At the beginning of 1854 occurred the terrible calamity which brought Schumann's career to its sudden and tragic termination, and deprived Brahms at once of his kindest friend and of his most capable adviser. The intimacy had only lasted for some five months, but it had sprung into full maturity on the day of its birth, and had run its brief course in unbroken confidence and affection. It was no relation of master and disciple, no unequal bond of patronage and subservience: from the outset the two men had met on equal terms, united in a companionship which the disparity of their years could not impair. Throughout Schumann's correspondence of the preceding winter, there is scarcely a page that does not bear some reference to the 'young eagle': now a word of counsel, now a good-humoured jest, now a presage of coming reputation. It was a hard chance that severed so close a tie at the very moment when promise was yielding its fruition and prophecy passing into fulfilment.
The spring was mainly spent over the labour of proof-sheets; then came a short holiday with Liszt at Weimar; then a few concerts of no special interest or importance. But there could be no doubt that the circle was slowly widening. In July the Neue Berliner Musikzeitung, printed a careful and discriminating review of the 'sechs Lieder' (Op. 3), and, about the same time, Brahms received the offer of two official appointments, one from the Rhenish Conservatoire at Cologne, which he refused, one from the Prince of Lippe Detmold, which he decided to accept. His new position, though not of any great dignity or emolument, contained two practical advantages: the first that it gave him experience as choir-master and conductor; the second that, at the most receptive period of his life, it brought him into touch with cultivated men and women. Besides the work was congenial, the surroundings were as quiet as he could wish, and the requirements of the court so little exacting, as to leave him his own master for nearly three-quarters of the year. There were a few pageants and ceremonials, a few state concerts during the winter months, and then followed abundant leisure to study, to compose, and to bring into further growth an organism which was already marking a new stage in artistic evolution.
A brilliant success, won at the outset of a career is usually attended by a natural and obvious danger. The artist has made his mark, he has won for a moment the capricious attentions of his public, he has been hailed as an equal by the acknowledged masters of his craft; it is only human that he should strive to keep himself in evidence, and set all sail to catch the fitful breeze of popular favour. Add to these conditions the opportunity afforded by an accident of office; add a vivid, prolific imagination, and a style which competent judges have pronounced mature; add, in short, every incentive to production which circumstance or capacity can supply, and the result is a temptation which the traditional impatience of genius may well find some difficulty in withstanding. It is therefore the more noticeable, that the four years which followed Brahms' appointment at Lippe Detmold, were spent by him in an almost unbroken privacy. He had, as we know, several other manuscripts in readiness; two of the chief publishing houses in Germany had placed themselves at his disposal; new competitors were arising whose claims would have been felt as challenges by a lesser man. Yet during the whole of this time he printed but one composition, and appeared so rarely in public that he might seem to have forgotten his purpose and foregone his ambitions. In May 1856 he played in a concert at Cologne, where he was severely censured for including in the programme so dull a work as Bach's chromatic Fantasia; in December 1857, he accepted two engagements at the Leipsic Gewandhaus, and took part in Mendelssohn's G minor Concerto, and the Triple Concerto of Beethoven; but except on these three occasions, even the newspapers of the time are silent in regard of him. They had, indeed, other things to occupy their attention. The storm raised over Das Judenthum in der Musik had hardly subsided; the great Tetralogy was in process of completion at Zurich; Rubinstein was filling all Germany with his brilliant masterful presence; no space could be devoted to chronicling the uneventful annals of a recluse who for the moment was making no ostensible contributions to the cause of Art.
But it was not a case of 'tam bonus gladiator rudem tam cito.' Brahms had no intention of deserting the arena in which he had won his first victory and gained his first laurel. Only, like all men whose lives are dominated by an ideal, he was profoundly dissatisfied with his present achievement, and he set himself once more to a resolute course of training in order to complete and perfect his adolescent power with those gifts of certainty and facility which are only won by steadfast endeavour. In his early work there is, as Herr Deiters remarks, 'a certain lavish expenditure of strength,' a careless vigour which shows itself, not in redundancy—for he is never redundant—but in a disregard of some necessary limitations, in a disposition to cut Gordian knots of style which it is better to untie. Had he been content to follow the path of romance, there would have been no need for him to modify these tendencies: for romance treats the emotional aspect as paramount, and cares less for the purely technical problems of form and phrase. But Brahms was born to restore the classical traditions in music, and for the maintenance of those traditions something more is requisite than the almost obstinate force which he had hitherto manifested. In January 1859 appeared the first fruits of this long and strenuous cultivation. Hitherto Brahms had given to the world nothing beyond the scale and compass of chamber music; now, in Schumann's phrase, he 'let the drums and trumpets sound,' and presented himself at the Gewandhaus with his Pianoforte Concerto in D minor. Its reception for the moment was most unfavourable. The audience listened in pure bewilderment, waiting in vain for the virtuoso passages that it felt a conventional right to expect; the Leipsiger Signalen dismissed the work as a 'Symphony with Pianoforte Obbligato,' in which the solo part was as ungrateful as possible, and the orchestral part a 'series of lacerating discords.' The fact is that Brahms had turned a new page in the history of concerto form, and that Leipsic was unable to read it at sight. His only response, however, was to take the composition to Hamburg, which at once rallied in defence of its hero, gave him a warm welcome in the concert-room, and, in the newspapers, opened a battle-royal to which the conflict of 1853 had been a mere skirmish. If the commercial prosperity of the town had been threatened, it could hardly have been defended with more vehement protests or a more determined patriotism.
No such controversy arose over Brahms' next work—the charming and graceful Serenade in D which was first given at Hamburg on March 28. In later days, no doubt, the Vienna press offered some carefully-balanced criticisms of its style; for the time Germany yielded to the enchantment, and allowed itself to enjoy, without afterthought, the sweetness of the melodies and the pellucid clearness of the form. Indeed, no more salient contrast could be found than that between the two works with which the composer signalised his reappearance.[49] Both alike show that he had completely assimilated the past records of his art, but in the one he uses his knowledge as a basis for new application, in the other he takes the old types as they stand without extending their range or enlarging their content In the Serenade he sums up: in the Concerto he advances. Hence it was not unwise that he should at once prepare the lighter composition for the press, and reserve the more serious until the world had grown in experience, and had made itself more ready to receive him.
About this time he resigned his office at Lippe Detmold, feeling that even so slight a chain was a hindrance to the freedom of an artistic career, and returned for a short period of residence to his native Hamburg. The prophet, indeed, had achieved some share of honour in his own country, and the least that he could do was to pay it the acknowledgment of a visit; beside which his parents were still living in the old home, there was abundance of theatrical and musical gossip to interchange, and there was the young Fritz, growing up into an excellent pianist, who deserved some congratulations on his progress, and some advice as to his future.[50] But, as the months wore on, they brought with them the need of a more extended range. Home-keeping youths stand in a proverbial danger of homely wit, and an atmosphere of comfort and sympathy, however delightful, is apt to relax and weaken the sterner qualities. So, in 1860, shortly after the publication of the Serenades, Brahms again turned his back upon Hamburg, and set out to try his fortunes afield.
His first halting-place was the little town of Winterthur, between Zurich and Constance. German Switzerland had long shown a warm hospitality to musicians, and a cordial interest in their art; moreover one of the great Leipsic publishers had an outpost in Winterthur itself, and the organist there was Theodor Kirchner, the most gifted of Schumann's pupils, and the most ready to offer a hand of fellowship to the genius whom Schumann had heralded. In a very short time the new arrival found himself among friends, and forthwith settled down to work after his usual undemonstrative fashion. It was not an opulent life, but it was comfortable and adequate: there were pupils to teach, there were audiences to delight, and above all, there was Rieter-Bidermann's printing office as a stimulus to further composition. Yet in truth there was little need of stimulus. The treasures, accumulated during four years of self-imposed economy, were only waiting to be coined and expended; now the mint was opened and the golden currency scattered with a lavish hand. In 1861 appeared the beautiful Ave Maria for female chorus and orchestra, the fine sombre Funeral Hymn, the D minor Concerto, the first two sets of pianoforte variations, and a couple of volumes of songs and duets; in 1862 followed four exquisite part-songs for female voices with horn and harp accompaniment, a string sestett in B flat, the most magnificent piece of chamber music that had appeared since the death of Beethoven, two books of Marienlieder, another volume of songs, and finally two new sets of variations for the piano, one on a theme from Handel's Harpischord lessons, one[51] on the pathetic melody that had haunted the last sane moments of Schumann's life. Even with these the record is not exhausted. There still remain the Pianoforte Quartetts in G minor and A major, which, though not published till 1863, were certainly written before the end of the previous year. And when we realise that in all this catalogue almost every work is a masterpiece, almost every form a development of preceding types, it is hard to see where, except in the greatest of all composers, we can find a parallel to the achievement. Schubert, no doubt, could pour a more 'profuse strain of unpremeditated art,' but art, at any rate in its larger forms, is the gainer by premeditation. Mozart could fill the accustomed channels with a more copious stream of melody, but he was content that its waters should run their course in familiar regions. Here is a man whose originality never betrays him into carelessness, whose certainty of touch never degenerates into formalism, whose thought, even in its deepest and most recondite utterance, is always firmly conceived and clearly articulated. Such a mastery of phrase and structure is not only slow of acquisition, but also, in some degree, slow of exercise. It is impossible that the most eloquent genius, the most elaborate training should have enabled Brahms to write one of his great chamber works with the rapid facility that has so often been a mark of the chief composers. An organism so coherent and so complex is not created by a single flash of the artistic will.
By an odd coincidence, the first chapter of Brahms' life may be said to end with this temporary climax of production. In the autumn of 1862 the coterie at Winterthur was broken up by Theodor Kirchner's acceptance of an appointment at Zurich; and Brahms, beginning perhaps to feel that the place where he dwelt was too strait for him, set himself to find a wider habitation and a more enlarged sphere of energy. It was in many ways unadvisable that he should follow his friend. For one thing, Zurich was hardly central enough to satisfy his requirements, for another, it was much dominated by the influence of Wagner and Liszt, and the school which they were taken to represent had never forgiven Brahms his public defection from its ranks.[52] Besides, he had recently been manifesting some special interest in the bright rhythms and piquant phraseology of Hungarian music: one of his first sets of pianoforte variations had been on a Hungarian theme; the finale of his G minor Quartett was ostensibly affected by a similar attraction; in other of his more recent works there were details of style which showed that he had begun to think, like Schubert, of holding the balance between two artistic languages. Everything, in short, pointed towards Vienna. It was still the capital of European music; it possessed traditions from which any composer might be proud to draw inspiration and stimulus; it contained the most critical public to which any artist of the time could appeal. There was no question of alternative; without more ado Brahms 'set his face to the east,' and, before November, had established himself in the city which he was afterwards content to call his home.