'Dear Friend,
'You will wonder that most glad and grateful reply has not arrived sooner to yours and many other kind letters received by me. I seem to myself as one who has been praised beyond desert, and should like to creep into hiding for awhile. I resolved, on receipt of the telegraphic despatch ... to be content with such a flattering summons and not to tempt the gods further ... and since nothing more is in question than whether I have the courage to say "yes," it shall be so. Had I refused, my reasons would not have been understood by the academy or by you Viennese generally....'
These occurrences put an end to the various holiday projects which Brahms had been considering. 'I cannot make up my mind to deprive my parents of any of our short time together,' he wrote in answer to Dietrich's pressing invitation, and remained quietly near and at Hamburg. He began at once to occupy himself with plans for his programmes, and begged Dietrich's advice 'as a very experienced and learned court-conductor' on matters connected with his new duties. 'I feel enormously diffident,' he says, 'about trying my talent for these things in Vienna.'
Allowing himself but three days en route for a visit to beautiful Lichtenthal, a suburb of Baden-Baden, where Frau Schumann had purchased a house the previous year on giving up her residence in Berlin, Brahms was back again in Vienna by the last week of August, and soon engaged with characteristic earnestness in work connected with his new appointment. His scheme for the weekly practices of the Singakademie season included works by Bach, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Schumann, and masters of the earlier period whose music was a speciality of the society. The first concert of the season 1863-64, given on November 15 under his direction, presented the following programme:
| 1. Bach: | Cantata, 'Ich hatte viel Bekümmerniss.' (First time in Vienna.) |
| 2. Beethoven: | 'Opferlied.' |
| 3. H. Isaak (late 15th cent.): | Three German Folk-songs— a. 'Innsbruck ich muss dich lassen.' b. 'Es ist ein Schnitter heisst der Tod.' c. 'Ich fahr dahin wenn es muss seyn.' |
| 4. Schumann: | 'Requiem für Mignon.' (First time in Vienna.) |
The co-operating artists were Frau Wilt and Frau Ferrari; Herr Danzer, Herr Dalfy, and Herr Organist Bibl. No doubt could be felt at the close of the performances of Brahms' gifts as a conductor.
'The concert was not only excellent in itself, but was, with exception of the first performance in Vienna of Bach's "Matthew Passion," by far the most noteworthy achievement in the record of the Singakademie, and gave us the opportunity of recognising Brahms' rare talent as a conductor.'
Bach's cantata was rendered 'with splendid colouring and spiritual insight'; the three delightful Volkslieder 'opened all hearts.' These were received with such stormy applause that a fourth, not less acceptable, was added. Considerable surprise seems to have been excited, not by the conductor's inspired conception of the works performed, but by the precision and clearness of his beat, which, remarks one critic,
'could hardly have been expected of an artist who has shown himself, in his creations and performances, so essentially a romanticist and dreamer.'
These last words sound strange as coming from a writer in Vienna who may be supposed to have gained some knowledge of the serenades, the B flat sextet, and the two pianoforte quartets, and they are quoted, not because of their aptness, but as illustrating a difficulty which the composer's individuality, reflected in his works as in a mirror, caused for many a long year to some of his less competent, even though friendly, critics—the difficulty of knowing how to classify him. From an early period his determination was strong to bring the womanly tenderness and dreamy romance that were in him under the complete control of his energetic will, to give supreme dominance in art, as in life, to understanding rather than to emotion, to possess and be master of his powers; but, during the earlier years of his activity, the subtle poetic charm dwelling within his works made itself felt by many sympathetic listeners who could not immediately follow their closely-woven texture, and who were puzzled by his independent treatment—at times almost amounting to a re-creation—of traditional form. Hence, he has not seldom been spoken of as essentially a romanticist long since his position as the representative descendant of Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven was recognised by those most competent to judge.