'In the concert given by J. Brahms, the youthful virtuoso gave most satisfactory proofs of advancement in his artistic career. His performance of Beethoven's sonata showed that he is already able to devote himself successfully to the study of the classics, and redounded in every respect to his honour. The example of his own composition also indicated unusual talent.'
Although the report adds that the room was so full as to oblige many listeners to be content with seats in the ante-room, it is probable that the young musician found concert-giving more vexatious and expensive than useful or profitable. Though he appeared from time to time at the benefit-concerts of other artists, and repeated his own fantasia at one given on December 6 by Rudolph Lohfeldt, his third soirée in Hamburg, given under conditions of which he could not at this time have dared to dream, did not take place till after the lapse of another decade. 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.
It was an amelioration in his life and a step forward in his career, when he was engaged by the publisher, August Cranz, as one of several contributors to a series of popular arrangements of light music, published under the name 'G. W. Marks.' We have read in Widmann's pages of the spirit in which the great composer, a few years before his death, recalled these passages of his struggling youth:
'He could not, he said, wish that it had been less rough and austere. He had certainly earned his first money by arranging marches and dances for garden orchestras, or orchestral music for the piano, but it gave him pleasure even now, when he came across one of these anonymously circulating pieces, to think that he had devoted faithful labour and all the knowledge at his command, to such hireling's work. He did not even regard as useless experience that he had often had to accompany wretched singers or to play dance music in Lokals, whilst he was longing for the quiet morning hours during which he should be able to write down his own thoughts. "The prettiest songs came to me as I blacked my boots before daybreak."'
And if the master could so speak and think of his early trials, must not we, who are, perhaps, the richer through them, treasure the remembrance of the nights of uncongenial toil through which he passed to become, even on the threshold of life, its conqueror and true possessor? The iron entered his soul, however, and the impression derived from his night work remained with him till death. He was accustomed to read steadily through the hours of his slavery. Placing a volume of history, poetry, or romance on the music-desk before him, his thoughts were away in a world of imagination, whilst his fingers were mechanically busy with the tinkling keys. He did not lift his eyes to the scene before him after his first entrance, though there were times when he felt it with shuddering dismay. It is, however, right to repeat that, as we have hinted in a previous chapter, this kind of industry was a more or less recognised means by which struggling musicians of the class to which Jakob Brahms belonged, were enabled to help their needy circumstances, and it would not be difficult to name more than one executant afterwards well known who fulfilled similar engagements in youth. The position of Johannes was not in itself exceptional, though the contemplation of it is now startling from its contrast with his tender nature, his sensitive genius, and the great place which he ultimately won.
An engagement of which Kalbeck speaks, to act as accompanist behind the scenes and on the stage of the Stadt Theater, may have been less irksome to the young musician than his other hack work, and it is possible to believe that the experience drawn from it may have been of some appreciable value to him in after-life, even though his artistic development did not result in dramatic composition. Evidence is not wanting, however, to show that he kept his thoughts steadily fixed upon the higher practical possibilities of his profession, and that, though his position continued very obscure, it did not remain at a standstill. His terms to pupils increased to about a shilling a lesson, and occasionally he was able to get more. Every now and then he obtained a small concert-engagement, or officiated at a private party, and on one occasion he appeared with Otto Goldschmidt, the then leading pianist of Hamburg, who was about four years his senior, in a performance of Thalberg's duet for two pianofortes on airs from 'Norma.'
Conditions at home remained unfavourable for practice, and Johannes now worked regularly at the establishment of Messrs. Baumgarten and Heinz, where an instrument was always at his service. Here, one day, he met Fräulein Louise Japha, who remembered the circumstance, already recorded in these pages, of having heard him play five or six years previously as a child of eleven. A talk ensued, a sympathetic note was struck, and a comradeship quickly grew up between the two young musicians. Louise, born in 1826, and therefore some seven years the senior of Johannes, was possessed of high musical endowment. At the time of which we write, she was the pupil of Fritz Wahrendorf for pianoforte, and of William Grund for theory and composition. She achieved eminence later on, becoming well known in Germany and a great favourite with the public of Paris. Frau Dr. Langhans-Japha is now not far from eighty, but there is still a peculiar charm in her playing, which is especially distinguished by beauty of tone and phrasing. Her competent sympathy was a valuable addition to young Brahms' pleasures in life, in the days when he knew little of congenial artistic companionship. They met constantly to play duets and compare notes as to their compositions, for Louise was a song-writer of ability. Johannes used to discuss with her both his favourite authors and his manuscripts. One day it was a long exercise in double counterpoint that he brought to show her, another day a pianoforte solo. On a third occasion he produced a pianoforte duet in several movements, which he begged her to try with him, and, acknowledging its authorship at the close of the performance, asked her opinion of the work. This proving generally favourable, the composer, going more into detail, took exception to one of his themes, which he feared was rather 'ordinary'; but when Louise was half inclined to agree with him, he cried angrily: 'Why did you not say so yourself? Why was I obliged to ask you?'
He was always composing, and as time went on, was ably guided by Marxsen to the practice of the large musical forms, over which he soon acquired conspicuous mastery, showing extraordinary facility in applying to them the skill he had gradually attained in free contrapuntal writing, whilst allowing to his fancy the stimulus of the classical-romantic literature that appealed with special force to his imagination. 'It came into my head after reading so-and-so,' he would say. The whole of his small amount of spare cash was devoted to the purchase of second-hand volumes from the stalls to be found in the Jews' quarter of Hamburg, and what he bought he read. Sophocles and Cicero, Dante and Tasso, Klopstock and Lessing, Goethe and Schiller, Eichendorff, Chamisso, Pope, Young, and many other poets, were represented in the library collected by him between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one.[12] His favourite romances were those of Jean Paul and E. T. A. Hoffmann, whose influence over his mind is easily recognisable in the published compositions of his first period. No other work on which he might be engaged, however, prevented him from the composition of many songs. He threw one off after another. 'I generally read a poem through very slowly,' he said to Louise, 'and then, as a rule, the melody is there.'
Fräulein Japha was before her time in conceiving an enthusiasm for Schumann's art, and tried hard to win over Johannes to an appreciation of its beauties, but he was too entirely under the influence of Marxsen, who, in training him as a composer rightly proceeded on strictly orthodox lines, to become a present convert. He, on his part, made efforts to induce Louise to change her teachers and put herself under his master. She had quite other views, however. Schumann and his wife paid a visit to Hamburg in 1850, appearing several times in public, and Louise resolved that if it could be made possible, she would enter on a fresh course of study of composition and the piano under the two great artists respectively. She only waited for a convenient opportunity to carry out her plan. Johannes approached Schumann in another fashion, by sending a packet of manuscripts to his hotel and begging for his opinion. It is no wonder that the master, who was besieged on all sides during his week's stay, found no time to look at them, and returned the parcel unopened.
It must not be supposed that the young Brahms was always so companionable as we have shown him when in the society of his chosen friends. He had his moods. Christian Miller's early experiences of his persistent taciturnity had not been exceptional. He spent a few evenings at the Japhas' house, but Louise's family, her sister Minna only excepted, by no means took a fancy to her favourite. One evening, when he was about eighteen, a gentleman of the Japha circle, who had been interested in hearing him play the scherzo now known as Op. 4, the earliest written of his published instrumental works, accompanied him on the way home, and made repeated but quite hopeless efforts after sociability. Not one word would Johannes say. Perhaps he felt subsequent secret prickings of conscience, for he made confession to Louise, though not in any apparently repentant spirit. 'One is not always inclined to talk,' he said; 'often one would rather not, and then it is best to be silent. You understand that, don't you?' 'No, you were very naughty,' she told him, but forgave him nevertheless. She could overlook his occasional whims. She perceived his genius, admired his candid nature, and felt her heart warm to him when he talked to her of the old mother to whom he was devoted, and of Marxsen, whom he revered with all the enthusiastic loyalty of his true heart. Soon after his walk with the Japhas' friend he had a chance opportunity of playing his scherzo to Henry Litolff, who bestowed high praise on the composition.