CHAPTER I
1760-1845
The Brahms family—Johann Jakob Brahms: his youth and marriage—Birth and childhood of Johannes—The Alster Pavilion—Otto F. W. Cossel—Johannes' private subscription concert.
Johannes Brahms came of a race belonging to Lower Saxony. This is sufficiently indicated by the family name, which appears in extant church records variously as Brahms, Brams, and Brahmst. The word Bram belongs to the old Platt-Deutsch, the near kin to the Anglo-Saxon and English languages. It is still the common name in the Baltic districts of Germany, the Hanoverian provinces, and, with a modified vowel, in England, for the straight-growing Planta genista, the yellow-flowering broom, and is preserved in its original form in the English word 'bramble.'
The letter s at the end of a name has the same meaning in German as in English, and just as 'Brooks' is a contraction of the words 'son of Brook,' so 'Brahms' signifies, literally, 'son of Bram,' or 'Broom.'
Peter Brahms, the great-grandfather of the composer, and the first of his family of whom there is authentic record, was a child of the people. He trekked across the mouth of the Elbe from Hanover into Holstein, and settled down to ply his trade of joiner at Brunsbüttel, a hamlet or small township situated in the fertile fen-country which lies along the shore of the Baltic between the mouths of the Elbe and the Eider. This district is remembered as the land of the Ditmarsh Peasants, who were distinguished, some centuries ago, by their fierce and obstinate struggles for the maintenance of their independence, but who finally settled down about the year 1560 under the dominion of the Princes of Holstein. They are said to have been pre-eminent amongst neighbouring peoples, not only in courage, but in a simple untaught genius for the arts of poetry and music. They loved to turn their various adventures into verse, which they afterwards sang to the most expressive and appropriate melodies of their own invention, and their war-songs and ballads, though now forgotten, were long a cherished possession of their children's children. The little country has in recent times proved not unworthy of its former reputation. Niebuhr the traveller, and his son, the celebrated historian, both belonged to Meldorf. Claus Groth, the Low-German poet, was a native of Heide, where his grandfather and father were millers living on their own land in patriarchal fashion. Groth has drawn, notably in his volume 'Quickborn,' pathetically naïve pictures of his beloved Ditmarsh; of its homely scenery, its changing cloud-effects, its sudden bursts of storm, its simple, hard-working, honourable peasant life; and it is a striking circumstance that he should have been in a position to describe, as old family friends and neighbours, living amongst the memories of his childhood, the great-grandfather, grandfather, father, and uncle of Johannes Brahms.[4]
Old Peter the trekker was respected as a thoroughly well-mannered, orderly citizen. He was short and robust, and lived to a ripe old age. He passed the closing years of his life at Heide, where he spent most of his time sitting on a bench in front of his house, smoking a long pipe, and was wont to startle the dreamy Claus Groth, as he passed by every morning on his way to school, with a loud, jocular greeting.
Johann his son, who was tall and handsome, with straight, yellow hair and fair complexion, combined the callings of innkeeper and retail dealer first at Wöhrden and afterwards at Heide. He married Christiana Asmus, a daughter of the country, and who knows what strain of latent poetic instinct, inherited from some old minstrel and patriot ancestor, may have been transmitted, through her veins, into the sturdy Brahms family? There is some presumption in favour of such a conjecture.
Two sons were born of her marriage with Johann, each of whom had a marked individuality. Peter Hinrich, the eldest, married at the age of twenty, and settled down as his father's assistant and future successor. Groth has described his adventure in the fields one memorable Sunday afternoon. Accompanied by his little son, he carried a huge kite, taller than himself, with a correspondingly long, thick string, which he successfully started. A strong north-west wind carried it along, and, to the delight of a crowd of small spectators, he tied to it a little cart of his own manufacture, in which he placed his boy. The cart began to move, drawn by the kite, slowly at first, then more quickly. Faster and higher flew the monster, quicker and quicker rolled the wheels, the child in the carriage, the father by its side. Then a scream, a crash! The terrified Claus knew no more till next day, when he heard that the little carriage had been dragged over a wall and upset, that the child had fallen out unhurt, and the kite been found on a high post a mile or two distant.