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In November, Fritz Brahms died, still a bachelor, in Hamburg. It is likely he succumbed to syphilis. Though they had remained contentedly apart throughout their lives, bachelor Fritz left his brother 10,000 marks in his will, the result of a prosperous career as piano teacher and probably, in some degree, professional “wrong Brahms.” Apparently Fritz had no one else to leave his money to. Johannes first gave it to Simrock for safekeeping, then to his stepmother Karoline and her invalid son, “the second Fritz.” If the death of his brother gave Brahms any particular pause, it did not show. His main concern that month was to act as impresario for the Vienna debut of Hermine Spies.

Preparatory to her recital came a big dinner at Billroth’s house for Hermine and guests chosen by Brahms with an eye to people his protégé needed to impress—Hanslick naturally the first. Kalbeck recalled the dinner as a “high feast of life … the maestro was in youthful merry mood [and] did everything that one could ask of him.… The composer and the singer sat together like a happy couple, opposite the jovial master of the house. Hermine Spies did not pretend for a moment that she did not adore her neighbor at the table, and he also showed, in a way not to be denied, his great interest in her.”51 One would like details of what Kalbeck meant by that, with Brahms falling under the influences of wine, good food, and a pretty singer by his side.

Brahms accompanied Hermine’s recital on the twenty-fourth. Afterward, once again, he began the process of extracting himself from the high feast of life. Hermine herself supplied the motivation for his escape, as Lisl von Herzogenberg suggests in a letter to Brahms that November: “How did Spies sing in Vienna? I can’t help feeling strongly that she is not developing at all. When I think of Frau Joachim and the way her voice grew steadily fuller, it seems to me that concert work and tearing about is … making this one more casual. She sings so many things as if she were reading at first sight, and I do wish someone like you would warn her … for she gets terribly spoilt, and understands no hints.”52

Lisl may have been covertly jealous of Hermine’s place in Brahms’s affections, but she also knew what she was talking about. In fact, Brahms had already warned “his” singer, obliquely, in a letter of November 4: “I actually dreamed that I heard you skip a half bar’s rest, and sing a quarter note instead of an eighth.” Hermine understood the hint: “It is very sweet of you only to dream that I am unmusical. I have not only dreamt it, but have known it for ages.”53 This did not mark an end to their relations, or their flirtations, not quite; but the crest had passed. From that point another inspiring musician Brahms had contemplated marrying could be added to the register of ones he let get away.

January 1887 began with a second performance of the Fourth Symphony by the Vienna Philharmonic. Richard Heuberger reported to his diary that it found “zero” success with the public.54 Maybe by then a Viennese wit had applied a text to the opening melody: Es fiel … ihm wie-… dermal … nichts ein—once more he had no ideas. Brahms did not lose any sleep over it. At least elsewhere the piece had found enthusiasm, more than he had expected. That month he attended to his chores of spreading around the fruits of his labor. He wrote Fritz Simrock to send Theodor Kirchner 2000 marks as payment for three Schumann manuscripts Kirchner had given him, 1000 marks to his sister Elise as one of his regular support payments, 2000 to stepbrother Fritz Schnack, “and finally 1000 marks to this poor sinner.”55

Brahms’s relations with Simrock remained close, harmonious, and ironic. For years the publisher had raked in unheard-of profits from a serious still-breathing composer, while that composer paid remarkably little attention to the whole business, only asking to have financial affairs kept off his mind and a favor done here