Part 23 (1/2)

Brahms carried his chin in, and the crown of his head high. He was infinitely good-natured, met everybody on an equality, without abas.e.m.e.nt or condescension. He was modest, never pushed himself to the front, and was always ready to listen. A talented performer who can listen well, is sure to be loved. And yet when Brahms went forward to play, there was just a suggestion of indifference to his hearers in his manner, and a half-haughty self-confidence that won before he had sounded a note. We always believe in people who believe in themselves.

Young Brahms brought a letter of introduction from Joachim. But that was nothing--Joachim was always giving letters to everybody. He was like the men who sign every pet.i.tion that is presented; or those other good men who give certificates of character to people they do not know, and recommendation letters to those for whom they have no use.

So the letter went for little with Robert Schumann--it was the way Brahms approached the piano, and settled his hands and great shock-head over the keyboard, that won.

”He is no beginner,” whispered Clara to Robert before Johannes had touched a key.

It didn't take Brahms long to get acquainted--he mixed well. In a few days he dropped into that half-affectionate way of calling his host and hostess by their first names, and they in turn called him ”Johannes.”

And to me this is very beautiful, for, at the last, souls are all of one age. More and more we are realizing that getting old is only a bad habit. The only man who is old is the one who thinks he is. Of course these remarks about age do not exactly apply just here, for no member of the trinity we are discussing was advanced in years. Robert was forty-three, Clara was thirty-four, and Johannes was twenty.

Johannes Brahms was thrice well blest in being well born. His parents were middle-cla.s.s people, fairly well-to-do. They proved themselves certainly more than middle-cla.s.s in intellect, when they adopted the plan of being the companions and comrades of their children. Johannes grew up with no slavish fear of ”old folks.” He had worked with his father, studied with him; learned lessons from books with his mother, and played ”four hands” with her at the piano, by the hour, just for fun.

Then when Remenyi came that way with his violin, and wanted a pianist, he took young Brahms. When their lines crossed the line of Liszt, they played for him at his inn; and then Liszt played for them.

This Remenyi was our own ”Ol' Man Remenyi,” who pa.s.sed over only a year or so ago. I wonder if he was Ol' Man Remenyi then! He never really was an old man, and that appellation was more a mark of esteem than anything else--a sort of diminutive of good-will. I met Remenyi at Chautauqua, where he spent a month or more in Eighteen Hundred Ninety-three. He gave me my first introduction to the music of Brahms, of whom he never tired of talking. He considered Brahms without a rival--the culminating flower of modern music; and if the Ol' Man slightly exaggerated his own influence in bringing Brahms out and presenting him to the world, I am not the one to charge it up against his memory.

In explaining Brahms and his music, Remenyi used to grow animated, and when words failed he would say, ”Here, it was just like this”--and then he would seize his violin, the bow would wave through the air, and the notes would tell you how Brahms transposed Beethoven's ”Kreutzer Sonata” from A to B flat--a feat he never could have performed if Remenyi had not told him how. It was Remenyi who introduced Brahms to Joachim, and it was Joachim who introduced Brahms to Schumann, and it was Schumann's article, ”New Paths,” in the ”Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik,” that placed Brahms on a pedestal before the world. Brahms was not the great man that Schumann painted, Remenyi thought, but the idealization caused him to put forth a heroic effort to be what Clara and Robert considered him. So it was really these two who compelled him to push on: otherwise he might have relaxed into a mere concert performer or a leader of some subsidized band.

Remenyi always seemed to me like a choice antique mosaic, a trifle weather-worn, set into the present. He used to quote Liszt as if he lived around the corner, and would criticize Wagner, and tell of Moescheles, Haertel, the Mendelssohns and the Schumanns, as if they might all gather tomorrow and play for us at the Hall in the Grove.

Recently I met dear old Herr Kappes, eighty years young, who knew the Mendelssohns, and admired Brahms, loved Clara Schumann, and liked Remenyi--sometimes. They were too much alike, I fear, to like each other all the time. But the harmony is still in the heart of Herr Kappes. He gives music-lessons, and lectures, and will explain to you just how and where Brahms differs from Schumann, and where Schubert separates from both.

Herr Kappes can speak five languages, but even with them all he finds difficulty in making his meaning clear, and at times adopts the Remenyi plan, and will just turn to the piano and cry, ”It's like this, see!

Schumann wrote it in this way”--and then the strong hands will chase the keys down and back and over and up. ”But Brahms took the motif and set it like this”--and Herr Kappes will strike the ba.s.s a thunderous stroke--pause, look at you, glide back and down, up and over, and you are carried away in a swirl of sweet sounds, and see a pink face framed in its beautiful aureole of white hair. You listen but you do not ”see”

the fine distinctions, because you do not care--Herr Kappes is all there is of it, so animated, so gentle, so true, so lovable--because he used to pay court to f.a.n.n.y Mendelssohn and then transferred his affections to Clara Schumann, and now just loves his art, and everybody.

Schumann's article, ”New Paths,” at once determined Brahms' career. He must either live up to the mark that had been set for him--or else run away.

I give below an extract from Robert's estimate of Brahms and his work:

Ten years have pa.s.sed away, as many as I formerly devoted to the publication of this paper--since I have allowed myself to commit my opinions to this soil so rich in memories. Often in spite of an overstrained productive activity, I have felt moved to do so; many new and remarkable talents have made their appearance, and a fresh musical power seemed about to reveal itself among the many aspiring artists of the day, even if their compositions were only known to the few.

I thought to follow with interest the pathways of these elect; there would--there must--after such a promise, suddenly appear one who should utter the highest ideal expression of the times, who should claim the masters.h.i.+p by no gradual development, but burst upon us fully equipped, as Minerva sprang from the brain of Jupiter. And he has come, this chosen youth, over whose cradle the Graces and Heroes seem to have kept watch.

His name is Johannes Brahms; he comes from Hamburg, where he has been working in quiet obscurity, instructed by an excellent, enthusiastic teacher in the most difficult principles of his art, and lately introduced to me by an honored and well-known master.

His mere outward appearance a.s.sures us that he is one of the elect.

Seated at the piano, he disclosed wondrous regions. We were drawn into an enchanted circle. Then came a moment of inspiration which transformed the piano into an orchestra of wailing and jubilant voices. There were sonatas, or rather veiled symphonies, songs whose poetry revealed itself without the aid of words, while throughout them all ran a vein of deep song-melody, several pieces of a half-demoniacal character, but of charming form; then sonatas for piano and violin, string quartets, and each of these creations so different from the last that they appeared to flow from so many different sources. Then, like an impetuous torrent, he seemed to unite these streams into a foaming waterfall; over the tossing waves the rainbow presently stretches its peaceful arch, while on the banks b.u.t.terflies flit to and fro, and the nightingale warbles her song.

Whenever he bends his magic wand towards great works, and the powers of orchestra and chorus lend him their aid, still more wonderful glimpses of the ideal world will be revealed to us.

May the Highest Genius help him onward! Meanwhile another genius--that of modesty--seems to dwell within him. His comrades greet him at his first step in the world, where wounds may, perhaps, await him, but the bay and the laurel also; we welcome this valiant warrior!

Robert Schumann had been before the public as essayist, poet, pianist and composer for twenty years. He had given himself without stint to almost every musical enterprise of Germany, and his sympathy was ever on tap for every needy and aspiring genius. You may give your purse--he who takes it takes trash--but to give your life's blood and then hope for a renewal of life's lease, is vain.

The public man owes to himself and to his Maker the duty of reserve.