The Life & Legacy of Johannes Brahms. Florence May
Edward Reményi, a German-Hungarian Jew whose real name was Hoffmann.
Reményi, born in 1830, had been during three years of his boyhood a pupil of the Vienna Conservatoire, studying under Joseph Böhm, now remembered as the teacher of Joachim. He had real artistic endowment, and played the works of the classical masters well, if somewhat extravagantly; but something more than talent was displayed in his rendering of the airs and dances of his native country, which he gave with a fire and abandon that excited his hearers to wild enthusiasm. Eccentric and boastful, he knew how to profit to the utmost by his successes in Hamburg, where he created a furore. Johannes, engaged one evening to act as accompanist at the house of a rich merchant, made his personal acquaintance, and Reményi, quickly perceiving the advantage he derived from having such a coadjutor, made overtures of friendship in his swaggering, patronizing way, which were not repulsed by the young pianist. Brahms had, in fact, been fascinated by Reményi's spirited rendering of his national Friskas and Czardas; he was willing that the chance acquaintance should be improved into an alliance, and, on his next visit to the Giesemanns' house, was accompanied by his new friend.
The violinist had connections of his own in the neighbourhood. Begas, a Hungarian magnate, had settled down into a large villa at Dehensen, on the Lüneburg Heath, that had been placed at his disposal for as long a time as he should find it possible to elude or cajole the police authorities, and kept open house for his compatriots and their friends. To his circle Brahms was introduced, and much visiting ensued between Dehensen and Winsen, for one or two musicians staying with Begas were pleased to come and make music with Reményi and Johannes, and to partake of the Giesemanns' hospitality. It was a feather in Brahms' cap, in the eyes of many of his friends, that he had been able to capture for Winsen such a celebrity as Reményi, though they were not all quite of one mind. Lischen, for example, did not care for him at all, but much preferred the tall, handsome fiddler Janovitch, with his flashing black eyes and his velvet jacket, who wrote a splendid characteristic waltz expressly that he might dedicate it to her. The jolly party broke up suddenly at last, running off to take speedy ship for America, for they had heard that the police were on their heels. Johannes, who happened to be at Winsen when this crisis occurred, accompanied them as far as Hamburg, where he remained to pursue his ordinary avocations. Meanwhile the Friskas and Czardas continued to revolve in his brain.
Time went on, the Hungarians were no longer vividly regretted, and somewhere about the autumn of 1852, Brahms was left more lonely than ever by the departure of Louise Japha, who found opportunity to carry out her cherished wish to stay at Düsseldorf, where the Schumanns had now been settled for about two years. Her sister Minna was to accompany her, to carry on the cultivation of her own special gift under Professor Sohn, of the Düsseldorf Academy of Art. The thought of losing his friend caused Johannes great sorrow. 'Do not go,' he entreated; 'you are the only person here that takes any interest in me!' His prospects do not seem to have been improving at this time, and his best encouragement must have been derived from his own sense of his artistic progress. This was advancing by enormous strides, the exact measure of which is furnished by the manuscript of the Sonata in F sharp minor now in the possession of Hofcapellmeister Albert Dietrich. It bears the signature 'Kreisler jun.,' a pseudonym adopted by Brahms out of love for the capellmeister Johannes Kreisler, hero of one of Hoffmann's tales, and the date November, 1852.
This work, which, though published later on as Op. 2, was written earlier than the companion sonata known as Op. 1, is, in many of its fundamental characteristics, immediately prophetic of the future master. In it the mastery of form and skill in contrapuntal writing, the facility in the art of thematic development, the strikingly contrasted imaginative qualities—here subtly poetic, there large and powerful—bring us face to face with the artist nature which united in itself high purpose, resolute will, sure capacity, sensitive romanticism, boundless daring. The fancy, however, has not yet crystallized; the young musician has still to pass out of the stage of mental ferment natural to his age before he will be able to mould his thoughts into the concentrated shape which alone can convince the world. The sonata, not perhaps destined ever to become widely familiar, must always remain a treasure to the sympathetic student of Brahms' art, not only by reason of the beauties in which it abounds, but also because it is absolutely representative of its composer as he was at nineteen. We may read his favourite authors in some of its movements without the need of an interpreter, and we know, from his own communication to Dietrich, that the melody of the second movement was inspired by the words of the German folk-song, 'Mir ist leide, Das der Winter Beide, Wald und auch die Haide, hat gemachet kahl.'
It would be difficult, and is fortunately unnecessary, to trace the exact steps of Reményi's career after his flight from Germany. For the purpose of our narrative the facts suffice that he reappeared in Hamburg at the close of 1852, giving a concert in the Hôtel de l'Europe, which does not seem to have created any great sensation, and that he found himself in the same city in the spring of 1853. Brahms, depressed by the hopeless monotony of his daily grind, was no doubt glad enough to see him, and, as his slack time was at hand, it was proposed, perhaps by Reményi, perhaps by Uncle Giesemann, possibly by Johannes himself, that the two musicians should give a concert to their friends in Winsen, who would, no doubt, hail the prospect of such an event, and assist it to the utmost of their power. Communications were opened, and the proposal was not only entertained, but developed, as such ideas are apt to do. If at Winsen, why not also at Lüneburg and Celle? Amtsvogt Blume had influence in both towns, which he would be too happy to exert. In the end, the project expanded into the plan of a concert-tour. Johannes and Reményi would give performances in the three localities named, and from Celle it would be no distance to go on to Hanover, where the twenty-one-year-old Joachim, already a European celebrity, had a post at Court. Reményi had known him for a short time when they had both been boys at the Vienna Conservatoire; they would go and see him. He was bound to welcome his compatriot and former fellow-pupil. Who could tell what might happen?
No doubt Brahms' heart beat fast when he left home on this his first quest of adventure, and probably not the least ardent of his anticipations was that of making the personal acquaintance of the celebrated violinist whose first appearance in Hamburg at the Philharmonic concert of March 11, 1848, with Beethoven's Concerto, remained vividly in his remembrance as one of the few great musical events of his own life. Before starting, he exacted a promise from his mother that she would write to him regularly once a week—not a mere greeting, but a real letter of several pages. It was a serious undertaking for Johanna, who was not practised in penmanship, but she gave her word to Hannes, and found means to keep it. The travellers took but little luggage with them. Such as Johannes carried was made the heavier by his packet of manuscripts, which contained his pianoforte sonata-movements and scherzo, a sonata for pianoforte and violin, a pianoforte trio, a string quartet, a number of songs, and possibly other works. One programme was to suffice for the concert tournée, and this the two artists had in their heads.
The exact date of the Winsen concert is forgotten, apparently beyond chance of recall, but the event may be fixed with certainty as having taken place in the last week of April. Both musicians were the guests of the Giesemanns for several days beforehand, and spent the greater part of their mornings practising together, beginning before breakfast. They gave a great deal of time to the Hungarian melodies, and it would seem as though Johannes had been preparing a pianoforte accompaniment; for they repeated the periods over and over again, Reményi becoming very irritable during the process. The season was a warm one; they worked energetically in their shirt-sleeves, and the violinist more than once drew a scream of pain from his colleague, by bringing the violin bow suddenly down on his shoulder to emphasize the capricious tempo he required. One morning Johannes, very angry, jumped up from the piano, and declared he would no longer bear with Reményi; but the concert came off nevertheless, and turned out a brilliant success. It took place in the large room of the Rusteberg club-house; the entrance fee was about eight-pence, and the profits to be divided came to rather over nine pounds. Beethoven's C minor Sonata for pianoforte and violin headed the programme, and was followed by violin solos; Vieuxtemps' Concerto in E major, Ernst's 'Elégie,' and several Hungarian melodies, all accompanied by Brahms, who, it must be remembered, was but the junior partner in the enterprise. Only one thing was to be regretted. Schröder had been ill, and could not come to Winsen for the concert. He managed, however, to attend a repetition of the programme, which the two artists gave the next