CHAPTER XV
1869-1872
Brahms and Opera—Professor Heinrich Bulthaupt—The Liebeslieder—First performance—The Rhapsody (Goethe's 'Harzreise') performed privately at Carlsruhe—First public performance at Jena—Geheimrath Gille—The 'Song of Triumph'—Performance of first chorus at Bremen—Bernhard Scholz—The 'Song of Destiny'—First performance—Death of Johann Jakob Brahms—First performance of completed 'Triumphlied' at Carlsruhe—Summary of Brahms' work as a composer since 1862.
The theory that found wide acceptance during the lifetime of Brahms, and was discussed at length in a feuilleton of the Strassburger Post immediately after his death, that he never had and never could have seriously entertained the idea of composing for the stage, was long ago conclusively refuted by Widmann in his 'Recollections.' He shows that the master's wishes pointed at more than one period of his career in the direction of dramatic composition, and that he was prevented from following them by the same difficulty which proved insoluble to Mendelssohn—that of finding a libretto to suit his fancy.
'He was always particularly animated when speaking of matters connected with the theatre, as for instance when he once very decidedly demonstrated to me the vaudeville character of the first act of "Fidelio," which generally passes for a very good text-book. He possessed a genuine dramatic perception, and it gave him real pleasure to analyze the merits and defects of a dramatic subject.'[35]
The interest of this passage is enhanced by a few words that occur in an article on Brahms by Richard Heuberger:[36]
'We sat together the whole evening and I remember that Brahms spoke in detail of Mozart's "Figaro" and laid stress on the unparalleled manner in which Mozart has overcome the enormous difficulties of his text; "Mozart has composed it, not as a mere ordinary text-book, but as a complete, well-organized comedy."'
It would certainly have been matter for surprise if Brahms, who was peculiarly sensitive to the influence of really poetic dramatic effect, and whose interest in the drama furnished him with a source of frequent pleasure that did not diminish as he grew older—he rarely missed a première at the Vienna Burg Theater—had passed through life without feeling the inclination to test his powers as a composer for the stage, and this is very far indeed from being the case. Widmann's account of what took place between himself and Brahms on the subject of opera belongs to the late seventies, and we shall revert to it in its place; it points back, however, to an earlier time, which proves, as we might expect, to be that of the composer's intimacy with Devrient and Levi, with whose varied professional activity he manifested the warmest sympathy, and especially to the year 1869, when the publication of the German Requiem had left his mind at leisure for new important effort. Perhaps we may perceive the direction in which his wishes were moving in the fact that 'Rinaldo,' which contains the nearest approach to dramatic composition to be found in the catalogue of Brahms' works, was completed almost simultaneously with the Requiem; and it is possible that an indication of the obstacle that was to prove insuperable to their fulfilment may be read in Billroth's words quoted in the last chapter: 'Brahms is enthusiastic about [the text of] Rinaldo because it leaves so much to the composer.' However this may be, it is certain that he was strongly possessed at this period and on into the early seventies with the desire to compose an opera, and that he not only opened his mind unreservedly on the subject to his friends at Carlsruhe, but made repeated efforts in other directions to procure a libretto adapted to his views. Allgeyer furnished him with a completed text-book on Calderon's 'The Open Secret.' Through Claus Groth he obtained an unused text written for Mendelssohn by the poet Geibel, founded on the episode of Nausikaa in the 'Odyssey,'[37] and amongst others with whom he discussed the subject were Tourgenieff at Baden-Baden, who provided him with sketches, and, Heinrich Bulthaupt, then a rising young dramatic author and an intimate friend of Reinthaler's.
To Bulthaupt he proposed as a subject Schiller's fragment of a play 'Demetrius,' which he esteemed very highly, and, in a long conversation with this gentleman at his house in Bremen, he explained with precision his ideas as to the desirable treatment even of the minutiæ of dramatic action, taking as the theme of his exposition the libretto, written by Bulthaupt, of Reinthaler's opera 'Kätchen von Heilbronn.' Some of the peculiarities of his views which created for him unnecessary difficulties must be attributed to his inveterately logical habit of mind, which made it repugnant to him to take certain things for granted for the sake of stage exigencies. He went too far in a desire that the minor details of the drama should be visibly developed. Pointing to a scene in 'Kätchen von Heilbronn,' in the course of which three soldiers go into a drinking cellar, not to reappear, he inquired: 'What becomes of them?' 'It is assumed that they go away,' replied Bulthaupt; 'do you mean to say that you wish actually to see them come out again on to the stage?' 'I should like to do so,' Brahms answered. A moment's reflection would, of course, have shown him that the scene in question was, in fact, realistic, since the soldiers might in actual life have left the cellar by a back-door, unseen by those who observed them enter through the front one. The anecdote is, however, illustrative of a mental habit which must have confronted Brahms with countless difficulties so long as he merely contemplated the composition of an opera. The work of composing one, had he ever settled down to it, might probably have solved many of them.
The idea of 'Demetrius' fell through. Bulthaupt suggested to Brahms a consideration which, in no way applicable to Schiller's piece, seemed to him of importance in view of its adaptation as an opera. He thought that the necessity of introducing some amount of Russian colouring into the music of a drama having for its subject an episode of Russian history, not only might prove irksome to a composer so strongly imbued as Brahms with the sentiment of German nationality, but would be prejudicial to the tragic breadth of Schiller's play as it stands. Brahms, on thinking over the matter, probably felt the weight of his friend's remarks, for he did not return to his proposal.
Points of interest in the composer's suggestion of Schiller's 'Demetrius' for the subject of a tragic opera are that ambition and not love is the mainspring of its action, and that the feminine interest of the piece is centred neither in maiden nor wife, but in Marfa, the mother of Demetrius, in whom are exhibited powerful emotions arising from unerring maternal instinct and baffled affection. It recalls the period, moreover, when Brahms and Joachim shared each other's daily thoughts on all subjects. Joachim composed an overture to Hermann Grimm's play of 'Demetrius' in 1854, and, about the middle of the seventies, the well-known 'Marfa' scena for contralto and orchestra from Schiller's fragment. A similar association is presented in Brahms' favourite suggestion for the text-book of a serio-comic opera or operetta, of Gozzi's 'König Hirsch,' the work with which Joachim's 'Overture to a Play of Gozzi's' is to be connected. Arrangements by Brahms of both these compositions of his friend, as pianoforte duets, were found in his rooms after his death, and were published with the very few manuscripts that he allowed to survive him.