'All that you tell me is very nice,' said Brahms one day to Herr Conrat's two gifted young daughters, who, paying the master a visit in his rooms, had been encouraged by him to talk about the progress of their studies. 'You must know these things, which are very important; but I will show you something to be learnt of still greater consequence;' and he fetched from a drawer an old, worn, folded table-cloth. 'Look here,' said he, showing the two girls some exquisite darning, 'my old mother did this. When you can do such work you may be prouder of it than of all your other studies.'
After the completion of the Clarinet Quintet and Trio in 1892, Brahms allowed his mind the refreshment of change of work. The only original compositions belonging to the following year are the two books of 'Clavierstücke,' Op. 118 and 119, the appearance of which we have already chronicled. He was, however, engaged with his collection of German Folk-songs, arranged with pianoforte accompaniment, six volumes for one voice, and the seventh for leader and small chorus.
The publication of this valuable work in 1894, almost at the end of the life of the great musician who compiled it, adds yet another and most striking illustration to those on which we have commented, of the general continuity of the lines on which Brahms' career was shaped. As he began, so he ended. The boy of fifteen who arranged folk-songs for practice by his village society, the youth of twenty who used them in his first published works, the mature master who returned to them again and again for inspiration and delight, all live in the veteran of sixty-one, who, as he busies himself in preparing the unique collection, every page of which bears mark of his insight, skill, and sympathetic tact, seems to be looking back over the years of the past with longing to leave behind him a final sign of his love for his great nation and all belonging to it. 'It is the only one of my works from which I part with a feeling of tenderness,' he said on its completion for the press. A child of the people by birth, Brahms remained, with all his literary and artistic culture, a child of the people by sympathy. He loved, and ever had loved, the simple peasant folk of the country places where he dwelt, as part of the great life of nature which was his delight. His partiality for them had in it something which resembled his feeling for children. He was pleased with their naïveté, valued their confidence, and perhaps, idealist as he was, gave them credit for a genuineness and simplicity not always theirs. In their songs, it was this same naturalness that attracted him, and whether in his original settings of national texts, or in his arrangements of the people's melodies, nearly always, as we have seen, left the words as he found them in their spontaneous directness of expression. Writing to Professor Bächtold, to whom he sent a copy of his collection, he says:
'... I think you will find some things new to you, for if you have been interested in the music of our folk-songs, Erk and now Böhme will have been your guides? These have hitherto led the (very Philistine) tone, and my collection stands in direct opposition to them. I could and should like to gossip more if I knew that you were interested and especially if we were sitting together comfortably....'[83]
Brahms at one time contemplated changing his rather confined quarters at Ischl, but a feeling of loyalty to the good folks in whose house he had spent several summers, and who regarded themselves as having a prescriptive right to their lodger, asserted its sway over his kind heart. He returned to them as each succeeding spring came round, and the little signs that heralded his approach—the opening of shutters, the cleaning of windows, and other preparations visible from outside—were eagerly looked forward to by the country people near as the first tokens of the approaching season.
Frau Grüber's little house, of which Brahms occupied the first-floor, was built on a mountain slope, and a short flight of steps at the side led to a small garden furnished with a grass plot, a garden bench, and a summer-house. Visitors had to mount the steps, cross the garden, find a second entrance-door at the back of the house, go in, and knock at the door of the composer's sitting-room. Sometimes he would cross the room, open the door, and peep cautiously out; but more often than not he called out, 'Come in!' and the visitor stepped at once into his presence. He laid strict injunctions on his landlady, however, that the door of his rooms was to be kept locked and the key in her possession whenever he was out, and that on no account was she to allow anyone even to peep into the room containing his papers and piano. If he once found out that she had disregarded this rule, once would be enough for him; that very day he would pack up and leave her, never to return. It was a most necessary precaution to take, for numerous visitors of either sex who were unknown to him found their way to the house, and would gladly have sought consolation for their disappointment at not seeing him by inspecting some of his belongings.
One or other of his friends frequently called for him about half-past eleven, and soon afterwards he would start out and gradually make his way to the Hôtel Kaiserin Elisabeth. Between two and three o'clock he usually made his appearance on the promenade by the side of the river. Stopping at Walter's coffee-house, he would seat himself at a table under the trees outside, where a cup of black coffee and the daily papers were at once brought to him. Here he generally remained for at least an hour, and sometimes it was much longer, to be joined by one friend and another till his party numbered a dozen or more. Walter's became, indeed, at this hour of the day, a rendezvous not only for Brahms' personal friends, but for many musical visitors to Ischl who did not know him, but who heard that they could easily get a sight of him there. He was very particular in acknowledging the greetings of his numerous acquaintance as they passed along the promenade, and, owing to his anxiety to be courteous and his near-sightedness combined, he sometimes made a mistake and bowed to people whom he did not know.
'Oh, if you had only been with us this afternoon!' a friend and fellow-lodger said to the author one day in the summer of 1894. 'Paula and I were walking on the promenade, and we met Brahms, who greeted us so kindly. He waved his hand, and looked round, saying, "Good-day! good-day!" Of course I returned his greeting. I wonder if it could have been because he was pleased with my little Paula? He takes so much notice of children.' Frau F. was far too much gratified by the incident to accept the author's opinion that it was a case of mistaken identity, as Brahms was not in the habit of consciously bowing to strangers.