The first of Brahms' concert undertakings for the autumn was fulfilled on November 3 in the hall of the Museum, Carlsruhe, where he performed his Pianoforte Concerto at the first subscription concert of the season, accompanied by the grand-ducal orchestra under Levi. The work was received, for the first time, with every sign of approval. 'The people had the surprising kindness to be quite satisfied, to call for me, praise me, and all the rest of it,' he wrote to Dietrich.
Two of the vocal quartets, Op. 31, were included in the programme, and Brahms played some unaccompanied Schumann solos in the second part of the concert.
On the 6th of the month two new 'Magelone Romances' were sung for the first time in public by Krause, at a concert given in the same hall by Frau Schumann and Joachim; and before Brahms left Carlsruhe the first private performance took place of the newly-completed Trio in E flat for pianoforte, violin, and horn, a composition which has now long occupied a peculiar place in the affection of genuine lovers of his music on account of the tone of pure beauty that pervades it—beauty of sound, of mood, and idea. The noble simplicity of its themes and the spontaneous character which distinguishes their development hold the attention even of the unfamiliar listener from beginning to end of this inspired work, and the great musicianship of the composer has wrought it to a flawless example of its kind, in which no weak spot can be detected by deliberate examination. The adagio has the character of a lament, and can hardly be matched as an expression of profound sadness excepting by a few others of Brahms' and some of Beethoven's slow movements. The work was a favourite with the composer, and it is of interest to know from his own lips that its inception was due to an inspiration that came to him in the course of one of his walks near Lichtenthal. A year or two later than our present date, as he was ascending one of his beloved pine-clad hills in Dietrich's company, he showed his friend the exact spot where the opening theme of the first movement had occurred to him, saying: 'I was walking along one morning, and as I came to this spot the sun shone out and the subject immediately suggested itself.'[12]
From Carlsruhe Brahms proceeded to Switzerland, where he appeared at Basle, Zürich, and Winterthur. At Zürich he conducted his D major Serenade, given there two years previously under Fichtelberger, and performed the solo of Schumann's Pianoforte Concerto, and Bach's Chromatic Fantasia; and at Winterthur he gave a chamber music soirée in combination with his friend Theodor Kirchner and the young violinist F. Hegar. Of this Widmann, who saw and heard Brahms for the first time on the occasion, has given some account in his 'Recollections.'
'There was,' he writes, 'a something in his countenance which suggested the certainty of victory, the beaming cheerfulness of a poet happy in the exercise of his art.'
Returning to Germany, Brahms appeared next at Mannheim, and, on December 12, conducted his D major Serenade and played Beethoven's E flat Concerto at the fifth Gürzenich subscription concert of the season at Cologne. He had but little success on this occasion either as pianist or composer. The serenade was criticised as being too lengthy and its themes as too 'naïve' for his elaborate treatment of them. A different reception was accorded him at a soirée of chamber music held at the conservatoire, when he performed with Hiller his Duet Variations, Op. 23, and with von Königslow and his colleagues the G minor Pianoforte Quartet. Both works were received with acclamation, and the composer achieved a success worthy of his position in the world of art. Before leaving Cologne Brahms played at a meeting of the Musikverein to a private audience of the members, most of them professors and students of the conservatoire. Amongst the pieces chosen by him for performance on this occasion were Bach's great Organ Prelude and Fugue in A minor.
And now the anxious son found opportunity to hurry with beating heart to Hamburg to see his father and to make the acquaintance of his stepmother-elect. To find, also, every probability that Jakob had chosen wisely, and that his contemplated change of life bade fair to ensure a happy and peaceful close to a career that had been full of hardship and uncertainty.
Frau Caroline Schnack, a handsome widow who had already been twice a wife, was just turned forty-one, and therefore more than seventeen years the junior of her proposed third husband. She had an only child, her son Fritz, born of her second marriage, now a lad of about thirteen. Capable and managing, she kept an excellent public dining-room for single men not far from the musicians' 'Börse,' described in an early chapter of our narrative, and had a regular clientèle amongst the members of the Stadt Theater orchestra. Since the time when Johannes had thought it advisable for his parents to separate, Jakob had been one of her daily customers, and her good cooking and substantial capacity had gradually opened for her the way to his affection. Johannes, on his interview with Frau Schnack, was at once favourably impressed by her personality and gave his consent to the engagement, only insisting that full time for consideration on both sides should be allowed before the taking of the irrevocable step of marriage; and after a day or two in Hamburg he set out with a greatly relieved mind for Detmold, where he had arranged with Bargheer to spend the Christmas week and to reappear as composer and pianist on the scenes of his former activity.
The visit passed off most happily. The great composer, to whom, with some disappointment, much success and fame had come since his last sojourn in the little capital six years previously, was merry according to his wont when in the midst of familiar associates. Such changes as had taken place in the circle were for the better. Bargheer was married, Carl von Meysenbug engaged. The reunions of the former bachelor friends were enlivened by the presence of ladies—charming young married women and pretty girls—and Brahms was ready to abandon himself to any amount of fun, his almost extravagant buoyancy of spirits being no doubt assisted by the reaction from his late tension of mind in regard to his father's affairs. These social occasions were but the interludes between more serious pleasures. Every day there was music at the palace, the castle, or one or more of the private musical houses. Brahms conducted his A major Serenade and played Beethoven's E flat Concerto at an orchestral concert, and took part in a soirée at the palace, where, amongst other things, he performed the Kreutzer Sonata with Bargheer before the well-remembered sympathetic court circle. The visit, which was the last paid by him to Detmold, formed a fitting close to his association with Prince Leopold's court, to whose memory, and especially to that of the various members of the princely family, must ever attach the artistic distinction of their early recognition of the composer's genius and their appreciation of his personality.
Brahms' next destination was Oldenburg, where he arrived in time to celebrate the New Year's festival of 1866 with the Dietrichs. He played his own Concerto and an unpublished composition of Schubert at the subscription concert of January 5, and at the chamber music soirée of the 10th contributed some Bach solos to the programme and took part with Dietrich in a performance of Schumann's Variations in B flat, and with Engel and Westermann in the first public performance of his own Horn Trio, which created a deep impression. It is important to add here that Westermann used the natural horn on the occasion by the particular desire of Brahms, who now and always insisted to the hornists of his acquaintance on the impossibility of securing a poetical interpretation of his work with the ventil horn.