Florence May

“ The fancy, however, has not yet crystallized; the young musician has still to pass out of the stage of mental ferment natural to his age before he will be able to mould his thoughts into the concentrated shape which alone can convince the world. The sonata, not perhaps destined ever to become widely familiar, must always remain a treasure to the sympathetic student of Brahms' art, not only by reason of the beauties in which it abounds, but also because it is absolutely representative of its composer as he was at nineteen. ”

“ Good performances of Brahms' orchestral works may not seldom be heard, and great ones occasionally; but the particular quality of his poetic fancy, by which, when conducting an orchestra, he made the music sound from time to time as though it were floating in some rarefied atmosphere, vibrating now with fairy-like beauty and grace, now with ethereal mystery, was, I should say, peculiar to himself, and is hardly to be reproduced or imitated. ”

“ 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 ”

“ The work is impregnated with a breath as fragrant as the spirit of Schubert's muse, and, though perhaps not fully representative of the very powerful individuality now associated with the name of Brahms, bears the distinct impress of his mind, and could have been written by no other composer. Each of the five movements is a gem of the first water. Each has a character of its own, which yet combines with every other to make the serenade a perfect example of a developed form of garden music, night music. ”

“ It is not difficult to imagine something of the mother's feelings as she welcomed back the long-absent Hannes, who had always been as the apple of her eye, or to picture the simple preparations, the sweeping and scouring, the polishing and decorating, with which she and Elise anticipated his arrival; but who shall measure the father's joy on the return of his young conquering hero? The swiftly-progressing successes of Johannes' journey had been most literally Jakob's own personal triumphs, vindicating emphatically every one of the stages of his career ”

“ We may well be thankful, we musicians and music-lovers of this generation, to have passed some part of our lives with Brahms in our midst—Brahms the composer and Brahms the man. As his music may be searched through and through in vain for a single bar that is not noble and pure, so also in his mind dwelt no thought which was otherwise than good and true. ”

“ The composer's fertile fancy has betrayed him, in the first allegro, into some episodical writing which somewhat clouds the distinctness of outline, and impedes the listener in his appreciation of the distinguished beauties of the movement, and there are places in the finale where a certain disappointment succeeds to the conviction inspired by the impetuous opening subject; but in wealth of material, in the rare beauty of its principal themes, and in noble sincerity of expression, the trio occupies a distinguished place even amongst the examples of Brahms' maturity. ”

“ They show the composer in one of his Bach-Beethoven-Brahms moods, by which is here meant his learned and profoundly serious vein touched with exquisite tenderness. The theme, in three-four time, has about it, nevertheless, something of the pace of a grave march, and the opening variations are tender reflections on a solemn idea. In the eighth and ninth we have the imposing tramp of pomp, whilst the eleventh and last breathes forth tones of mysterious spirituality which subdue the mind of the listener as to some passing divine influence. ”

“ Brahms' 'Magelone Romances' have become world-famous, and wherever they are heard the delight which stirred the heart of the youthful Johannes as he and Lischen sat together in the pleasant Winsen fields eagerly devouring the old story from Aaron Löwenherz's purloined volume lives also. Lischen was not again to meet her old friend, but she never forgot either him or his music, and he, too, kept a faithful memory for the old pleasant time. ”

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

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

“ The union of poetry and music in the sense of the instrumental Programme composer is, from the point of view of the creator of Absolute music, fatal, not only to the dignity, but to the vital force, of both arts. The poem becomes a phantom, the music a conundrum; the listener wastes his time and fancy in trying to fit them together, and is without means of knowing how far he has been successful, and the product of these processes is a something which, in the words of Wagner, is neither fish nor fowl. ”

“ It may, however, be remarked that the String Sextet in B flat is a work to which neither 'if' nor 'but' can be attached. Both in beauty and variety of idea and in spontaneous clearness of development, it is without flaw, and these qualities combine with the fineness of its proportions, perfectly conceived and perfectly wrought out, to place it with few rivals amongst the greatest examples of chamber music. Fresh, happy, and ingenuous, the mastery it displays over the art which conceals art may be compared with that of Mozart himself. ”

“ Peter's heart shrinks within him as he hears the song; it seems to call after him his weakness and vacillation. He rows more swiftly; love urges him backwards, love draws him onward. The music becomes fainter and fainter; now it is quite lost in the distance, and only the murmur of the waves and the stroke of the oar sound through the stillness. ”

“ The most intelligent people amongst the public and the orchestra (of Leipzig) with whom I have spoken express a high opinion of Brahms as a musician, and even those who do not like the concerto are at one as to his eminent playing. I have never expected anything else than that prejudice on the one hand, and, on the other, astonishment at an individuality which surrenders itself so unreservedly to the ideal as that of our friend, should present some impediment to the brilliancy of his success. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Could any incident of fiction be more heart-rending in its pathos than this occurrence of real life—this picture of the sensitive, highly-strung woman, whose nerves were habitually in a state of strained tension, obliged to force herself, for the sake of her children's existence, to step for the first time on to a London concert platform, a sea of unknown faces before her, her kith and kin far away, a few hours after she had accepted the certainty of her passionately loved husband's tragic doom? ”

“ Do you not like this, my Clara, better than organ? A symphony or opera, which arouses enthusiasm and makes a great sensation, brings everything else more quickly forward. He must. Now greet Johannes warmly and the children, and you, my dearest heart, remember your, as of old, loving
'Robert.'
Brahms was permitted to follow Joachim, and paid the master a visit of several hours' duration, in the course of which he played both to and with him. At its close Schumann walked back to Bonn with his dear young friend, and could not make up his mind to part with him. ”

“ Sharing the fundamental characteristics, technical as well as temperamental, of the earlier written work of the same form—unity of plan, wealth of resource, impetuous vigour, dreamy romance, a breath that is repeatedly suggestive of the folk-lore in which the composer loved to steep his imagination—the Sonata in C gives evidence that the process of crystallization had already begun which was to distinguish Brahms' development towards maturity, which, indeed, did not stop at maturity, but may be traced continuously down to the close of his career. ”

“ He is called Johannes Brahms, came from Hamburg, where he has worked in obscure tranquillity, trained in the most difficult laws of art by an excellent and enthusiastic teacher, and was lately introduced to me by an honoured, well-known master. [37] He bore all the outward signs that proclaim to us, "This is one of the elect." Sitting at the piano, he proceeded to reveal to us wondrous regions. We were drawn into circles of ever deeper enchantment. His playing, too, was full of genius, and transformed the piano into an orchestra of wailing and jubilant voices. ”

“ They were on the look-out for champions who would rally to their cause, and welcomed the unusual as such, though reserving their heartiest approval for the piquant, sounding, sensational, or even revolutionary.
To these two bodies of extremists our Johannes, with his inexperience, his ideal aims, his genius, and his dislike of the sensational, was now to appeal. Had he been compelled at the moment to declare for either party, he certainly would not have chosen the side of revolution. But he was gifted with an imagination at once profound, original, and romantic. ”

“ Schumann's desire that his young protégé should apply his powerful ideal gifts and his skill in the handling of form to the composition of an orchestral work had not been disregarded by Brahms. He had tried his hand at an overture early in the year, and had worked through the spring and summer at a symphony, making his first attempts at instrumentation with the help of Grimm. It could not be otherwise than that the rapid succession of extraordinary events and vivid emotions which had agitated his spirit should prove a strong stimulus to his imagination ”

“ Brahms places the orchestra, as far as is possible in a concert-piece, by the side of the obligato instrument, and by so doing establishes himself as an artist who understands the requirements of the new era. The treatment of the orchestra shows a blooming fancy and the most vivid feeling for new and beautiful tone effects, although the composer has not yet sufficient command over his means to do justice to his intentions. ”

“ If there ever were a young composer who had reason to be made happy from the outset of his career by the appreciation of the most eminent of his colleagues—appreciation sweeter than any other to the soul of the true artist—Brahms was he. At each of Frau Schumann's three appearances in Hamburg during this autumn, she performed a great work of his composition, two being introduced for the first time to the public. ”

“ The four or five years immediately succeeding his formal entry into life were, perhaps, the darkest of Brahms' career. Money had to be earned, and the young Bach-Mozart-Beethoven enthusiast earned it by giving wretchedly-paid lessons to pupils who lacked both talent and wish to learn, and by his night drudgery amid the sordid surroundings of the Hamburg dancing-saloons. ”

“ At the first two concerts, at Hamburg and Altona respectively, the entire series of Schubert's 'Schöne Müllerin' was given; and at the last—who can imagine a more enthralling feast of sound than the performance of Beethoven's melting love-songs, 'To the Distant Beloved,' the very thought of which brings tears to the eyes, sung by Stockhausen to the accompaniment of Brahms, followed by our composer's lovely second Serenade, and this by Schumann's 'Poet's Love-Songs'? Happy Hamburgers, happy Stockhausen, happy Brahms, to have shared such delights together! Will their like ever come again? ”

“ Joachim remained for some years yet on terms of affectionate intimacy with Liszt, Bülow, and the others, and was, indeed, so lonely and depressed during the first few months of his residence in Hanover, that he was impelled to express his state of mind by the composition of an overture to 'Hamlet.' Sending the manuscript to Liszt in the middle of March, he wrote:
'I have been very much alone. The contrast between the atmosphere which is constantly resounding, through your influence, with new tones, and an air which is completely tone-still, is too barbarous. ”