Herr Oberschulrath Wendt, of Carlsruhe, when staying at Ischl, was daily to be seen in the master's company, and the two men, both of striking appearance, presented a singular contrast as they paced side by side along the promenade. Wendt, tall, thin, and pale, was delicate-looking, and walked with a slight stoop. Brahms, rather short, very stout, with a good deal of colour, probably acquired by exposure to the weather, that seemed the more pronounced from its contrast with his white hair and beard, went along with head well thrown back, the very personification of vigour. On leaving Walter's he generally betook himself to a friend's house, most frequently that of Johann Strauss. To his intimacy there the world is indebted for some of the best of his late photographs—those of Krziwanek, of Vienna and Ischl—which were taken one afternoon in the summer of 1895 as he was sitting at ease with his friends.
Brahms knew, and was well known to, all the children of the neighbourhood, and when starting on his country walks would fill his pockets with sweetmeats and little pictures, and amuse himself with the eagerness of the small barefooted folk, who knew his ways and would run after him as he passed, on the look-out for booty. 'Whoever can jump gets a gulden,' he would say; and, displaying beyond reach of the little ones a handful of sweetmeats made in imitation of the Austrian coin, he would increase his speed, and raise his hand higher and higher, drawing after him the flock of running, leaping children, until he allowed one and another to gain a prize.
Two Sonatas for clarinet and pianoforte, the last works of chamber music composed by Brahms, were completed during the summer of 1894, and towards the end of September Mühlfeld arrived at Ischl to try them with the composer. The first private performance took place very soon afterwards, when the two artists played them before the ducal circle of Meiningen at the palace of Berchtesgarten.
A reunion at Frankfurt in November is of pathetic interest. It carries us back to the very early pages of our narrative, and is the last complete one of the kind we shall have to record. For the last time we find Frau Schumann and her husband's and her own two dearest musician-friends assembled and making music together. Brahms arrived at her house on a few days' visit on the 9th of the month; on the 10th Mühlfeld spent the evening there, having come from Meiningen at the composer's especial request, and the new works were played to the illustrious lady, 'the revered Frau Schumann,' as Brahms used to call her to his younger friends, who had now completed her seventy-fifth year. The next day Joachim, prince of violinists at sixty-three as at twenty-one, the age at which he entered these pages, gave a concert with his colleagues of the Quartet, and on the 12th there was a party at Herr and Frau Sommerhoff's, when Brahms and Mühlfeld again played the two Sonatas, and Frau Schumann, Joachim, and Mühlfeld, Mozart's beautiful Clarinet Trio, a favourite work of Brahms. The reunion of old friends was completed by the presence of Stockhausen, who, like Frau Schumann, had been resident in Frankfurt since 1878. On the 13th, the third Frankfurt performance of the Clarinet Sonatas by Brahms and Mühlfeld took place at a large music-party at Frau Schumann's, and another memorable item of the evening's pleasures was the playing by Frau Schumann and Mühlfeld of Schumann's Fantasiestücke for pianoforte and clarinet. Joachim had left to fulfil other engagements before the evening, and Brahms departed on the 14th.
The master's journeys and performances with Mühlfeld gave him extraordinary pleasure, and the publication of the two sonatas, which in the usual course of things would have taken place in the autumn of 1894, was delayed until the summer of 1895, that his possession of the manuscripts might be prolonged. Both works were performed at the Rosé concerts, Vienna, by the composer and his friend—No. 2 in E flat on January 8, 1895, when the Clarinet Quintet was also played; and No. 1 in F minor at an extra concert on January 11, the programme of which included the G major String Quintet. Amongst other towns visited by Brahms and Mühlfeld in the month of February were Frankfurt, Rudesheim, and Meiningen, and the master was seen for the last time in public by his Frankfurt friends on the 17th, when he listened to a performance of his D major Symphony, and conducted his Academic Overture at a Museum concert. The two sonatas were performed for the first time after publication at Miss Fanny Davies' concert of June 24 in St. James's Hall, London, by the concert-giver and Mühlfeld, engaged expressly to come to England for the occasion. The manuscripts of both works are in the possession of Mühlfeld, to whom the composer presented them on publication, with an appreciative autograph inscription.
With the publication of the two Clarinet Sonatas, our master's career is all but closed, and closed as we would have it. The more familiar they become, the more firmly will they root themselves, as we believe, in the affection of the lovers of his music. The fresh, bounding imagination of youth is, indeed, not in them, nor would we wish it to be there; but both works are pervaded by a warmth and glow as of sunset radiance, which, reflecting the spirit of the composer as he was when he wrote them, fill the mind of the listener with a sense of the mellow beauty, the rich pathos, the unwavering sincerity of his art. To compare the two sonatas one with the other is unnecessary. We prefer simply to commend them to the study of those of our readers to whom they are not entirely familiar, holding them, as we do, to be amongst the especially lovable examples of the late period of Brahms' art.
CHAPTER XXII
1895-1897
The Meiningen Festival—Visit to Frau Schumann—Festival at Zürich—Brahms in Berlin—The 'Four Serious Songs'—Geheimrath Engelmann's visit to Ischl—Frau Schumann's death—Brahms' illness—He goes to Carlsbad—The Joachim Quartet in Vienna—Brahms' last Christmas—Brahms and Joachim together for the last time—The Vienna Philharmonic concert of March 7—Last visits to old friends—Brahms' death.