Johannes Brahms_ A Biography - Jan Swafford [253]
The “useless” efforts included final polish on the C Minor Piano Quartet and the Five Duets of Opus 66. And he composed the String Quartet in B Major—his most buoyant, with its dancing rhythms and droll themes. Joachim read it over in June with his group and professed great pleasure. Clara wrote Brahms that the end, into which he interweaves the jaunty opening theme of the quartet, “is too fascinating for words with its delightful, mocking conclusion.”30 For Brahms and for his friends, the B was like a shout of liberation after the austerities of the earlier two quartets. Years later he admitted to Joachim that it was his favorite of the lot. Hanslick preferred it too, as “more cheerful, clearer, more human.”31 Brahms chose as favorite, in other words, the quartet in which he escaped his anxiety before the medium and managed to have fun with it. And with that, he quit while he was ahead—there were no more string quartets.
Another visitor in Ziegelhausen that summer was Anselm Feuerbach, who was vacationing nearby. Brahms had met the artist in 1867 in Baden. A nephew of philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach, he had studied in Antwerp and Paris and in his maturity arrived at a somber neoclassic style, his subjects usually taken from Greek mythology or Italian literature.32 Brahms came to admire Feuerbach more than any other painter alive, seeing him as embodying virtues Brahms also aspired to: clarity, restraint, subtle lyricism, respect for tradition, an aesthetic that exalted form over color. Eventually it would be Brahms who encouraged Julius Allgeyer to write his biography of Feuerbach, published in 1894.
The two artists had a long association and were nominally friends, even if never entirely comfortable with each other. Brahms not only admired Feuerbach’s work but also his person, his classically beautiful features and ringing voice.33 Yet for all his admiration, Brahms could never break through the painter’s personality. Vain, defensive, a womanizer, nearly as dandyish as Wagner, Feuerbach proclaimed himself a genius and demanded the world acknowledge it.34 Though he had a circle of acolytes, the larger public failed to take its cue.
Against Brahms’s advice, Feuerbach came to Vienna in 1873 to take a position as Instructor of Historical Painting at the Imperial Academy of Plastic Arts. What happened to him during his three years in the city was exactly what Brahms predicted: the public diverted by the bright, cherub-ridden trivialities of Hans Makart had little patience for Feuerbach’s muted mythology, and that public could be brutal. Writes biographer Richard Specht: “The Viennese Feuerbach baiting takes its place worthily beside similar diversions …: the Bruckner baiting, the Hugo Wolf baiting, the Klimt baiting, the Mahler baiting.”35 Having some experience with public scorn but far more resistance, Brahms watched Vienna ruin his friend’s career and health and could do nothing about it.
At length Feuerbach in his rage and frustration would turn on Brahms. The moment came during work on a portrait to which Brahms, who resisted such things, had agreed out of respect for the painter. As he dutifully showed up again and again at Feuerbach’s studio for sittings, he became alarmed over an epic painting called The Battle of the Amazons, with which the painter proposed to conquer the city and expose the vulgarities of his rival Makart. Uncertain of the validity of his own response, Brahms brought in Klaus Groth to have a look at the giant canvas. Groth confirmed it: in his opinion