'I can still see the young fellow standing in silent embarrassment in the old Excellency's drawing-room, not quite knowing how to begin a conversation with the ladies, who were still practically strangers to him. Just then—it was about four o'clock—a princely carriage drove through the quiet street, in which were seated the three sisters of the reigning Prince on their way to dine with their brother at the palace. The ladies were accustomed to look up, as they passed, to the windows of my relations, and my aunt, seeing the carriage coming, said, "I will just nod to the Princess (Friederike) that Herr Brahms is come." Upon this Brahms broke silence with the words, "Do they live close by, then, like everyone else?" evidently thinking that the sign was to be given to an opposite window. This set the conversation going till I showed Brahms his room.'
The same evening Charles reappeared with his parents and Concertmeister Bargheer, of the Detmold court orchestra, a fine player, pupil of Spohr and Joachim, and already an acquaintance of Brahms. The Hofmarschall wished to hear the new-comer as a preliminary to his appearance at Court, and listened to most convincing performances of a thundering prelude and fugue of Bach and of Beethoven's C sharp minor Sonata, Op. 27. An orchestral court concert was immediately arranged, at which Johannes played his favourite Beethoven Concerto in G major and took part in a performance of Schubert's 'Forellen' Quintet with Concertmeister Bargheer, viola-player Schulze, violoncellist Julius Schmidt, all soloists of the court orchestra, and a bassist, member of the same body. His success was unequivocal, and he appeared with Bargheer at an assembly of musicians and their friends held after the concert at the chief confectioner's, in rollicking boyish spirits. Capellmeister Kiel, on the other hand, who looked rather askance at a probable future favourite at Court, assumed airs of even unusual importance. He was at present, he said, setting one of the Psalms as a chorus; he often composed Biblical texts, but was sometimes puzzled by the Scriptural expressions. For instance, 'To the chief musician on the Gittith.' 'Pray, can you inform me what a Gittith was?' solemnly to the young hero of the evening. 'Probably a pretty Jewish girl,' returned Brahms, with a serious air—an answer which procured him a suspicious look over the spectacles of the old musician, and enraptured Charles, who, supposed by his parents to be in bed, had found means of his own to join the party. The entertainment having been prolonged until dawn, the more ardent spirits of the gathering proposed a walk to a neighbouring height to see the sun rise, and Brahms and Charles strode off together, leading the way. Their enthusiasm survived that of their companions, who gradually dropped off; and overcome by weariness as they reached the beginning of the last steep climb, they turned into the garden of a restaurant hard by, where Charles dropped on to the corner seat of an arbour bench, and Brahms, stretching himself out at full length with his head on his companion's knee, immediately went soundly to sleep.
'Just as I, too, was giving way to fatigue,' continues Freiherr von Meysenbug, 'a fine brown spaniel came sniffing at Brahms' face, and he suddenly jumped up, roused by the dog's cold nose. Meanwhile the house had awakened, we drank some hastily-prepared coffee, satisfied our healthy young appetites with delicious country black bread and golden-yellow butter, and trotted back to the little town. We both presented rather a questionable appearance in the streets, which were already astir, especially so the small Brahms in dress-coat, crumpled and disarranged white necktie, and crush-hat on one side. Paying a passing visit to the faithless Bargheer, whom we disturbed in his morning slumbers, we next set out for my grandmother's dwelling. There—oh, horror!—we suddenly came upon my aunt setting out for her morning walk. A distant look of righteous indignation travelled up and down the two night-enthusiasts, for Brahms' attire betrayed but too clearly that he had not been back since the previous evening. A stormy atmosphere prevailed during the day in the house of the hospitable ladies, who were not only unused to visits from men, but could never have imagined that the ideal artist would commit himself to such extravagances. I was severely censured by grandmother and aunts as the harebrained youth who had led the honoured guest astray. Brahms left the next day, not having been very warmly pressed to prolong his visit! He had, however, given such satisfaction in high quarters that his return in the autumn for a long stay in Detmold was definitely arranged. He was to give lessons to the Princess, play at Court, and conduct an amateur choral society, which, by invitation of the Prince, held its weekly meetings at the castle, and to which His Serene Highness, together with his brothers and sisters, belonged as regular members.'
Brahms, who could now look forward to the autumn without anxiety as to his finances, and who appreciated in anticipation the advantages he would derive as a composer from his position as conductor of a choral society and from constant association with a standing orchestra, met Frau Schumann on her return from England, where she had again passed the London season, in happy mood. Any regret he may have felt at resigning his freedom of action for a few months by a binding engagement was mitigated by the fact that his association with Düsseldorf must in any case shortly be severed. Frau Schumann had made up her mind that she would best serve her own happiness and the interests of her family by settling near her mother in Berlin, and was to take up her residence there in September, in readiness for the concert season and for the more advantageous opportunity of working as a teacher in the Prussian capital, by which she hoped to supplement her income. Born September 13, 1819, the great pianist, now not quite thirty-eight, was in the zenith of her powers, and, with the probability of a long career before her, it is not surprising that she should have resolved to begin a new chapter of life away from the town that was chiefly associated in her mind with painful recollections. A short summer vacation was passed by her on the Rhine in the more or less constant society of Brahms, Joachim, and Grimm, and a memorial of a few specially pleasant days spent at St. Goarshausen is in existence in the shape of a copy, in her handwriting, of Brahms' Variations, Op. 21, No. 2. On the outside page is written:
'Ungarische Variationen von Johannes. Herrn Julius Otto Grimm, zur Erinnerung an die Tage in St. Goarshausen. August, 1857. Clara Schumann.'[73]
It was at this moment that Joachim resolved on a step which contributed not a little to inflame the party feeling animating the younger disciples of the New-German school. That they had felt increasingly aggrieved by the position taken up by him since the crisis of Schumann's illness, by his thoroughgoing association of his name and influence with the art of the master and his wife, by his intimacy with Brahms, and by his passive attitude towards Liszt's Symphonic Poems, may be read in letters of the period. Bülow, whose correspondence up to the middle of 1854 contains repeated affectionate references to Joachim, to whom he was immensely attached, wrote to Liszt in reference to the numerous concert journeys of 1855 undertaken with Frau Schumann:
'Joachim and the statue of which he is making himself the pedestal are not coming here till the beginning of next month. I am afraid we shall have difficulty in recognising each other, for we are at work in completely opposite directions.'
Perhaps their secret conviction of Joachim's artistic sincerity added to the disappointment of the Weimarites, which undoubtedly increased during the two following years, though his dislike of the Symphonic Poems was only to be guessed by his silence about them. On the publication of the works in 1857, however, with a somewhat pretentious preface, the embarrassment he felt from the consciousness that he would be unable to live up to the desires of his quondam associates, stimulated beyond a doubt by the sympathy of Johannes, who fully shared his sentiments, induced him to pen a letter to Liszt in which he made full confession of his apostasy. The intense pain which the writing of it caused him, attached as he was to everything about Liszt excepting his compositions, may be read in every line of the epistle, which is dated August 27, 1857.
'... But of what use would it be if I were to delay any longer saying plainly what I feel? My passivity towards your works could not but reveal it to you, who are accustomed to be treated with enthusiasm, and who regard me as capable of true, active friendship. I will not, therefore, longer conceal what, as I confess, your manly soul had the right to demand of me sooner. I am entirely without sensibility for your music; it contradicts everything upon which my powers have been nourished since early youth from the spirits of our great ones. If it were conceivable that I could ever be robbed, that I must renounce what I have learned to love and reverence in their works, what I feel as music, your tones would be no help to me in the vast, annihilating desert. How, then, could I associate myself with the object of those who, under the banner of your name and in the belief (I speak of the conscientious among them) that they are bound to make themselves responsible for contemporary justice towards artistic achievement, make it the aim of life to spread the acceptance of your works by every means at their command?...'
These lines were written when Joachim was twenty-six. That they were wrung from him by the strength of his artistic convictions is clear, and it is certain that they were entirely characteristic of the writer at the time. It is probable that Brahms, if he had been called upon to compose the letter, would have expressed himself differently; but then, he would not, under similar circumstances, have felt the same amount of pain. An element in his great influence over his friends, and one which he encouraged through life by deliberate training, was to accept the inevitable with philosophy, and to look on the bright side of things; and his natural elasticity of temperament would have enabled him, had circumstances demanded of him the sacrifice of a friendship, to yield it with little outward flinching. It is difficult for the present generation, for whom the artistic party questions of half a century ago have little beyond historic interest, to judge of the position of those for whom they were a burning personal topic; but it is certain that Joachim's letter to Liszt added fuel to a fire which raged violently through the next succeeding years, and which occasioned the issue of a mass of controversial pamphlets and articles almost unreadable at the present day.