Brahms and Stockhausen again united their forces in November, and gave several concerts together. At the first of two soirées in Hamburg, Brahms created a furore with some of the Hungarian Dances in their arrangement as solos. The programme included a performance by Stockhausen and his pupil Fräulein Girzik of two of the Duets, Op. 28, the second of which was rapturously encored. Brahms, as usual, accompanied his friend throughout the evening. He was received with acclamation at Bremen on the 30th of the month, when he played the pianoforte part of his A major Quartet at a concert of the excellent resident string quartet party led by Jacobsen, a fine player, and second concertmeister of the Bremen orchestra. On this, as on subsequent visits to Bremen, Brahms stayed, as a matter of course, with the Reinthalers.
Carl Bade, paying one of his frequent morning calls at the Anscharplatz about this time, was startled as he entered the house by the appearance of Jakob, who, coming towards him with finger on lip and laboriously treading on tiptoe, solemnly whispered, 'Hush!...' 'What is it, Brahms? Who is ill?' returned Bade under his breath, seriously alarmed. 'Hush!' repeated Jakob as mysteriously as before; 'he is dor' (he is there); and, opening the door of the corner room, he pushed in the astonished Carl and shut the door behind him without another word, leaving him alone with his son, who was busy weeding out his library in readiness for the despatch of his Hamburg possessions to Vienna. 'See here,' said Johannes, after a kind word of greeting, giving Bade time to recover the composure of which Jakob's strange coup had for a moment robbed him, by pointing to a volume in his hand, 'Kuhnau was a capable musician!'
The relation existing at this time between the elder and younger Brahms, of which mention was made in an early chapter, was well illustrated during the homely 'second breakfast' for which the party soon assembled. Sociability was rendered impossible, in spite of the persistent efforts of Johannes, by the father's overwhelming consciousness of his son's presence. The awed feeling which possessed Jakob whenever he found himself face to face with the living embodiment of his own miraculous success in life was not unnatural, and can only inspire respect for the memory of the older man, in whose simple humility, rooted in the strongest and most legitimate pride, may, perhaps, be recognised some of the essential qualities which endeared the great composer to all who were privileged to call him friend.
Brahms returned to Vienna in December, and was, of course, present at several concerts given there before and after Christmas by Frau Schumann, who visited Austria after an interval of some years.
The list of publications belonging to this year is an important one, not only because it includes the German Requiem (Rieter-Biedermann), but because it is representative of the master in what may be roughly called the second period of his activity as a composer of songs. From beginning to end of his career he poured forth songs in many different forms—the simple strophic, the 'durchcomponirtes' Lied, the latter necessarily varying in structure with each fresh example.[31] This second period, however, is marked not only by the sure mastery which had long characterized Brahms' works in whatever domain he chose for the exercise of his powers; its spirit is generally distinctive, and is that of the poet's ripe manhood. Youth with its uncertainties is behind, age with its gathering shadows not yet in sight; the composer holds the present in firm grasp, and presents us with exquisite dream-pictures of life and nature, the children of an imagination penetrated with a sense of the beauty, the tenderness, the pathos of existence, and content in the exercise of its ideality. Each of the five books published in 1868 (Op. 43 by Rieter-Biedermann, and Op. 46, 47, 48, 49 by Simrock) contains such wealth of beauty that it is difficult to select either for particular mention. Perhaps the palm should be given to Op. 43, of which 'Von ewiger Liebe' and 'Mainacht' are Nos. 1 and 2; but then, Op. 47 contains 'Botschaft,' and Op. 46 'Die Schale der Vergessenheit.' Stockhausen, who stayed at Neuenahr in the summer of 1868, came over to Bonn one day, and sang the greater number of these songs from the manuscript, accompanied by the composer, to Deiters. Brahms seemed determined not to publish 'Die Schale der Vergessenheit,' declaring it to be too 'desolate,' but Stockhausen's enthusiasm prevailed to alter his decision. Some of the shorter numbers belong, by date of composition, to an earlier period, as Goethe's 'Die Liebende schreibt,' the manuscript of which, in the possession of Frau Professor Böie, bears the inscription 'Frl. Marie Völckers in kind remembrance' and the date 1863. The widely popular 'Wiegenlied,' Op. 49, No. 4, was composed for one of Frau Faber's children, and the accompaniment is reminiscent of a folk-song which Brahms heard from Fräulein Bertha Porubszky in the old days of the Hamburg Ladies' Choir. The manuscript bears the inscription 'For Arthur and Bertha Faber for ever happy use. July 1868'; and at the close 'Mit Grazie in infinitum,' and is in the possession of these old friends of the composer.
Now, as ever, Brahms returned with delight to the fresh naïveté of the folk-song, and numerous examples of his settings of texts obtained from German, Bohemian, Italian sources are to be found in these books, of which 'Sonntag,' Op. 47, No. 3, and 'Am Sonntag Morgen,' Op. 49, No. 1, are perhaps the best known. 'Gold überwiegt die Liebe' is a touching little lament (No. 4 of Op. 48). The text of 'Von ewiger Liebe' is itself a Wendic folk-song, but the composer's treatment has placed it amongst the finest works of German art in song-form. As a rule, however, Brahms set folk-songs as such, and his treatment of them was direct, and, so to say, unstudied. He has set for a single voice popular texts of more than twenty nationalities besides his own, and, as he found them, as they appealed to him, so he composed them, without attempt either to interfere with the frank naturalness of the words, or to give national colour to his music. Such musical references as he occasionally makes in his songs to the origin of his texts are so unobtrusive as to be hardly noticeable, excepting by a special student of the subject.[32] 'Vergangen ist mir,' Op. 48, No. 6, points back to the tonal system of the Middle Ages. Like 'Sehnsucht,' Op. 14, No. 8, it is composed in the Dorian mode.
The enumeration of the great song publications of 1868 is not yet at an end. The issue by Rieter-Biedermann of Books 3, 4, 5, containing in all nine numbers, of the 'Magelone Romances,' of which the first two books had appeared in 1865, completed a song-cycle which ranks among the few supreme achievements of its class, increasing to the number of four a special group of names which had hitherto included those only of Beethoven, Schubert, and Schumann.
The fifteen 'Magelone Romances' are extremely various in structure, and can hardly be classified categorically under any of the ordinary song-forms. Spitta expresses his sense of their importance by the word 'symphonic.' Brahms' own name 'Romance' sufficiently indicates their nature, however. Some are of great, others of smaller, dimensions. Some consist of several movements, others of one short movement in three sections, of which the last repeats the first; one is bound into a whole by the melody of a refrain. They give vivid expression to a wide range of feelings: chivalric delight, progressive phases of passionate love, the despair of separation, reawakened hope, the confident bliss of reunion, certainty of the sacred power of love. Remembrance of the ideal performances of Stockhausen, to whom the cycle is dedicated, was indubitably present to Brahms' mind as he composed the songs, which, with the exception of Nos. 11 and 13, should be sung by a man. One may read and reread them, hear them and hear them again, but try in vain to decide on a favourite number. Each one places the listener in an enchanted world of noble beauty and romance, and in wealth and individuality of idea the cycle assuredly does not rank last amongst the few works of its kind.
The Songs and Romances Op. 44 mentioned in our first volume in connection with the Ladies' Choir were now also published by Rieter-Biedermann;[33] and Cranz of Hamburg issued the three Songs for six-part Chorus a capella, Op. 42, all of great charm. Its five-bar rhythm is an interesting feature of the second number, the lovely 'Vineta.' The text of No. 3, 'Darthula's Grabesgesang,' is a translation from Ossian, and is contained in Herder's 'Stimmen der Völker.'
'Brahms is here,' writes Billroth from Vienna on January 11, 'and is to give concerts with Stockhausen. He is going to bring out a cantata, Rinaldo, in February.... He is enthusiastic about the text because it leaves so much to the composer.'