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He has, to be sure, never been able to raise himself above the level of mediocrity, but such nullity, emptiness and hypocrisy as prevail in the E Minor Symphony have come to light in no other of his works. The art of composing without ideas has decidedly found its most worthy representative in Brahms.51

The most famous and outlandish of Wolf’s bons mots summed up Brahms this way: “A single cymbal-stroke of a work by Liszt expressed more intellect and emotion than all three symphonies of Brahms and his serenades taken together.”52

Brahms would read Wolf’s columns to friends for laughs. All the same, he remained extraordinarily forgiving when it came to musical judgments. When Wolf’s songs began appearing in print and causing a stir, Brahms looked them over as a matter of course, observing mildly to Richard Heuberger, “Ja, if you’re not concerned about the music, the declamation of a poem is pretty easy. Otherwise one can see that he’s a clever, cultured, intelligent man.”53 After enduring years of vicious critical battering himself, Wolf finally found some favor in 1894 with his orchestral works Feuerreiter and Elfenlied. Then even Hanslick called him “a man of spirit and talent.” Among those seen applauding the Vienna premiere of Wolf’s pieces was Brahms, who knew very well what his enthusiasm could do for the career of a hungry composer.54

One aspirant who stuck it out with Brahms, and took the counterpoint lessons while maintaining something of his own counsel, was Alexander von Zemlinsky. He would turn out to be the only Brahms disciple to be played and spoken of to any extent outside Vienna a century later—though that in part because of a protégé of Zemlinsky’s named Arnold Schoenberg.

Young Zemlinsky sent Brahms a sonata for violin and piano and was summoned for the verdict. He arrived at Karlsgasse to find the master seated ominously before his open sonata score, with an open score of Bach to the left and Beethoven to the right. Brahms proceeded to tear the sonata to pieces bar by bar, with unpleasant comparisons to the flanking masters. This went on relentlessly until the victim jumped up and cried: “Well, under these circumstances, one should really quit composing!” Brahms stuck his face in Zemlinsky’s and roared, “Indeed, one should!”55

With that little episode out of the way, they became friends. Brahms’s point had been clear enough: if you want help from me you’d better have guts, because if you don’t have them you’re going nowhere in any case. Moreover, never expect any compliments (in practice, they bubbled out when Brahms saw something he liked). Brahms gave Zemlinsky a monthly stipend to allow him time to compose, and got Simrock to publish his music. In turn, the youth fell into the master’s orbit. “Among my colleagues,” he recalled, “it was considered particularly praiseworthy to compose in as ‘Brahmsian’ a manner as possible.… Then came a reaction, of course. With the struggle to find oneself, there was also an emphatic repudiation of Brahms.” Still later, as a mature artist, Zemlinsky could afford to love the music again.56

Others perhaps never managed the rebellion they needed, to give themselves room to find their voices. For several years during the 1880s Richard Heuberger received informal lessons. He and Brahms remained friends as Heuberger established his career as a critic and composer—best known, though, for operettas rather than his symphonic and chamber music.

Much of what Heuberger wrote in his remarkable diary of their encounters echoes what Brahms told Henschel and other neophytes. When the young man excused something in a song of his with “It just occurred to me that way,” Brahms exploded: “Such things should not occur to you!… Do you think that any of my few decent lieder came to me complete and finished? I took a good deal of trouble with them!… You know, one ought to be able—I don’t mean this literally—to whistle a song … then it’s good!”57

Gustav Jenner, another protégé whom Brahms devastated and then encouraged,