II
The life of Brahms offers little that is striking or unusual. He was born in Hamburg, the northern city by the sea, on the 7th of May, 1833, of relatively humble parents. His father was a double-bass player in a theatre orchestra. His mother, many years older than his father, and more or less a cripple, seems to have had a deep love for reading and a remarkable memory to retain what she had read. In his earliest childhood Brahms commenced to acquire a knowledge of poetry from his mother, which showed all through his later life in the choice of poems he made for his songs. His ability to play the piano was so evident that his father hoped to send him as a child wonder to tour the United States, from which fate, however, he was saved by the firmness of one of his teachers. Twice in November, 1847, he appeared with others in public, playing conventional show pieces of the facture of Thalberg; but in the next year he gave a recital of his own at which he played Bach, a point of which Kalbeck[118] makes a trifle too much. The income of the father was very small, and Brahms was not an overwhelming success as a concert pianist. To earn a little money, therefore, he used to play for dancing in taverns along the waterfront; forgetful, we are told, of the rollicking sailors, absorbed in books upon the desk of the piano before him. His early life was not an easy one. It helped to mold him, however, and brought out his enormous perseverance and strength of will. These early days of hardship were never forgotten. He believed they had helped rather than hindered him, a belief which, it must be admitted, is refreshingly manly in contrast to the wail of despised genius so often ringing in the ears of one who reads the lives of the great musicians as they have been penned by their later worshippers. Not long before he died, being occupied with the question of his will and the disposal of his money, he asked his friend, the Swiss writer J. V. Widmann for advice. Widmann suggested that he establish a fund for the support and aid of struggling young musicians; to which Brahms replied that the genius of such, if it were worth anything, would find its own support and be the stronger for the struggle. The attitude is very characteristic.
Occasional visitors to Hamburg had a strong influence upon the youth. Such were Joachim and Robert and Clara Schumann, though he did not then meet the latter. At the age of nineteen, having already composed the E-flat minor scherzo, the F-sharp minor and C-major sonatas and numerous songs, he went forth on a concert tour with the Bohemian violinist Remenyi. On this tour he again came in touch with Joachim, who furnished him with letters to Liszt at Weimar and the Schumanns at Düsseldorf. Of his stay at Weimar mention has already been made. At Düsseldorf he was received at once into the heart of the family. In striking contrast with the gruffness of later years is the description given by Albert Dietrich of the young man come out of the north to the home of the Schumanns. ‘The appearance, as original as interesting, of the youthful almost boyish-looking musician, with his high-pitched voice and long fair hair, made a most attractive impression upon me. I was particularly struck by the characteristic energy of the mouth and serious depths in his blue eyes....’ One evening Brahms was asked to play. He played a Toccata of Bach and his own scherzo in E-flat minor ‘with wonderful power and mastery; bending his head down over the keys, and, as was his wont in his excitement, humming the melody aloud as he played. He modestly deprecated the torrent of praise with which his performance was greeted. Everyone marvelled at his remarkable talent, and, above all, we young musicians were unanimous in our enthusiastic admiration of the supremely artistic qualities of his playing, at times so powerful or, when occasion demanded it, so exquisitely tender, but always full of character. Soon after there was an excursion to the Grafenberg. Brahms was of the party, and showed himself here in all the amiable freshness and innocence of youth.... The young artist was of vigorous physique; even the severest mental work hardly seeming an exertion to him. He could sleep soundly at any hour of the day if he wished to do so. In intercourse with his fellows he was lively, often even exuberant in spirits, occasionally blunt and full of wild freaks. With the boisterousness of youth he would run up the stairs, knock at my door with both fists, and, without awaiting a reply, burst into the room. He tried to lower his strikingly high-pitched voice by speaking hoarsely, which gave it an unpleasant sound.’
All accounts of the young Brahms lay emphasis on his lovableness, his exuberant good spirits, his shining good health and his physical vitality. Clara Schumann wrote in her diary: ‘I found a nice stanza in a poem of Bodenstedt’s which is just the motto for Johannes:
’“In winter I sing as my glass I drain,
For joy that the spring is drawing near;
And when spring comes, I drink again,
For joy that at last it is really here.”'
Clara, too, admired his playing, and she was competent to judge. ‘I always listen to him with fresh admiration,’ she wrote. ‘I like to watch him while he plays. His face has a noble expression always, but when he plays it becomes even more exalted. And at the same time he always plays quietly, i. e. his movements are always beautiful, not like Liszt’s and others’.’ He was always devoted to Schubert and she remarked that he played Schubert wonderfully. Later in life his playing became careless and loud.
Not half a year after Brahms was received at Düsseldorf Schumann’s mind gave way. In February, 1854, he attempted suicide, and immediately after it became necessary to send him to a private sanatorium at Endenich. For two years longer he lived. They were years of anguish for his wife, during which Brahms was her unfailing refuge and support. She wrote in her diary that her children might read in after years what now is made known to the world. ‘Then came Johannes Brahms. Your father loved and admired him as he did no man except Joachim. He came, like a true comrade, to share all my sorrow; he strengthened the heart that threatened to break, he uplifted my mind, he cheered my spirits whenever and wherever he could, in short, he was in the fullest sense of the word my friend.’
Brahms was profoundly affected by the suffering he witnessed and by the personal grief at the loss of a friend who had meant so much to him. The hearty, boisterous gaiety such as he poured into parts of his youthful compositions, into the scherzo of the F-minor sonata, for instance, and into the finale of the C-major, never again found unqualified expression in his music. His character was set and hardened. From then on he locked his emotions within himself. Little by little he became harsh, rejected, often roughly, kindness and praise—made himself a coat of iron and shut his nature from the world. Ruthlessly outspoken and direct, seemingly heedless of the sensibilities of those who loved him dearly and whom he dearly loved, he presents only a proud, fierce defiance to grief, to misfortune, even to life itself. What such self-discipline cost him only his music expresses. Three of his gloomiest and most austere works came first into his mind during the horror of Schumann’s illness; the D-minor concerto for the piano, the first movement of the C-minor quartet, and the first movement of the C-minor symphony.
Meanwhile he was earning a precarious living by giving concerts here and there, not always with success; and he had begun a relentlessly severe course of self-training in his art. Here Joachim and he were mutually helpful to each other. Every week each would send to the other exercises in music, fragments of compositions, expecting in return frank and merciless criticism. In the fall of 1859 he accepted a position at Detmold as pianist and leader of the chorus. A small orchestra was at his service, which offered him opportunity to study instrumental effects, especially wind instruments, and for which he wrote the two serenades in A and in D major. Likewise he profited by his association with the chorus, and laid at Detmold the foundation for his technique in writing for voices, which has very rarely been equalled. Duties in this new position occupied him only during the musical season, from September to December. At other times he played in concert or went back to his home in Hamburg. At one concert in Leipzig in 1859 he was actually hissed, either because his own concerto which he played or his manner of playing it was offensive. The critics were viciously hostile. Brahms took the defeat manfully, evidently ranked it as he did his days of playing for the Hamburg sailors, among the experiences which were in the long run stimulating. At Hamburg he organized a chorus of women’s voices for which many of his loveliest works were then and subsequently composed. In the chorus was a young Viennese lady from whom, according to Kalbeck, he first heard Viennese folk-music. With Vienna henceforth in mind he continued in his work at Detmold until 1862, when he broke away from North Germany and went to establish himself in the land of his desire. He came before the public first as a pianist, later as a composer. For a year he was conductor of the Singakademie. Afterward he never held an office except during the three years 1872-1875, when he was conductor of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde.
The death of his mother in 1867 aggravated his tendency to forbidding self-discipline. The result in music was the ‘German Requiem,’ which even those who cannot sympathize with his music in general have willingly granted to be one of the great masterpieces of music. As it was first performed at a concert of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna in April, 1867, it consisted of only three numbers. To these he later added four, and in this form it was performed on Good Friday, April 10, 1868, in Bremen. Clara Schumann, who was present, wrote in her diary that she had been more moved by it than by any other sacred music she had ever heard. It established Brahms’ reputation as a composer, a reputation which steadily grew among conservatives. A group of distinguished critics, musicians, and men of unusual intellectual gifts gathered about him in Vienna. Among them were Dr. Theodor Billroth, the famous surgeon, probably his most intimate friend; Eduard Hanslick and Max Kalbeck among the critics, K. Goldmark and Johann Strauss among the musicians. Joachim was a lifelong friend, Von Bülow and Fritz Simrock, the publisher, were staunch admirers, and in Dvořák he later took a deep interest. Journeys to Italy and to Switzerland took him from Vienna for some time every year, and he often spent a part of the summer with Clara Schumann at various German watering places.
A few works were inspired by unusual events, such as the ‘Song of Triumph’ to celebrate the victory of the German armies in the war against France, and the ‘Academic Festival Overture,’ composed in gratitude to the university at Breslau which conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. A similar degree was offered by the University of Cambridge, which Brahms was forced to refuse because he was unwilling to undertake the voyage to England.
He was an omnivorous reader and an enthusiastic amateur of art. Regular in his habits, a stubborn and untiring worker, he composed almost unceasingly to the time of his last illness and death in April, 1897. The great works for the orchestra comprise ‘Variations on a Theme of Haydn’s,’ the ‘Academic Festival Overture,’ and the ‘Tragic Overture,’ four great symphonies, the second concerto for piano and orchestra, the concerto for violin and orchestra, and a concerto for violin and violoncello. The great choral works are the ‘Requiem,’ ‘The Song of Triumph,’ and ‘The Song of Destiny,’ a cantata, ‘Rinaldo,’ and a great number of songs. Besides these there are many sets of works for the piano, all in short forms, generally called caprices or intermezzi, and several sets of variations, one on a theme of Paganini, one on a theme of Handel; sonatas for piano and violin, and piano and violoncello; the magnificent quintet in F-minor for piano and strings, sonatas for clarinet and piano, string quartets, piano quartets, and trios.