The post of conductor to the court orchestra, which became vacant on Kiel's retirement with a pension in 1864, and which might probably under other circumstances have been offered for the acceptance or refusal of Brahms, passed to Bargheer, who retained it until 1876, when Prince Leopold's death put an end to the musical activity of Detmold.
Brahms' interest in the orchestra had been by no means even temporarily satisfied by the writing of the works of which we have recorded the performances. The first serenade was not completed before he had sketched a second, the finished manuscript of which he carried with him on his departure from Detmold early in January, 1860. Separated longer than ever from Joachim, whose successes in England, Scotland, and Ireland detained him until nearly the end of the year 1859, Johannes now went to see his dearest friend, and during his stay at Hanover heard a private trial of the new Serenade for small Orchestra (wind, violas, 'celli, and basses). The work was performed for the first time in public at the Hamburg Philharmonic concert of February 10. On the same occasion Joachim transported the audience by his performances of Beethoven's Concerto and Tartini's 'Trillo del Diavolo,' and Johannes had a great success as pianist with Schumann's Concerto.
The second serenade was considered easier to understand than its elder sister, and was received with comparative favour, though not with enthusiasm. To the ears of the present generation the work appears limpidly clear, and it is difficult to realize that it was ever accounted otherwise. In it we have a chef-d'œuvre which displays our musician passed finally from his transition stage and standing out clearly as a master in definite possession both of aim and method. Unmistakably he has taken his footing on the basis of tradition, and creates with the freedom of self-control within the forms consecrated by the works of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, no longer betrayed by immaturity into anything that could be misconstrued as the intentional discursiveness of rhapsody. The work is impregnated with a breath as fragrant as the spirit of Schubert's muse, and, though perhaps not fully representative of the very powerful individuality now associated with the name of Brahms, bears the distinct impress of his mind, and could have been written by no other composer. Each of the five movements is a gem of the first water. Each has a character of its own, which yet combines with every other to make the serenade a perfect example of a developed form of garden music, night music. Graceful romance, tender playfulness, lively frolic, just the stirring of the deeper emotions, all the gentler phases of poetic sentiment, are suggested in turn by its lovely melodies.
etc.
[Listen]
Why is this masterpiece so seldom heard?
Appropriately called a serenade from the character of its ideas, and even from the structure of its movements, which, whilst fully developed, are all quite clear, balanced and symmetrical each in itself and as part of a whole, and indicate the composer's perfect fulfilment of his intention, the length of the work again approaches that of a symphony. It must be borne in mind that to a general audience the name 'serenade' as applied to instrumental music does not now suggest any particular class of composition, the times and customs which produced this form having long since passed away; whilst it is customary to associate with the word 'symphony' a suggestion of the more strenuous emotions of human existence. Thus, the ordinary concert-goer who listens to Brahms' work is puzzled as to what he ought to expect, and his uncertainty interferes with his enjoyment.
Another drawback, under modern concert conditions, to the general appreciation of the beautiful Serenade in A major is the absence of violins from the score. It hardly needs pointing out that the, so to say, muted tone of the combination of instruments employed by the composer would be ideal in the surroundings proper to the performance of the 'serenade' as originally so called—palpitating summer heat, deep-blue, starlit sky, flitting to and fro of gallant and graceful forms—but in the prosaic atmosphere of a modern concert-room the bright tone of the violins cannot, perhaps, be safely dispensed with throughout the length of so long a work. It consists of an allegro moderato, scherzo, quasi minuetto with trio, rondo. It may still be hoped, however, that the serenade may be revived, and may take its place in the répertoire of our concert societies.
We have lingered so long over the two serenades that a bare mention must suffice of the performance of the first in D major—the first performance in the second and final rearrangement of the score—at the Hanover subscription concert of March 3 under Joachim's direction, nor need we dwell upon the fact that it was received with indifference by audience and critics. It is time to glance again at the party conflicts of the day, and especially to note the activity of the disciples of Weimar, whose partisanship, as the reader may remember, had been stimulated to violence by the candid admissions of Joachim's letter to Liszt quoted on p. [212].
'In the Grenzboten,' says Moser,[87] 'Otto Jahn, the biographer of Mozart, led the cause of the conservative party and of those musicians whose creative art was rooted in classical tradition. In the opposite camp, Brendel, with a staff of like-minded colleagues, represented in the Neue Zeitschrift the principles of radical progress, and extolled Liszt as the Mozart of his time, in whose works were united the efforts and results of all art epochs from the day of Palestrina. Liszt's cause and the Wagner question were treated as almost inseparable, and from this time dates the unfortunate influence of the "Wagnerians," who, in Raff's words, damaged rather than helped their master's cause.'