not wish it, then express yourself on the subject and the printer will receive the counter-command. It consists of two volumes of innocent little waltzes in Schubertian form. If you don’t want them and would rather see your name on a proper piece with four movements, “your wish is my command.” In the next few days I am leaving for Switzerland. Shall I complain to you about the fact that I was not in Vienna last winter? My arrival next year can express it better. In considerable haste and old friendship your
Joh. Br.
Hermann Goetz, the composer of the Taming of the Shrew, had left behind at his death a great opera, Francesca di [sic] Rimini, which was performed for the first time on September 30, 1887, in Mannheim, as completed by Ernst Franck. Concerning the quite widespread belief that Brahms had a hand in this completion, the latter wrote me from Baden-Baden in October 1877:
Dearest friend! In the N. Fr. Presse [Neue freie Presse] it says that I completed the Francesca di Rimini. This is not true; Franck orchestrated the overture and the third act alone, following the sketches; I merely looked his work over and was enormously pleased at its lovely seriousness and diligence, which I would not have thought him capable of. On the occasion of the Taming of the Shrew, by the way, he demonstrated the same loving devotion, then as now with the best of results. He can really not be praised enough for what he has done for Goetz (his idol), and if you had known that excellent man and most estimable artist, you would have had the most intense joy over little Franck, to whom alone Goetz owes a peaceful death and his Francesca owes her life.16
But the notice to which you refer is found in many papers; I, however, do not like to write. Wouldn’t you like to devote a couple of words to this? I can only excuse the fact that I let it go for so long because if the opposite were the case I would most assuredly remain silent…. Actually, I had written so small because I wanted to chat with you quite unhurriedly, but since then the pen has lain idle for hours. I have been spoiled for letter-writing. I hope to enjoy a few fine fall days here in Liechtenthal (near Baden-Baden). But it won’t last long and then the Karlsgasse and the others will reclaim me. Dessoff comes by often and is very pleased—even when he sees new notes of mine. But now transmit my best greetings to your own and other households! Until our next happy reunion!
A letter from Pörtschach from September 1878 refers to the Hamburg Music Festival with which the anniversary of the Philharmonische Gesellschaft in that city was to be celebrated.17 I had received an invitation to it, along with the urgent request to give the committee word as to whether Brahms, from whom no answer had been received, could definitely be expected in Hamburg. Brahms responded to my inquiry as follows:
Pörtschach am See, September 1878
You have preached the doctrine of deportment to me in public once before; I do not wish that it should happen again through no fault of my own, and therefore I am telling you that it is the fault of the Hamburgers if I do not appear at their festival. I have no occasion to display good breeding and gratitude; on the contrary, a certain amount of incivility would be appropriate, if I had the time and inclination to ruin my mood with it. But now I won’t spoil yours, either, by detailed descriptions and will therefore say only that despite an inquiry there has been no mention of any honorarium or other remuneration. This is a highly questionable valuation of me, poor composer, and I lose every right, for example, to sit next to your wife at the feast table! So I beg this time for consideration toward my already damaged reputation as a well-bred fellow. In the matter of the symphony I ask for no special consideration, but I fear that if the conducting is not entrusted to Joachim, as I wish, there will be a miserable performance. Now, the dinners in Hamburg are good, the symphony has a propitious length—you can dream yourself back to Vienna while all this is going on! I am thinking of going to Vienna quite soon, but I have again been excellently pleased in Pörtschach. With cordial greetings for you and your wife.
Your J. Br.
In spite of this very dubious reply, Brahms came to the festival after all, and it went off brilliantly and enjoyably. Clara Schumann, at that time already sixty years old, played Mozart’s Concerto in D Minor with perfect mastery and youthful fire. The following evening [September 28] brought Brahms’s Second Symphony, which he directed himself after a welcome that included an orchestral flourish and a laurel wreath. Joachim played the first violin. After the symphony, the ladies from the chorus and the first few rows of seats in the audience threw Brahms their bouquets. He stood there, as it says in his lullaby, “covered with roses, trimmed with carnations.”
During the outing to Blankenese many interesting and famous artists found themselves on the deck of the steamer in animated conversation: Brahms, Ferdinand Hiller, Niels Gade, Friedrich von Flotow, Theodor Kirchner, J. [recte: Karl] Reinthaler, and others.
In May 1880 I had received the newest volume of songs (op. 84) in Karlsbad and written to him, quite captivated by the “Vergebliches Ständchen” (no. 4). He responded from Ischl:
I am full of pleasure as I thank you for your letter, for it was really a very special one for me, and I am in an extremely good humor as a result of the good-humored correspondence! In my position, one can’t write a great N.B. after something just because one thinks one is in a position to do so, but it is the most pleasant form of flattery when someone else does.
And this time you have hit my bull’s-eye! For this one song I would give up all the others and the W-album in the bargain.18 But from you the confirmation is of immensely serious value to me! I have known for a long time that your excellent sniffer doesn’t miss any really excellent morsel (this is more annoying when we are eating oysters).
With dedications I am in a bad spot. I owe so many, more or less, that I hesitate to begin paying them back. I must think up a special method of proceeding, perhaps by publishing a thematic catalogue in which a fancy name appears next to every piece?! Talk that over with Simrock some time.—
It would be very nice if you would come to Ischl; it is really splendid here and taking walks extremely pleasurable.
Whether I am actually going to Bayreuth? Bülow, who is going there in August with his bride, is also trying to seduce me, or rather asks me whether I would like to join them.* If you should happen to be about to throw away a Bayreuth brochure in a fit of annoyance, then put a postal wrapper around it instead and send it here; for us such things are exotic and interesting.
Please give my best regards to Simrock, Dvorák, and even better ones to your singer. And you yourself are warmly thanked, again, for your friendly words.
In Karlsbad I had thanked Brahms cordially for the third and fourth volumes of his Hungarian Dances for four hands, which he has played there so often with my wife. In these two volumes, Brahms really works little miracles of harmonization and rhythm, which raise the art of the “arranger” far above that of the anonymous “singer” of these simple folk melodies. One should give the same melodic raw material to another composer, and see what he or she would make of it! By the way, two of these pieces are entirely Brahms’s own invention, without his finding that important enough to boast about.19 Brahms wrote back to me in Ischl:
I am so pleased about your pleased and nice words that I must let you know immediately. You know, the things give me pleasure myself, for once. How happy I am if others feel the same way and are kind enough not to make a secret of it! With best greetings to your second half and your second pair of hands cordially your J. Brahms.
Brahms’s general education was much more comprehensive and deep than one might think on superficial acquaintance with him. The things that had been denied him through the hardships and deprivations of his youth he later made up with persistent energy. An admirably quick gift of comprehension and an equally extraordinary, never-failing memory supported him in his studies. Often one would only discover years later, after some cue gave him the necessary impetus, how well versed he was in literary matters. It never occurred to him to flaunt his wide reading; he preferred to hide it. The absolute opposite of Liszt, who constantly tosses around Dante, Shakespeare, Goethe, Michelangelo, and Albrecht Dürer in his musical essays, along with Plato, Spinoza, Kant, and Hegel, of whom he himself has scarcely read a single chapter. Perfectly obnoxious, in Brahms’s eyes, were those newest critics who quote Schopenhauer and Nietzsche the minute they take up a new opera or symphony.
How intimately Brahms knew our classical literature, how deeply he had absorbed the masterworks. Some of his literary sympathies were not entirely comprehensible to me, for example, the fact that he could read Jean Paul over and over again, right into his old age. The same was true of the comic novels of Swift and Fielding, the latter in German translation. He had no talent for foreign languages and never learned enough French for even the most minimal household use. He approached the latest literature with a very hesitant selectivity. The trouble with the new books is undoubtedly that they prevent us from rereading the old ones. The realistic products of our modernists incited Brahms’s dislike; but he read the novellas of Gottfried Keller and the poems of his friend J. V. Widmann in Bern with never-failing pleasure.
Brahms even followed politics—that otherwise avoided and despised Cinderella-subject for artists—attentively. In one of his letters I even find passionate involvement with a particularly Austrian incident. In June 1883 he writes to me from Wiesbaden:
Dearest friend! I must shout out my hurrah to someone, my happy, firm hurrah to the professors in respect of your letter to Rector Maasen.* One must be as much an Austrian as I am, love the Austrians as much as I do, to feel sad every day I read the newspaper, and then suddenly, as now, to feel such a deep pleasure. Unfortunately, I regularly read only the Fremden-Blatt, which a princess-friend of mine receives here and sends to me, I am still grateful to Lamezan for the box on the ear he gave the paper this winter. If I could only get the confiscated issues, I would subscribe to the Neue freie Presse!
And friend Billroth still doesn’t want to become a Wagnerian? What is he waiting so long for; sooner or later he will have to do it.
Brahms had become a good Austrian and at the same time remained a faithful Reichs-German. He read the historical works of Sybel and Treitschke, and finally Oncken’s book about Kaiser Wilhelm, with the warmest sympathy and interest.20 He had a passionate admiration for Bismarck, was pleased to receive presents of each of his portraits, loved his speeches, and was familiar with everything that had been written about the Iron Chancellor. Three weeks before his demise, when the treacherous illness had robbed him of all pleasure in living, he complained to his friend Herr Arthur Faber that he could no longer retain what he read. “I only want to read about Bismarck; send me the book by Busch, Bismarck and His Men.”21
Rodenberg’s Deutsche Rundschau counted him among its most appreciative readers.
Among modern painters there were two in particular whom Brahms held in high esteem: the old master Adolph Menzel and Max Klinger, who had achieved fame in our days. The affection was returned in both cases.
Menzel, who despite his advanced age always remained fresh and agile, visited Brahms repeatedly in Vienna, and celebrated him with exceptional attention in Berlin. Klinger was inspired by Brahms’s music to create many of his most notable works. After receiving Klinger’s most recent illustrated book Fantasies, Brahms immediately wrote to me:22
Dear friend! Just to look at the newest Brahms-Fantasy is more pleasure than to listen to the previous ten!* But since I cannot very well bring them to you, I would like to ask you to pay a call on me—and to bring some time, for it takes at least as long as the above-cited ten or other earlier ones.
As much as the brilliant boldness of Klinger’s illustrations impressed me, I was not able to share Brahms’s rapture in every case, least of all at the cover illustrations of the songs that were published by Simrock.23 Quite incompetent to give an expert opinion, I was nevertheless unable to conceal my feeling that here the one-sidedly realistic and violently characterizing manner pushed beauty too much into the background, even damaged it without compelling necessity. I could not comprehend why, for example, Homer had to be portrayed as a repellently ugly old man with tufts of white hair all over his stark naked, miserable body—or why the charming melody of one of Brahms’s songs is reflected in Klinger’s work not as the figure of a lovely girl, but rather as a coarse and ordinary one. “You are not wrong,” Brahms replied,” but all that does not bother me—it is a work of genius.” I had to think of Eitelberger, who in a mood of wild opposition once cried, “That damned thing beauty—it is responsible for all the problems of painting!”24
Brahms expressed his gratitude and admiration for Max Klinger by dedicating to him the Four Serious Songs, op. 121. From Brahms, who was always remarkably sparing with his dedications, and in recent years almost entirely avoided them, this dedication meant more than a little. It became all the more significant since the Four Serious Songs remained his very last work.25 Yes, these not merely serious but inconsolable strains of death and decay were a prelude to Brahms’s departure from this life, although he did not suspect it. Since then Herr Sistermans has performed them as a kind of requiem for the master himself in almost all German cities, one after the other, which added a memorial meeting for Brahms to their concerts or music festivals. Certainly these Four Serious Songs had always been perceived and interpreted as a certain premonition of his own death, although Brahms was still in good health when he wrote them. I thought in my own mind that they had an immediate connection to the death of Clara Schumann, which left him deeply shaken. But today I must declare this supposition to be erroneous. Brahms’s intimate friend Herr Alwin V. Beckerath, one of the most well-informed supporters of music in the Rhineland, writes to me from Krefeld on this subject:
Brahms came (in May 1896) directly from Bonn, from Frau Schumann’s funeral, to the country home of my brother-in-law Weyermann in Honef, where we were celebrating a small private chamber music festival together with Barth from Hamburg and a few musicians from Meiningen. On the first day Brahms was very agitated, but the beautiful, still country and the comfort of the household soon began to do him good, and instead of one day, as he had originally planned, he stayed five. On the second day he told Barth that he had something new, and would like to show it to us some time in a quiet moment. We accompanied him with pounding hearts to a remote room, where there stood an upright piano, and there he performed the Four Serious Songs for us, from the manuscript. “I wrote these for myself for my birthday,” he said. From this you see that these compositions do not stand in any causal relationship to Clara Schumann’s death. Besides the Four Songs, he also brought new organ pieces [op. 122]. We were all deeply moved and a sorrowful premonition filled my heart—unfortunately it proved to be right.26
Toward the end of his life Brahms had to overcome two painful losses in quick succession: in February 1894 Billroth died, in May 1896, Clara Schumann. It was in perfect accord with his strong, solid, and taciturn nature that he wanted to speak and hear as little as possible about it. As soon as he learned of Billroth’s death, he came to me full of sympathy, but admitted that he felt something like a “feeling of liberation” on account that he no longer had to witness the sad withering away of our friend, that giant of intellect and physical strength. He expresses this later, too (from Ischl), in a few lines to me that refer to my Billroth Recollections, which were published in the Neue freie Presse:
Let me thank you very cordially for the sincere joy that your Billroth essays have given me. This is a sacrificial offering of rare beauty and a sign of friendship of the sort that can only be given by a good man. Even people who were not so close to him will read your words with delight; doubly so everyone to whom Billroth was dear.
As for me, let me confess why they did me particular good: They have freed me from the memory of the sick Billroth; not until now have I been freed from the painful feeling and memory of the last years and think and love the man as I knew him earlier and as you have sketched him so lovingly.*
Billroth and Brahms were joined in the most intimate personal friendship; Billroth, in addition, felt an enthusiastic admiration for Brahms’s compositions. Just as he never tired of playing these through with me in four-hand versions, so also he never failed, after the premiere performance of any new Brahms piece, to write to me about the impression he had received. I had spoken to Brahms once about these so detailed, beautiful musical letters of Billroth’s, and Brahms, otherwise so uncurious and even less eager for praise, expressed the wish to see something of these unpublished critiques written in the spirit of friendship. I quickly gathered up three or four of Billroth’s letters and sent them to Brahms. Just a moment too late, I was dismayed to remember vaguely that in one of these letters there was a cutting remark about Brahms. Billroth, namely, comparing Brahms with Beethoven, made the observation that our friend, along with the great advantages of his model, also shared some of the latter’s personal weaknesses; that like Beethoven he was often inconsiderate and painfully harsh toward his friends, and that he could no more rid himself completely of the effects of his neglected upbringing than Beethoven could. I was not only perfectly miserable that I had acted so carelessly toward my two best friends, but had to fear, in the balance, that Brahms, in one of his sarcastic moods, might tease and embarrass Billroth about his remark. Brahms rescued me promptly from my distressing state. His answer to my letter of apology is as remarkable and straightforward as it is revealing about his character:
Dear friend! You need not worry yourself in the slightest. I barely read the letter from Billroth, stuck it back in its envelope, and only shook my head quietly. I shouldn’t mention anything to him about it—oh, dear friend, unfortunately that is quite automatically how these things go with me! The fact that even old acquaintances and friends think one to be something quite different than what one is (or, in their eyes, pretends to be) is an old experience of mine. I know that earlier I would have kept silent in such a case, dismayed and taken aback—nowadays I am long since calm and take it as a matter of course. To you, good and kindhearted man, that will seem hard or bitter—but I hope that I have not strayed too far from Goethe’s dictum: “Blessed is the man who can shut himself off from the world without hatred.”27
Very cordially your
J. Brahms
The two last letters of Brahms that I possess have a long history. They concern several letters of Robert Schumann (from Endenich sanatorium, near Bonn) to his wife and to Brahms. The latter, who knew of my enthusiastic veneration for Schumann, the musician and the man, had sent me the letters to make copies of them more than twenty years earlier. I would have liked very much to see them printed, these touching communications, which show us the ailing Schumann in a kind of mild and transfiguring light. He therefore asked Clara for her permission. She gave it, by letter, after some hesitation. But later, with the anxiousness that was peculiar to her, took it back again. Since neither Brahms nor I had the slightest wish to oppose the sentiments of the venerated woman, we did not speak further about this matter. Not until after Clara’s death did our conversation turn to it again; in a letter to Brahms I expressed the wish that these last utterances of Schumann’s might not be lost to his faithful congregation. Brahms initially responded to my presentation with the following note (July 1896 from Ischl):
With my whole heart in agreement with you, I am sending this on ahead only because it will probably become a longish letter that reiterates my yes, and I am also occupied with the thought of writing to Marie Schumann.—So: until then! Very cordially your J.B.28
And in fact the “longish letter” (it reached me at the end of July in Heringsdorf) did not keep me waiting for long. It reads:
Dearest friend! Everything that you write is accurate and true and of concern to both of us. So I shall only say briefly that a portrait of Robert Schumann in Endenich from your pen was always my fervent wish. Like you, I had Clara’s consent. Then came N. N.’s involvement and her change of heart. It affected me more severely than it did you—but for your sake, which I tried, like other things of this sort, to get over in silence.
Confidential dealings with women are difficult—the more difficult, the more serious and confidential the matters at hand. In this case one must take into account as a mitigating factor that Frau Schumann did not see her husband at that time and it is understandable that she did not like to hear mention made of the sick man. Now Maria is in possession of the entire written estate and may dispose of it. Again I ask you to consider how difficult her situation or that of the three sisters is—toward such a possession!
I do not believe that they will do anything without asking me for advice; but whether they will do anything on my advice, I do not know. In any case, I would like to present our case to Maria and ask her to entrust us with the remaining material (relating to Endenich), or initially to give her friendly assent for you to use whatever is now in your hands.
Now it is my urgent wish that you should not hurry with the publication of your work. For it is possible that we may receive everything relating to this question, and then: I am the only one who came together often with Schumann during that time, and you are the only one to whom, rather than to my own pen, I should like to entrust my memories. Nothing remarkable will come of them, but still—shouldn’t we spend a few quiet hours on it?
In earnest friendship your
J. Brahms
One can see that the matter weighed on his mind. He reports to me on the same matter in early September 1896 from Karlsbad with the following lines:
I would have sent the enclosed letter from Marie Schumann to you long ago, if I had been certain of your address. I had sent your letter to Marie at that time and asked her to entrust us with additional material having to do with Endenich. I referred in a precautionary way to the passage about “us children” by saying: They would probably overlook a certain sensitivity in this matter on your and my part. Women, etc.
Perhaps we may yet find other suitable material in Vienna—if not, we have done our best.
In the letter that Brahms mentions at the outset, Fräulein Marie Schumann answers him in the affirmative (Frankfurt, 17 August): “Do what you feel is right, in my mother’s memory, and that will suffice for me.” However, she responds to the wish to receive yet other letters of Schumann’s with the words: “I must first have read the material through in tranquility myself and gained an overview before I give anything out of my hands. But for that several years will be required.”
So it then remained, with only those few letters published that Brahms had communicated to me so many years ago and to which Joachim made a very valuable addition.
One had to have known Brahms for a long time to get through to the golden underlayer of his taciturn being.29 He was as indefatigable in generous deeds as he was inexhaustible in the art of keeping them a secret. How many young musicians he voluntarily helped with a loan, “payable at some undetermined future time,” that he never intended to remember of his own accord! He spared no pains to give moral support, encouragement, or recommendation to aspiring talents. Very different from certain world-famous artists, who are more likely to help out with money than with their patronage, but preferably with neither. Brahms took pleasure at every deserved success of others. It is known how energetically he expedited the general recognition of Dvorák. As honorary president of the Wiener Tonkünstlerverein (Viennese Society of Composers), whose evening receptions he attended regularly and with pleasure, he was a zealous promoter of competitions, especially chamber music competitions, to bring young talents to the fore. When it came to the examination of the anonymous manuscripts that had been submitted, he showed astonishing acuity in guessing, from the overall impression and technical details, who the author was, or at least his school or teacher. Last year Brahms was very interested in an anonymous quartet whose author he was quite unable to identify. Impatiently he waited for the opening of the sealed notice. On it was written the heretofore entirely unknown name: Walter Rabl. He was awarded the prize at Brahms’s recommendation; the piece was performed publicly and recommended to Simrock, who immediately published it.30
Not always courteous in his manners, Brahms nevertheless possessed a pleasing courteousness of the heart. How much he enjoyed it when he could give pleasure to others, especially if it could be a surprise! Thus one Sunday morning I found him busily packing several bottles of champagne into a basket. “They are for…, whose new orchestra piece is being performed today. When he sits down with his family to dine after the concert, he shall have a pleasant surprise!”
Shortly before his last illness, the wife of an excellent composer who lived in Bohemia visited him. Brahms encouraged her, telling her how advantageous it would be for her husband’s career to move to Vienna. “Yes,” the woman said, “if only life in Vienna were not so expensive for a large family!”—“If that’s all it depends on,” replied Brahms, “then take as much of my wealth as you need, without further ado; I myself need very little.” The good woman broke out in such intense tears of emotion that she could not respond.
In Brahms there lived a powerfully developed sense of justice that to strict jurists might perhaps have seemed all too sensitive. A characteristic story, at whose beginning I was present, but whose conclusion I did not learn about until Brahms’s very last days, may serve to confirm this. Once at Brahms’s apartment I met a pale, interesting-looking woman of about forty, the divorced wife of a retired officer (if I am not mistaken, he lived in Bavaria). This woman, whose nervous loneliness was kindled to flickering life only in the presence of ardent music playing, was an enthusiastic admirer of Brahms’s music and no less of the composer himself. The latter visited her occasionally in her nearby apartment Auf der Wieden, moved more by humane compassion than by personal sympathy.
One day, it may have been twenty-five years ago, Brahms told me that Frau Amalie M. had died and left him some music, attractively bound volumes of Brahms’s piano compositions from his first period. Every title page showed, in a delicate hand, the name of the deceased. Brahms offered me these volumes, which I accepted gratefully and still possess. Then he never again spoke of this female admirer. Not until three weeks before his death did the critically ill Brahms tell his friend Simrock that at that time he had been named by Frau Amalie as the sole heir to her quite considerable fortune. He had felt this disposition to be a severe injustice toward her former husband, had hurried without delay to the notary and renounced the estate in favor of the husband. The latter was informed at once, came to Vienna, visited Brahms, and, with thanks, took possession of the estate that had been ceded to him.
Anyone who has become lovingly accustomed to living with Brahms now feels as if our music has lost its backbone. But these insignificant pages are devoted not to his great significance as a musician. They are only intended to contribute to the understanding of the character of the noble, rare man in whom his circle of close friends has lost no less than the musical world has lost in the artist.
1.On Hanslick’s “living history” project, see Kevin C. Karnes, Music, Criticism, and the Challenge of History: Shaping Modern Musical Thought in Late Nineteenth-Century Vienna (Oxford and New York, 2008), chap. 2.
2.See the introduction to Hanslick, “Discovering Brahms,” in this volume.
3.Das Heimchen am Herd, opera by Karoly (Karl) Goldmark, premiered in Vienna on March 21, 1896.
4.Marcella Sembrich, a Polish-born soprano who made her Metropolitan Opera debut in 1883.
5.The Prater was Brahms’s favorite park in Vienna. It was by far the largest park in the city and possessed racing facilities and an amusement park. It had been given over to public use in the eighteenth century by Joseph II, and was the site of many annual festivities and celebrations.
6.Georg Fischer, ed., Briefe von Theodor Billroth (Hanover and Leipzig, 1895; 3rd ed. 1896).
7.La Mara [Ida Maria Lipsius], ed., Musikerbriefe aus fünf Jahrhunderten (Leipzig, 1886), 2:348–50.
9.The sostenuto assai, where Leonora unlocks Florestan’s chains and exclaims, “O Gott, o Gott, welch ein Augenblick!”
10.A complete Haydn edition was begun by Breitkopf & Härtel in 1907 under the editorship of Brahms’s friend Eusebius Mandyczewski, but only reached ten volumes. A new edition from the Haydn-Institut in Cologne began publication in 1958.
11.Probably the same Rosa Bernstein mentioned in Max Kalbeck, Johannes Brahms, rev. ed. (Berlin, 1912–21; repr. Tutzing, 1976), 2:135.
12.Kommission für Erteilung von Künstler-Stipendien.
13.Heinrich Esser (1818–72) was one of the principal conductors at the Imperial Opera. In 1860–61 he served as artistic director. Esser also conducted at the opening of the new opera house in 1869, directing, among other things, an overture he had written for the occasion. Johann Herbeck (1831–71) took over the directorship of the opera between 1870 and 1875 and was concert director of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde. Karl Goldmark (1830–1915) was a prominent composer who settled in Vienna after 1860 and is best known for his Rustic Wedding Symphony and several operas.
14.In the spring of 1889, Brahms had been awarded the Honorary Freedom of Hamburg; the formal ceremony took place on September 14. Five days earlier, Brahms’s Fest-und Gedenksprüche, op. 109, had their premiere by the Cecilia Society; that must be the “festival” to which Brahms refers in this letter.
15.Hanslick’s influential aesthetic treatise On the Musically Beautiful (Vom Musikalisch-Schönen) was first published in 1854 and reprinted repeatedly thereafter.
16.Hanslick uses a play on words—the German Götze (idol) is almost identical with Goetz’s name. (Trans.)
17.The festival took place on September 25–28.
18.Perhaps a reference to the Waltzes, op. 39.
19.Based on remarks by Joachim, Kalbeck identifies three dances, nos. 11, 14, and 16, as “ureigenster [most authentic] Brahms.” See Kalbeck, Johannes Brahms, 1:66.
20.Brahms had, in his library, works by both Heinrich von Sybel and Heinrich von Treitschke. See Kurt Hofmann, Die Bibliothek von Johannes Brahms (Hamburg, 1974). The Oncken book is Wilhelm Oncken, Das Zeitalter des Kaisers Wilhelm (Berlin, 1888–92).
21.Moritz Busch, Bismarck und seine Leute während des Krieges mit Frankreich (Leipzig, 1878).
22.Max Klinger, Brahms-Phantasie: Einundvierzig Stiche, Radierungen und Steinzeichnungen zu Compositionen von Johannes Brahms (Leipzig, 1894).
23.The song collections, opp. 96 and 97, whose title pages are reproduced in Kurt Hofmann, Die Erstdrucke der Werke von Johannes Brahms (Tutzing, 1975), 204 and 206.
24.Rudolf Eitelberger (1817–85) was the most significant and influential art historian of his day in Vienna. A medievalist, he was the founder of the Viennese School of Art History. He was also instrumental in reorganizing the Academy of Fine Arts and the city’s museums.
25.The Eleven Chorale Preludes for Organ, composed in June 1896, were published posthumously as op. 122 in April 1902.
26.Further material on Brahms’s activities in Krefeld and relationship with the Beckerath family is provided in Heinz von Beckerath, “Remembering Johannes Brahms: Brahms and His Krefeld Friends,” trans. Josef Eisinger, in this volume.
27.“Selig, wer sich vor der Welt/Ohne Haß verschließt.” The quote is from Goethe’s poem “An den Mond,” written between 1776 and 1778. (Trans.) For further discussion of this incident and an alternate translation of Brahms’s letter to Hanslick, see Styra Avins, ed., Johannes Brahms: Life and Letters, trans. Styra Avins and Josef Eisinger (Oxford and New York, 1997), 700–701.
28.Marie Schumann, one of the surviving daughters of Clara and Robert Schumann, later collaborated with Berthold Litzmann on the publication of her mother’s correspondence with Brahms.
29.The “underlayer” reference is to the practice of painting over a gold sizing. (Trans.)
30.This was the Piano Quartet (with clarinet), op. 1, published with a dedication to Brahms. Brahms had mentioned the Rabl work in a letter to Simrock of 17 December 1896. See Brahms, Briefwechsel, rev. eds. (Berlin, 1912–22; repr. Tutzing, 1974), 12:208.
*We had hoped that Brahms would come on September 11, like last year, to spend my birthday with friend Victor [von Miller-Aichholz]. He did send a long, witty birthday telegram from Karlsbad.
*On Brahms’s initiative, the Cantata on the Death of Joseph II had its premiere performance by the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in November 1884.
*Brahms never visited Bayreuth.
*In the year 1883, in a debate in the Lower Austrian Parliament (in which, as Rector, he represented the university), Professor Maasen had come out in favor of a Czech-language elementary school.
*Brahms, Fantasies for Pianoforte, op. 116. To these seven fantasies Brahms clearly also reckons the three Intermezzos, op. 117.
*Every time I attend a performance of Wallenstein’s Lager, I take pleasure in the lines: “Ein Hauptmann, den ein Anderer erstach, Ließ mir ein paar falsche Würfel nach” (A captain, who had stabbed another, left me a pair of loaded dice). These two lines, a small eloquent memorial to the collaboration of two great poets, are by Goethe. He had inserted them into Schiller’s manuscript to motivate the peasant’s acquisition of the false dice. A similarly improving addition, insignificant but interesting, may be found in Schumann’s opera Genoveva; but with the difference that here it was not the older, more experienced poet who was helping the younger, as in Wallenstein’s Lager, but the much younger one helping the elder, the student helping the master. Fourteen bars in Genoveva are by Brahms. We only learn this now, forty years after Schumann’s death, and only—how strange!—from the latest (fourth) edition of Billroth’s letters. In response to a remark of Billroth’s that he did not believe Brahms would compose an opera, the editor of Billroth’s letters (4th ed., 1897), Dr. Georg Fischer, makes the following note: “Brahms did not compose an opera. But it has been unknown until now that he participated in an opera, even if it was only with fourteen bars, by writing the conclusion of Siegfried’s song in the third act of Schumann’s Genoveva.” This occured in the year 1874, as the opera was about to be rehearsed at the Royal Theatre in Hannover. Frau Clara Schumann sent the singer Max Stägemann, who had been cast in the role of the Palatine Count, the Brahms addition, with the explanation that she was not only completely in agreement with it but thought this conclusion to be very desirable from the point of view of its effect. The addition is not found in the score as Schumann had edited it after the premiere in Leipzig (1850), or as it was copied later for Munich, Vienna, and Wiesbaden, or in the printed piano reduction prepared by Clara Schumann [1851]. For Hannover, the fourteen bars were stitched into the score as an addendum. When I compare this addition (which I have before me in the form of a copy) with Schumann’s original, in which it is lacking, I can’t help admiring the correctness of Brahms’s perception. He felt that in Schumann’s version the song has no satisfying conclusion, but that instead there is a questioning half-cadence on the dominant chord; further, that this half-cadence “Mich trennt keine Macht mehr von dir!” (No longer will any power separate me from you!) is followed much too quickly and abruptly by Siegfried’s words, “Wer sprengt so eilig ins Thor herein?” (Who gallops so hurriedly through the gate?). Thus it was as much in the interest of the drama as of the music alone that Brahms separated the two so heterogeneous halves of this scene by means of the insertion of his fourteen helping bars. Today this has little practical relevance; Genoveva, musically so noble and deeply felt, but dramatically hesitant and anemic, finds all doors closed to it—with or without the Brahmsian insert. But for the history of the opera and for admirers of Brahms and Schumann it is a particularly appealing item.