CHAPTER VI
1854-1855
Brahms at Hanover—Hans von Bülow—Robert and Clara Schumann in Hanover—Schumann's illness—Brahms in Düsseldorf—Variations on Schumann's theme in F sharp minor—B major Trio—First public performance in New York—First attempt at symphony.
With the opening of the year 1854, Brahms may be said to have entered upon the first chapter of his new life. The transition stage of his career had been defined with unusual sharpness of outline. The eventful journey had been as a bridge by which he had passed from youth to manhood. Behind it were the dark years of lonely effort with issue still untried, the gathering up of strength and treasure but dimly recognised by the worker, labouring under a thick haze of obscurity; in front lay, straight and clear, the pathway of endeavour towards a fixed goal, cheered by companionship and illumined by the consciousness of a measure of success already won. Having tranquillized his mind and shaken off the effects of months of excitement by nearly a fortnight's intercourse with his family and friends at Hamburg, Johannes was impatient to get quietly to work again, all the more since new and forcible motives—the sense of his responsibility to Schumann, and the desire to become as far as possible worthy of his encomiums—added their influence to the energy of his nature, and helped to spur him on to the resolve to outdo even his utmost.
Bringing his stay in Hamburg to a close with the opening of the New Year, he left on January 3 or 4 for Hanover, where he found a new introduction awaiting his arrival. Hans von Bülow, who had passed Christmas in Joachim's 'dear society,' writes on the 6th to his mother:
'I have become tolerably well acquainted with Robert Schumann's young prophet Brahms. He arrived two days ago, and is always with us. A very lovable, frank nature, and a talent that really has something God-given about it.'[44]
Bülow took an early opportunity of carrying out Liszt's desire, hinted at in the letter of December 16. He played the first movement of the C major Sonata on March 1 at Frau Peroni-Glasbrenner's concert in Hamburg, and was thus the first artist—always excepting the composer himself—to perform a work of Brahms in public. That his attitude towards our composer did not, during the succeeding twenty years, correspond with this promising beginning, as will be seen hereafter, may be chiefly attributed to the disappointment with which the disciples of the New-German school gradually realized that their artistic aims were at variance with the mature convictions of Joachim, whom they reckoned for a while as one of themselves, and of Brahms, whose allegiance they had hoped to secure.
Johannes, established in a lodging of his own at Hanover, began the routine of work, diversified by intimate association with a few chosen friends, which he preferred to the end of his life, and was soon absorbed in the composition of his B major Pianoforte Trio. The intimacy between Joachim and himself was now widened to a triple alliance by the addition of Grimm, and lively discussions were carried on in Joachim's rooms late into the night by the three friends. The young violinist had not been a smoker up to this time, but his companions used to envelop him and themselves in such thick clouds of tobacco, that one night, unable any longer to endure his sufferings passively, he suddenly declared his surrender, and began to puff away with the others, to Brahms' and Grimm's great delight.
Schumann had accepted an invitation from Hille, the founder and conductor of the 'New Singakademie' at Hanover, to be present at a performance of his 'Paradise and the Peri' on January 28, and, to the joy of the young musicians, wrote to Joachim to suggest that his visit, which was to be made in the company of his wife, should be the occasion of several public appearances. He continues:
'Now, where is Johannes? Is he with you? If so, greet him. Is he flying high—or only amongst flowers? Is he setting drums and trumpets to work yet? He must call to mind the beginnings of the Beethoven symphonies; he must try to do something of the same kind. The beginning is the main point; when one has begun, the end seems to come of itself....
'I hope also to see, or better still to hear, something new of yours soon. You, too, should remember the above-named symphony beginnings, but not before Henry and Demetrius.[45]