The concert attracted a great audience, which included prominent musicians from various parts of the United Kingdom. The impression created by the symphony was profound, and, following that of the German Requiem and of the great chamber music compositions and songs which had now for some years been finding their way to the hearts of music lovers in this country, formed, as Stanford says, 'an imperishable keystone to Brahms' fame amongst Britons.'[54] The new work was performed in London a few weeks later at the Philharmonic concert of April 16, under W. G. Cusins.
Probably Brahms' Vienna friends and admirers little dreamed how near they had been at this time to losing their favourite. The position of municipal music-director at Düsseldorf was pressed on his acceptance in the autumn of 1876, and he was sufficiently tempted by it to be characteristically unable to decide on a negative answer. He was, indeed, so long in coming to a final resolution, that the Düsseldorf authorities had every reason to feel persuaded they had secured him for the opening of the year 1877. At the last moment he wrote: 'I cannot make up my mind to it.' This seems to have been the last occasion on which he entertained the idea of binding himself to the performance of fixed duties, though it has been surmised that he might have consented at a somewhat later period to associate himself with a high class for composition at the conservatoire of the Vienna 'Gesellschaft,' if he had been approached by the principal, Josef Hellmesberger, on the subject of forming one.
Certain incidents belonging to the autumn of 1877, related by Widmann in his Brahms' 'Recollections,' show that at this time, when the master had successfully proved his powers in every form of composition for the concert-room, the old desire to try his hand at writing for the stage revived within him. Brahms and Widmann met at Mannheim, and were present at the production, on September 30, of Götz's unfinished opera, 'Francesca di Rimini,' under Frank. In the course of a long tête-à-tête, held on their return to their hotel after the performance, Brahms clearly explained his views on the subject of opera texts, 'letting it be seen,' says Widmann, 'that any resolution he might have formed against composing an opera might give way were he to find himself in possession of a libretto really to his liking.'
The convictions professed on this occasion by the composer may be traced to an attitude of mind similar to that to which we referred on recording his conversation with Bulthaupt. Strange as it may appear, they have a fundamental kinship with those which led Wagner to embark on his career as a musico-dramatic reformer, though the methods proposed by Brahms were not only much more drastic than those pursued by Wagner, but ran, as Widmann has observed, directly in the opposite direction from that taken by the development of modern art as represented by this master.
'The composition of music to the entire drama seemed to Brahms unnecessary and even mischievous. Only the culminating points and those parts of the action should be set for which music would be an inherently suitable medium of expression. The librettist would thus gain space and freedom for the dramatic development of his subject, whilst the composer would be at liberty to devote himself solely to the purposes of his art which would be best served if he were able to concentrate his energies on a definite situation such as a jubilant ensemble.'
From this it would appear that the incongruity essential to the very existence of what is generally understood as Opera, as distinct from the early German Singspiel, was so strongly felt by Brahms as to seem to him incompatible with dramatic truth, and to be absolutely prohibitive in his own case of the dramatic exercise of his art. The matter is, however, susceptible of another explanation.
It is clear that Brahms, when contemplating the composition of an opera, was bound by the necessities of his position to seek the attainment of dramatic truth in a direction other than that in which Wagner had led the way with such triumphant result. Every circumstance in the careers of the two men, and not least the representative position achieved by each in his own sphere, precluded the possibility that Brahms should run the risk of appearing to seek to emulate Wagner on his own ground, though it would be difficult to believe that he at no time cast longing thoughts towards the logical, consistent, rich means of artistic effect offered by the Melos.[55] No one can doubt that if he had been in a position, and had chosen, to use it, he would have employed it in his own way and for his own original purposes and effects. The skill with which he might have handled it in opera is to some small extent indicated in the Rhapsody (Goethe's 'Harzreise'), where the method of the two first sections is very much that of the Melos, whilst the prayer, affording an opportunity 'inherently suitable for musical expression,' reverts to the rhythmical melody of musical tradition. That Brahms had a respect almost amounting to veneration for Wagner's powers is matter of common knowledge. Though he was never present at a Bayreuth performance, he had studied Wagner's scores exhaustively, and, in the sense of his intimate acquaintance with them, was accustomed to call himself the 'best of all Wagnerians.' An anecdote related by Richard Heuberger,[56] to whom the master gave informal instruction in composition for a time from early in 1878, is highly illustrative in this connection. Heuberger says:
'... Continuing his corrections, Brahms did not confine himself to remarks on the composition itself, but considered the handwriting also worthy of his notice. He pointed out that I had not placed crotchet under crotchet, and that this impaired the legibility of the manuscript; he advised me to be particular to slur the groups of notes with exactness.... "Look here," he said, fetching from the next room Wagner's autograph score of "Tannhäuser," which he opened at the long B major movement of the second act; "Wagner has taken pains to place each of the five sharps exactly in its place on every line of every page, and in spite of all this precision the writing is easy and flowing. If such a man can write so neatly, you must do so too." He turned over the entire movement and pointed reproachfully to almost every sharp. I felt continually smaller, especially as Brahms talked himself into a kind of didactic wrathfulness. I was struck completely dumb, however, when, on my remarking that Wagner must be held chiefly responsible for the confusion prevailing in the heads of us young people, Brahms cried as though he had been stung, "Nonsense; the misunderstood Wagner has done it. Those understand nothing of the real Wagner who are led astray by him. Wagner's is one of the clearest heads that ever existed in the world!"'
That Brahms was aware that the resolution to compose an opera would place him in a net of difficulties that might practically be summed up in the one word 'Wagner' is no mere conjecture. Fräulein Anna Ettlinger, an intimate friend of Levi and Allgeyer, who knew Brahms well both at Carlsruhe and Munich, relates in an article on Levi, that Brahms answered a question put to him in Munich in the course of the seventies, as to why he had written no opera by saying, 'Beside Wagner it is impossible.' It may fairly be concluded that Brahms, in the late seventies, merely 'coquetted,' as Widmann expresses it, with the idea of composing for the stage, though no doubt with considerable regret.[57]
It cannot be said that the subjects he proposed to Widmann appear happy, but his suggestions must not be taken too seriously.