We may confidently conjecture that chief amongst them must have been the first symphony, upon the completion of which Brahms was at this time concentrating his attention, and it is probable that he also showed the sketches of the second symphony to his old friend.
It was this year that Brahms consented to become a member for the music section of a commission for the awarding of certain gratuities granted annually by the Austrian Government to poor artists of talent who have produced promising works. Three members appointed by the Minister of Education for each of three sections—poetry, music, and the plastic arts—examine the applications and work sent, and judge between them. The fund was established in 1863, and the original adjudicators in the music section were Hanslick, Herbeck, and Essen. Brahms now replaced Essen, and a little later Goldmark succeeded Herbeck. The compositions were sent in the first place to Hanslick, who generally made a selection from them for Brahms' inspection, keeping back such as did not fulfil the required conditions or were hopelessly bad. In the Neue Freie Presse of June 29, 1897, Hanslick made public a few of the communications he had received from Brahms on these occasions, the first of which, dated September, 1875, was as follows:
'Dear Friend,
'Parcels such as your last are generally so thorny that some kind preliminary guidance like yours is most welcome and necessary as a help in finding one's way through. This time, however, things are not so bad, and seem to me fairly simple. Dvořák and Reinhold thoroughly deserve your proposal by their performances. In Lachner's case (blind) well-justified sympathy counts for something. M. certainly merits some help meanwhile. I mean he ought to win the money more decidedly next year. N. N. alone appears to me so undeserving of the gratuity that it might be given uselessly in his case. Just look again at his small and great sins. They are the most unmusical in the packet. Alas, if he should progress further! At all events he should desire and use the money for instruction and not for a libretto!'
The Quartet in C minor for pianoforte and strings, published in the autumn, was produced at Hellmesberger's concert of November 18 by Brahms, Hellmesberger, Bachrich, and Popper, and was played in Hamburg on January 3, 1876, by Levin, Böie, Schmall, and Lee.
This composition must, as the reader is aware,[50] be referred to more than one period of Brahms' activity, and it can hardly be accepted as a representative work of either. Standing about midway, as to date of publication, between his two great series of masterpieces for pianoforte and strings, if it is to be classed amongst either, it must indubitably be reckoned with that of the sixties. Internal no less than external evidence, however, leaves little doubt that it points back to a still earlier date. The master of the seventies has so far succeeded in remodelling the work of early youth as to have given to the world in the quartet an interesting, and, on the whole, a clear, presentment of many noble musical thoughts, but it can hardly be said that he has effected its transformation into a homogeneous or apparently spontaneous work of art. Kalbeck mentions that a memorandum of Brahms assigns the date 1873-74 to the third and fourth movements. This, however, may probably refer only to their final completion. The second movement (the scherzo), which undoubtedly belongs to the period of the pianoforte sonata numbered as Op. 1, is consistently characteristic of the composer at that date. The first and third movements suggest a transition period. The character of the ideas of the opening allegro with its impressive, deeply serious, first subject, and of the andante with its sustained melodious phrases, seems to give promise of the power which, manifested in a different mood, was reached in the earlier-published companion works. Of the finale it must be said that its themes are lacking in interest and developed mechanically. It may be surmised that the composer's pruning-knife was freely used in the course of his successive revisions of the work, and perhaps not only for the purpose of shortening it, but also for that of thinning out the score. From the circumstance that this is neither so luxuriant in detail nor so thickly instrumented as those of the other two pianoforte quartets, the C minor has, perhaps, the one advantage amongst the three of being the most readily appreciable at first hearing. It must, however, as the author conceives, be rated, as a completed work of art, decidedly below its glorious companions.
The relative popularity attained by the three pianoforte quartets in England may be fairly estimated by comparing the numbers of their respective performances at the Popular Concerts, London. The A major, introduced in January, 1872, was given ten times up to October, 1900, inclusive. The G minor, first performed in January, 1874, was given twenty-six times up to March, 1900. The C minor, first played in November, 1876, was not heard again until December, 1893.