Johannes Brahms_ A Biography - Jan Swafford [125]
Next day he wrote a chipper report about it to Joachim. Was it an attempt at deception, or self-deception? Surely Brahms knew the anguish between the lines would be transparent to a friend and fellow performer.
Although I am still quite dazed by the sublime delights with which my eyes and ears have been assailed for the last few days through the sight and sound of the wise men of our musical town, I will force this hard and pointed steel pen of Sahr’s to relate to you how it came about that my Concerto has experienced here a brilliant and decisive—failure.
First of all I must say that it was really done very well; I played far better than I did at Hanover, and the orchestra was excellent.… [He describes the silence, the hissing.] Not a soul has said a word to me about the work!—with the exception of [concertmaster] David, who took a great interest in it, and was very kind.…
The failure has made no impression whatever on me.… I believe this is the best thing that could happen to one; it forces one to concentrate one’s thoughts and increases one’s courage. After all, I’m only experimenting and feeling my way as yet. But the hissing was too much of a good thing, wasn’t it?62
He knew that his concerto was bound to be difficult and unappealing to mainstream tastes on first hearing, and it still had formal and orchestrational lapses that made it harder to grasp than it needed to be. He knew all about that. He also knew that the reception had only partly to do with this particular piece. Since Schumann’s “Neue Bahnen,” Leipzig conservatives had looked on him as a threat to their idol Mendelssohn, and this concerto—at least the first movement—was as un-Mendelssohnian as possible. Now the conservatives had their revenge. The Signale critic spelled out the party line:
New works do not succeed in Leipzig. Again at the fourteenth Gewandhaus concert a composition was borne to its grave. This work … cannot give pleasure. Save its serious intention, it has nothing to offer but waste, barren dreariness.… For more than three-quarters of an hour one must endure this rooting and rummaging, this dragging and drawing, this tearing and patching of phrases and flourishes! Not only must one take in this fermenting mass; one must also swallow a dessert of the shrillest dissonances and most unpleasant sounds.63
If that were not depressing enough, Brahms discovered that one faction was pleased about the programmatic impact of the opening and in some degree ready to embrace his concerto—Liszt’s circle. The Neue Zeitschrift für Music critic wrote, “Notwithstanding its undeniable want of outward effect, we regard the poetic contents of the concerto as an unmistakable sign of significant and original creative power; and, in light of the belittling criticism of a certain portion of the public and press, we consider it our duty to insist on the admirable sides of the work.”64 It was the ultimate humiliation: his best review came from the enemy, who claimed his concerto as a blow for their cause. If soldiers of the New German School hoped to recruit Brahms, however, he was not going to sign up. Liszt was in town that week to confer with Neue Zeitschrift editor Brendel. Brahms pointedly avoided both of them.
He continued to revise the piece after the first performances. Clara wrote in August 1859, “I like the alterations in the concerto, though on the sudden transition to D major after being in F# minor so long, in the third solo, is not quite to my mind; but that is a trifle compared with the wonderful beauty of the whole. [That and the Serenade] have given me hours of such joy as only music can