CHAPTER II
1845-1848
Edward Marxsen—Johannes' first instruction in theory—Herr Adolph Giesemann—Winsen-an-der-Luhe—Lischen—Choral society of school-teachers—'ABC' Part-song by Johannes—The Amtsvogt Blume—First public appearance—First visit to the opera.
Edward Marxsen was born on July 23, 1806, at Nieustädten, a village close to Altona, where his father combined the callings of schoolmaster and organist. His musical talent showed itself in early childhood, and was cultivated by his father to such good purpose that, whilst still a lad, he became competent to take the organist's duty from time to time when a substitute was needed. He was not, however, destined for the musical profession, and was on the verge of manhood when he was at length allowed to follow his unconquerable desire to apply himself with all his energies to the serious study of art. At eighteen he became the pupil of Johann Heinrich Clasing, a musician well qualified to bring up his students in the traditions of the classical school in which he had himself been trained.[8] His warm interest was soon aroused by the enthusiasm and unremitting application of his new pupil. Marxsen allowed nothing to interfere with the regularity of his lessons, and walked the two miles separating Nieustädten from Hamburg and back again, on dark winter evenings, by the light of his hand-lantern, no matter how stormy the weather. He continued to live at home, studying, teaching, and helping more and more frequently with the organ, till he reached the age of twenty-four, when his father's death left him free from ties. He soon resolved to go to Vienna, with the especial purpose of perfecting his theoretical knowledge under Ignaz von Seyfried, a prolific composer now chiefly remembered as editor of the theoretical works of his master, the renowned Albrechtsberger. Seyfried received the new-comer cordially, and, probably finding Marxsen's musicianship to be but little inferior to his own, treated him, during his lengthened sojourn at Vienna, more as a friend than a pupil. He did not give him formal instruction, but admitted him to frequent musical intercourse, which was chiefly devoted to the discussion of artistic questions and to the free interchange of opinion, and which brought to the younger musician, amongst other benefits, the special gain of thorough familiarity with the great forms of Beethoven. Seyfried's society was interesting and stimulating. He had had pianoforte lessons, as a child, from Mozart, and had been on terms of personal acquaintance with Haydn and with Beethoven, who was his hero. He was of a kind disposition, moreover, and the many opportunities he was able to offer for forming friendships, for hearing music, and for living in musical society, were placed unreservedly at the disposal of his protégé. Marxsen at the same time pursued his study of the pianoforte under Carl Maria von Bocklet, a pianist and musician of eminence, and a very successful teacher, who had enjoyed the favour of Beethoven and been the close intimate of Schubert. Bocklet was one of the earliest to appreciate the genius of the younger master, and, with his colleagues Schuppanzigh and Klincke, gave the first performances, early in 1828, of Schubert's two pianoforte trios, written a few months previously.
Marxsen returned to Altona, after an absence of between two and three years, with the matured confidence of the travelled musician who has associated with the authorities of his art, his previous enthusiasm for the works of the great Vienna masters and for the then known instrumental works of the mighty Sebastian Bach fanned into ardent worship. That his mind was sufficiently powerful to rise entirely above the musical artificiality and bad taste of his time cannot be said. To us, who belong to a generation that has been educated on the purist principles first made widely acceptable by Mendelssohn's influence and since popularized by the genius of a few famous executants, with Clara Schumann, Rubinstein, and Joachim at their head, it is difficult to realize the revolution that has taken place in the general condition of musical art since the days when Marxsen, three years Mendelssohn's senior, was young. Many things were then accepted and admired in Vienna, in Berlin, in Leipzig, in London, which would now be regarded as impossible atrocities. Marxsen was capable of setting the Kreutzer Sonata for full orchestra, but this is hardly so surprising as that the Leipzig authorities should have produced the arrangement at one of the Gewandhaus concerts, or that Schumann should have mentioned it indulgently, on whatever grounds, in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik.
Marxsen came for the first time before the public of Hamburg on November 19, 1833, at the age of twenty-seven, in a concert of his own compositions. Such a programme was a novelty in the northern city, and excited attention. The occasion was successful, and established the reputation of the concert-giver as a sound and earnestly striving musician, and from this time his position as a teacher and theorist continuously rose. He was a man of catholic tastes and liberal culture, and his influence over his pupils was not merely that of the instructor of a given subject, but was touched with the power of the philosopher who has a wide outlook on life. The central aims of his theoretical teaching were to guide his pupils to a mastery of the principles illustrated in the works of the great composers, and to encourage each student to develop his own creative individuality on the firm basis thus afforded. He produced a very large number of works, which include examples of the most complex as well as of the simpler forms of composition, and many of them were brought to a hearing. That few show the attempt to appeal to a higher tribunal than the musical taste of the day may, perhaps, be a sign that Marxsen was conscious of not being endowed with original creative power, and did not try to go beyond his natural limitations. He had a genial, encouraging manner which invited his pupils' confidence, and his lively interest in all questions concerning literature, philosophy, and art gave constant impulse to the minds of the really gifted amongst them, which was not the least of the benefits they derived from association with him.
We shall not be far wrong if we fix the age of Johannes, at the time he became entirely Marxsen's pupil, as about twelve; and from this date his time, always well employed, must have been very fully occupied. He had to go to Altona for his pianoforte lessons (the question of his learning composition had not yet arisen), to practise at Cossel's or at the business house of some pianoforte firm—for there were too many interruptions at home—and to go regularly to school. Not to the one on the Dammthorwall mentioned above. He now attended F. C. Hoffmann's school in ABC-strasse, an establishment several grades higher than that of which he had formerly been a pupil, and one of good repute in its degree. Hoffmann was a conscientious as well as a humane man, and won the liking and respect of his scholars. He gave them sound elementary instruction, and even had them taught French and English. Brahms retained some knowledge of both languages, as the present writer can testify from her personal acquaintance with him, begun when he had entered middle age. He could read English to some extent, though he could not speak it, and was able to help himself out, when necessary, with a phrase or two of French, though his accent was hopeless. He preserved a pleasant remembrance of Hoffmann in after-life, recommended his school on one or two suitable occasions, and sent him a present on the celebration of his jubilee in the middle of the seventies.
Marxsen's interest and pleasure in Johannes' progress increased every week as he became more convinced of his exceptional capacity. 'One day I gave him a composition of Weber's,' he says,[9] 'going carefully through it with him. At the following lesson he played it to me so blamelessly and so exactly as I wished that I praised him. "I have also practised it in another way," he said, and played me the right-hand part with the left hand.' (No doubt Weber's moto perpetuum, published by Brahms, without opus number, as a left-hand study.)
Part of Marxsen's discipline was to accustom Johannes to transpose long pieces at sight, a practice he had probably learnt from Seyfried, who relates as a tour de force of Albrechtsberger that on some public occasion, when he had to play on a low-pitched organ, he transposed an entire Mass from G to G sharp at sight, and without error. Brahms, it may be parenthetically remarked, continued to find diversion in this pastime, and would play fugues of Bach and other works for his own edification in various transposed keys when at the height of his mastership.
The boy had, almost from infancy, shown signs of the tendency to creative activity. Widmann[10] speaks of a conversation held with Brahms within the last decade of his life, during which the master, recalling early memories, described the bliss experienced by him as a very young child on making the discovery, unaided, that a melody could be represented on paper by placing large round dots in higher or lower positions on lines. 'I made a system for myself before I knew of the existence of such a thing.' When a few years older, he was fond of writing the separate parts of concerted works one under the other—of copying them into score, in fact. Nor was he to be kept from trying his hand at original composition. Louise Japha, an eminent pianist of Hamburg, whose more intimate acquaintance the reader will make later on, speaks of having heard him play a sonata of his own when he was about eleven, at the pianoforte house of Baumgarten and Heins, where she one day found him practising. Cossel, responsible for his advance in playing, is said to have been anxious at his spending too much of his time in these childish attempts; but the instinct was unconquerable, and Marxsen no doubt discovered this when he had Johannes constantly with him. After a time he began to teach him theory. Referring to the commencement of the new study, he writes to La Mara: