But few events remain for record in the life which we have now followed step by step nearly to the end of its progress. Of these few, several have the pathetic interest of last visits to dear and familiar places made, so far as appears, without presentiment that they were final. The composer was present at a three days' festival held in Meiningen September 27-29; 'the Festival of the three B's,' as it has sometimes been called, from the circumstance that the programmes were devoted to works by Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms. Those of Brahms selected for performance included the Song of Triumph, the fourth Symphony, the B flat Pianoforte Concerto, with d'Albert as pianist, the Clarinet Sonatas performed by the same artist with Mühlfeld, some of the Vocal Quartets, amongst them the early favourite 'Alternative Dance Song,' and others.
The festival was an immense success, and the pleasure which the master derived from the concerts is evident in the following lines written to Steinbach immediately after the last one:
'Dear Friend,
'However tempted I may feel, I dare not break in upon your well-deserved rest; but you shall find my hearty greeting awaiting you on your happy awakening; how hearty and grateful it is there is no need to tell you in detail. You must have perceived each day that you gave me and all who took part in your splendid festival, a quite exceptional pleasure....'[84]
Brahms was, of course, a guest at the castle, and he remained on for a few days after the last concert. Leaving Meiningen on October 3, he proceeded to Frankfurt on a flying visit to Frau Schumann. Professor Kufferath of the Brussels Conservatoire, with Mr. and Mrs. Edward Speyer, accompanied him on the short journey, and were, by his particular suggestion, invited to spend the evening at Frau Schumann's house. Professor Kufferath, a pupil of Mendelssohn at Leipzig, and on a very old footing of intimacy at the Schumanns', had been for more than twenty years on terms of cordial friendship with Brahms also, though the two men met but seldom. Frau Schumann's daughters Marie and Eugénie, and Stockhausen, were the only others present. The hours were spent in pleasant chat as between old friends, and music was represented only by a few of Brahms' folk-songs sung by Mrs. Speyer (Fräulein Antonia Kufferath) to the master's accompaniment.
Brahms left the next morning, but before his departure he requested his old friend to play to him. Forty-two years had passed since Schumann had desired him to play for the first time to her, marking both musicians with inevitable outward signs. The traces of suffering and sorrow had deepened of late on Frau Schumann's countenance, but those who were happy enough to listen to her playing at this period, in the privacy of her home, knew that her spirit was still young, and Brahms' last remembrance of the great artist, the remembrance of an old age which had left the poetry of her genius untouched, will have fitly completed the long chain of personal associations begun when Schumann called his wife to rejoice with him in the daring power and romantic enthusiasm of Johannes' inexperienced youth. When she rose from the piano on that October morning, the final link had been added. Frau Schumann and Brahms were not to meet again on earth.
A four days' festival in October (19-22) to celebrate the inauguration of the new concert-hall at Zürich seems to carry us more than one stage nearer the end. It brought Brahms for the last time to Switzerland to conduct his Triumphlied; a fine close—for as such it may almost be regarded—to a noble career.
Let us pause for a moment to picture the robust figure of the composer as he stands before the vast audience completely filling the brilliantly lighted hall, and leads with sure, quiet dignity the 'masses of chorus and orchestra' that swell out in proud tones of thankfulness for his country's glory. Listen! for with the sounds of the grand old hymn 'Now thank we all our God' the bells of victory are pealing, and a sensation of happiness spreads through the mass of hearers, a vibration that stirs something of the feeling which roused the great German audience at Cologne to enthusiasm as they listened twenty years ago to the same jubilant tones. Who so fitted to raise the strain as the patriot citizen of ancient Hamburg, the unique descendant of the mighty Bach, the musician of true, rich, loving spirit, conqueror of life and of himself, our Johannes Brahms? Conqueror, too, of death; for surely we cannot be mistaken in accepting the likeness of the master, that looks down with those of the greatest of his art from the painted ceiling of the new hall, as the symbol of a further life to be his even here on earth, when he has entered the darkness that is soon to cover him from our sight.
Brahms was in overflowing spirits during the entire festival, enjoying the concerts, the private gatherings, the meetings with old friends, in a mood of harmless gaiety that recalls the Detmold days.
'We have seen Brahms and Joachim together again, both in full vigour; may we not hope for a prolongation of this happy state of things?' writes Steiner a few days after the festival.