His pupils, however, offered him the mute sympathy and support of punctual attendance and respectful attention at class, and the Minister remained loyal to him. He retained his appointment till the close of 1876, though ill-health prevented him from performing his duties during the last half-year. He died at Nürnburg in 1880. His friendship with our master did not terminate with the incident of the pictures.
'Brahms has lent me his fur-coat for my journey,' he wrote in February, 1875, on the eve of his departure for Rome.
The 'Battle of the Amazons' was presented by the artist's mother to the city of Nürnburg in the year 1889, and hangs there in the picture gallery of the Town Hall. Many of the studies for the 'Amazons' and the 'Symposium' were purchased by King Ludwig II. of Bavaria, and presented by him to the Royal Pinakothek at Munich.
Of the many letters of congratulation received by Allgeyer after the appearance of his 'Life of Feuerbach' in 1894, one of those most highly prized by him came from Brahms.
Brahms paid one visit to the great Exhibition in the company of Groth and other friends, though the noise and bustle of such a scene were by no means to his taste. He was more anxious that his friend should see and hear what was really characteristic of Vienna. 'You must go to the Volksgarten on Friday evening when Johann Strauss will conduct his waltzes. There is a master; such a master of the orchestra that one never loses a single tone of whatever instrument!'
Having promised to arrange a meeting between Frau Dustmann of the imperial opera and Groth, Brahms came to the poet's hotel one morning, and entering the room where he was lying in bed with a bad feverish cold, exclaimed delightedly: 'Come to me this evening, the Dustmann will sing to you.' 'But you see I am ill,' returned Groth testily. 'You will be astonished,' continued Brahms, whose boast it was that he had never in his life been really ill, 'there is a singer, there is an artist; she will please you!' 'Ah, my dear fellow, I really cannot come,' pleaded the other, 'Johann has just put a cold compress on, I am so miserable!' 'She is very seldom free just now; she cannot come another day.' 'Surely you see how miserable I am. How I should like to come, but I cannot,' persisted Groth. Then Brahms turned to go. 'You are a Philistine!' he declared angrily as he left the room.[47]
The ante-Christmas season of 1873, signalized on its immediate opening by the performance of the String Quartet in A minor at Berlin, already referred to, was further rendered distinctive in Brahms' career by the first performance from the manuscript of the Variations for Orchestra on a theme by Haydn, which took place at the Vienna Philharmonic of November 2 under Dessoff's direction. The masterly and attractive work consists, as most amateurs are aware, of eight variations and a finale on the 'Chorale St. Antoni.' The composer adheres almost entirely to Haydn's harmonies in the giving out of the theme. The variations are constructed on the principle often observable in his works in this form; they constitute, as it were, a series of little movements each woven more or less appreciably from the matter of the chorale, but each with a character of its own and complete in itself, while the entire composition is gathered together and rounded into a whole by the finale. Brahms' vivid and original imagination of tone-effect is very clearly discernible throughout the work, and is especially illustrated in it by his original and effective employment of the double bassoon.
The variations were received by the crowded audience, and reviewed by the press, with warm welcome and with grateful appreciation of their beauty and perfection, if with some trace of disappointment that he who 'held the sceptre' in the domain of music for the chamber and the concert-room, and must of all living musicians be pre-eminently qualified for the composition of a symphony, should be the very man to refrain from writing one. Brahms, however, was well aware of the gigantic difficulty of the task that lay before him in the writing of a symphony that should successfully encounter that ordeal of comparison with the greatest works of its class which had become inevitable by the fact of his acknowledged supremacy in other forms. The ultimate cause of his delay and the pledge of his future victory are alike to be found in the nature of his artistic convictions, which, holding him loyal to the traditions of the past masters of instrumental music, made it impossible to him to seek novelty by compromising with modern methods. Brahms elected to wait until, with the gradual ripening of his powers to full maturity, he should feel, not only that he had something of his own to say in the highest domain of pure music, but that he had mastered the power of expressing it in a manner true to himself. Had he never felt assured on these two points it is certain that no symphony of his would ever have been made public, no matter to what sum of months the hours might amount which he had devoted to the study and practice of writing for the orchestra. Having now given a sign of his whereabouts he again drew a veil over the course of his artistic development, and, appearing before the public during the next three years only on ground which he had already made his own, revealed no more upward stages of his achievement until he at length stood victoriously before the world on its summit.
The variations were performed for the second time on December 10 under Levi in Munich.
The Gesellschaft season opened under Brahms' direction on November 9, with Beethoven's Overture, Op. 115, and Handel's 'Alexander's Feast.' A varied programme was given at the second concert of December 7: