Meanwhile, among the painters, directly in the line from Weber, another man had come to the fore, a colossal genius such as perhaps the world had never seen before nor is like to see again. Richard Wagner, at that time just twice the age of Brahms, was in exile at Zürich. He had written Rienzi, ‘The Flying Dutchman,’ Tannhäuser, and Lohengrin. All had been performed. The libretto of the Ring was done and the music to Rheingold composed and orchestrated. Schumann disapproved. It is hard to understand why he, so recklessly generous, so willing to see the best in the music of all the younger school, the ardent supporter of Berlioz, should have turned away from Wagner. One must suspect a touch of personal aversion. He was not alone. No man ever had fiercer battle to wage than Wagner, nor did any man ever bring to battle a more indomitable courage and will. Liszt was his staunch supporter; and to Liszt, too, both Schumann and his wife had aversion, easier to understand than their aversion to Wagner. For Liszt, the virtuoso, was made of gold and tinsel. Liszt, the composer, was made so in part. But Wagner, the musician, was incomparably great, that is to say, his powers were colossal and unlike those of any other, and therefore not to be compared. That Schumann failed to recognize this comes with something of a shock to those who have been amazed at the keenness of his perception, and yet more to those who have rejoiced to find in the musician the nobility and generosity of a great-hearted man. It is obvious that the divergence between poets and painters had by this time become too wide for his unselfish, sympathetic nature to bridge; and thus when Brahms, a young man of twenty, was launched into the world of music he found musicians divided into two camps between which the hostility was to grow ever more bitter. Liszt at Weimar, Schumann at Düsseldorf, were the rallying points for the opposing sides, but within a year Schumann’s mind failed. The standard was forced upon Brahms, and Liszt gave himself up to Wagner.
It was almost inevitable that the great part of the world of music should be won over by Wagner. One by one the poets seceded, gave way to the influence of Wagner’s marvellous power, an influence which Clara Schumann never ceased to deplore. The result was that Brahms was regarded, outside the circle of a few powerful friends, as reactionary. He led, so to speak, a negative existence in music. He was cried down for what he was not, not for what he was. There is no reason to suppose that Brahms suffered thereby. The sale of his compositions constantly increased and after the first few probationary years he never lacked a good income from them. Still, perhaps the majority of musicians were blinded by the controversy to the positive, assertive, progressive elements in Brahms’ music. On the other hand, the adherents of Brahms, the ‘Brahmins,’ as they have been not inaptly called, retaliated by more or less shameful attacks upon Wagner, which later quite justly fell back upon their own heads, to their merited humiliation. They failed to see in him anything but a smasher of tradition, they closed their eyes to his mighty power of construction. In the course of time Wagner’s triumph was overwhelming. He remained the successful innovator, and Brahms the follower of ancient tradition.
II
The life of Brahms offers little that is striking or unusual. He was born in Hamburg, the northern city by the sea, on the 7th of May, 1833, of relatively humble parents. His father was a double-bass player in a theatre orchestra. His mother, many years older than his father, and more or less a cripple, seems to have had a deep love for reading and a remarkable memory to retain what she had read. In his earliest childhood Brahms commenced to acquire a knowledge of poetry from his mother, which showed all through his later life in the choice of poems he made for his songs. His ability to play the piano was so evident that his father hoped to send him as a child wonder to tour the United States, from which fate, however, he was saved by the firmness of one of his teachers. Twice in November, 1847, he appeared with others in public, playing conventional show pieces of the facture of Thalberg; but in the next year he gave a recital of his own at which he played Bach, a point of which Kalbeck[118] makes a trifle too much. The income of the father was very small, and Brahms was not an overwhelming success as a concert pianist. To earn a little money, therefore, he used to play for dancing in taverns along the waterfront; forgetful, we are told, of the rollicking sailors, absorbed in books upon the desk of the piano before him. His early life was not an easy one. It helped to mold him, however, and brought out his enormous perseverance and strength of will. These early days of hardship were never forgotten. He believed they had helped rather than hindered him, a belief which, it must be admitted, is refreshingly manly in contrast to the wail of despised genius so often ringing in the ears of one who reads the lives of the great musicians as they have been penned by their later worshippers. Not long before he died, being occupied with the question of his will and the disposal of his money, he asked his friend, the Swiss writer J. V. Widmann for advice. Widmann suggested that he establish a fund for the support and aid of struggling young musicians; to which Brahms replied that the genius of such, if it were worth anything, would find its own support and be the stronger for the struggle. The attitude is very characteristic.
Occasional visitors to Hamburg had a strong influence upon the youth. Such were Joachim and Robert and Clara Schumann, though he did not then meet the latter. At the age of nineteen, having already composed the E-flat minor scherzo, the F-sharp minor and C-major sonatas and numerous songs, he went forth on a concert tour with the Bohemian violinist Remenyi. On this tour he again came in touch with Joachim, who furnished him with letters to Liszt at Weimar and the Schumanns at Düsseldorf. Of his stay at Weimar mention has already been made. At Düsseldorf he was received at once into the heart of the family. In striking contrast with the gruffness of later years is the description given by Albert Dietrich of the young man come out of the north to the home of the Schumanns. ‘The appearance, as original as interesting, of the youthful almost boyish-looking musician, with his high-pitched voice and long fair hair, made a most attractive impression upon me. I was particularly struck by the characteristic energy of the mouth and serious depths in his blue eyes....’ One evening Brahms was asked to play. He played a Toccata of Bach and his own scherzo in E-flat minor ‘with wonderful power and mastery; bending his head down over the keys, and, as was his wont in his excitement, humming the melody aloud as he played. He modestly deprecated the torrent of praise with which his performance was greeted. Everyone marvelled at his remarkable talent, and, above all, we young musicians were unanimous in our enthusiastic admiration of the supremely artistic qualities of his playing, at times so powerful or, when occasion demanded it, so exquisitely tender, but always full of character. Soon after there was an excursion to the Grafenberg. Brahms was of the party, and showed himself here in all the amiable freshness and innocence of youth.... The young artist was of vigorous physique; even the severest mental work hardly seeming an exertion to him. He could sleep soundly at any hour of the day if he wished to do so. In intercourse with his fellows he was lively, often even exuberant in spirits, occasionally blunt and full of wild freaks. With the boisterousness of youth he would run up the stairs, knock at my door with both fists, and, without awaiting a reply, burst into the room. He tried to lower his strikingly high-pitched voice by speaking hoarsely, which gave it an unpleasant sound.’
All accounts of the young Brahms lay emphasis on his lovableness, his exuberant good spirits, his shining good health and his physical vitality. Clara Schumann wrote in her diary: ‘I found a nice stanza in a poem of Bodenstedt’s which is just the motto for Johannes:
’“In winter I sing as my glass I drain,
For joy that the spring is drawing near;
And when spring comes, I drink again,
For joy that at last it is really here.”'
Clara, too, admired his playing, and she was competent to judge. ‘I always listen to him with fresh admiration,’ she wrote. ‘I like to watch him while he plays. His face has a noble expression always, but when he plays it becomes even more exalted. And at the same time he always plays quietly, i. e. his movements are always beautiful, not like Liszt’s and others’.’ He was always devoted to Schubert and she remarked that he played Schubert wonderfully. Later in life his playing became careless and loud.
Not half a year after Brahms was received at Düsseldorf Schumann’s mind gave way. In February, 1854, he attempted suicide, and immediately after it became necessary to send him to a private sanatorium at Endenich. For two years longer he lived. They were years of anguish for his wife, during which Brahms was her unfailing refuge and support. She wrote in her diary that her children might read in after years what now is made known to the world. ‘Then came Johannes Brahms. Your father loved and admired him as he did no man except Joachim. He came, like a true comrade, to share all my sorrow; he strengthened the heart that threatened to break, he uplifted my mind, he cheered my spirits whenever and wherever he could, in short, he was in the fullest sense of the word my friend.’
Brahms was profoundly affected by the suffering he witnessed and by the personal grief at the loss of a friend who had meant so much to him. The hearty, boisterous gaiety such as he poured into parts of his youthful compositions, into the scherzo of the F-minor sonata, for instance, and into the finale of the C-major, never again found unqualified expression in his music. His character was set and hardened. From then on he locked his emotions within himself. Little by little he became harsh, rejected, often roughly, kindness and praise—made himself a coat of iron and shut his nature from the world. Ruthlessly outspoken and direct, seemingly heedless of the sensibilities of those who loved him dearly and whom he dearly loved, he presents only a proud, fierce defiance to grief, to misfortune, even to life itself. What such self-discipline cost him only his music expresses. Three of his gloomiest and most austere works came first into his mind during the horror of Schumann’s illness; the D-minor concerto for the piano, the first movement of the C-minor quartet, and the first movement of the C-minor symphony.