Johannes Brahms_ A Biography - Jan Swafford [114]
Was it only when the D Minor Concerto was finished that Brahms finally realized what he had attempted? He had started his career as an orchestral composer with a work of the scale and ambition of the Ninth Symphony, which ended Beethoven’s career. At least, though, afterward Brahms had a far better idea how much he needed to learn about the orchestra and about large-scale form. Though he soon produced more orchestral music, he would not put before the public another work of comparable scope until he was certain he was ready. Not for another fifteen years did he feel ready. He never sailed blind again.
AT THE END OF MAY 1857, having finished a draft of the Concerto, Brahms traveled to the small principality of Detmold to see what might come of a royal invitation he had received. The connection had begun with Clara’s giving lessons to Princess Frederike and visiting the music-mad court of Leopold II. After Robert died, she handed over the lessons to Johannes, and thus the invitation. Detmold lay forty miles southwest of Hanover, on the edge of the Teutoburger Wald. There was no train there; one went by post-coach. For Brahms the legendary forest, where once Teutons and Romans had battled, was a large part of the attraction. Royalty was not his style, even if this court maintained a good orchestra and chorus and had a number of pianists able to pay royally for lessons.
Brahms had gotten to know the Hofmarschall’s young son Karl von Meysenbug, who met him at the coach when he arrived. Brahms was silent and awkward in the ornate drawing room of the castle but warmed up when he played for Karl’s father. Then in a court concert he ran through the Beethoven G Major Concerto with the orchestra and joined in Schubert’s Trout Quintet.
Afterward, happy with the results, Brahms caroused late into the night with the musicians. If his wit suited the younger crowd, it failed to make a distinguished impression on the dour Kapellmeister August Kiel, conductor of the orchestra. As he and Brahms chatted after the concert, Kiel remarked that he had been setting biblical Psalms and was puzzled by the phrase “to the chief musician on the Gittith.” What, pray tell, said Kiel, the court’s chief musician, is this Gittith that the chief musician is supposed to be on?. “Probably a pretty Jewish girl,” Brahms suggested straight-faced. The joke was not appreciated.19
The evening ended with Brahms and Karl, who had sneaked out of the house, climbing a hill to watch the sunrise. As they stumbled back into town looking as disreputable as they felt, the two ran into Karl’s righteous auntie taking her morning constitutional. Despite some embarrassing repercussions over that, Brahms was offered the hoped-for position as pianist and chorus director for a three-month season at the end of the year. The salary was 556 talers plus lodging and board, enough to last him nearly a year in Hamburg. Given the musical enthusiasm of Prince Leopold’s court, Brahms had found himself a gracious and profitable little sinecure, if he could stand it. He stood it for three seasons, three months at a time—as it turned out, one of the longest-term jobs of his life.
From Detmold, Brahms traveled to Bonn to make arrangements for the new headstone over Robert Schumann’s grave (Clara was concertizing in England).20 This year Liszt and his music were featured at the Lower Rhine Music Festival. For the first time since he began attending, Brahms skipped it, instead making another walking tour of the Rhineland. His absence from the festival would be suitably conspicuous.
Meeting Clara on her return from England, he settled down with her and the younger Schumann