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If ideas wanted to come he would not submit to a mere vow. But the reawakening of creativity owed at least as much to a couple of new acquaintances as to the pleasant experience of the quintet. One of the inspirations, naturally, was a singer.

That autumn, Brahms raved to Richard Heuberger about mezzo-soprano Alice Barbi: “From somebody like Barbi we can all learn! Above all the Italian lady sings supremely steadily, with a solid pulse, and … projects the structure of every piece she sings. Really, we all just fool around at the piano!… Most Germans make music in a dressing gown! We know all these tunes so thoroughly, we know the bass, the chords, and then we just doze off on them. From Barbi you can learn a lot, a lot!”8

By that point Brahms was, so to speak, on the rebound from Hermine Spies, who had never reached maturity as a musician. Hermione-ohne-O was a delightful presence on a concert stage; Alice Barbi was the same, and a superb artist as well. (She had begun as a near-prodigy violinist.) For Brahms to say that Barbi projected the structure is to say that she sang songs the way he liked: a total musical and expressive shape, not a chasing after every scrap of tune and image. Amorous ideas, for Brahms. That the mezzo was a sparkling, black-eyed, dark-haired beauty didn’t hurt. The first time he heard her sing one of his own he exclaimed, “Today I’ve heard my songs for the first time!” Barbi had specialized in Schubert and Schumann in her recitals. Now she added Brahms. Those who heard her sing “Wie bist du, meine Königin” or “Vergebliches Ständchen” were not likely to forget it.9

Brahms began to squire Barbi around Vienna. Critic Max Graf remembered seeing them together under the trees in a Prater café. A Schrammelquartett was playing the new American hit “Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay!” It was the fashion for listeners to wait for the buildup on “Ta-ra-ra …” and thump the tables with beer glass or walking stick on the boom. Graf watched Brahms lean over on every refrain, beaming with beer and high spirits, and whack his umbrella on the table like a boy while Barbi watched adoringly.10

Brahms confessed to Ignaz Brüll that after middle age, Barbi was the only woman he ever really wanted to marry. Brüll suspected that he had actually proposed, but she turned him down over the matter of children: she wanted them, he did not.11 In 1890, Barbi was twenty-eight, Brahms fifty-seven.

Whom Brahms was squiring around town, marrying or not marrying, was by then a subject of general discussion in Vienna’s cafés, restaurants, and concert halls. Some of this was normal gossip-mongering (Brahms loved gossip too), some of it the more serious question, What will this encounter do for or against the master’s work, and for or against X, Y, or Z’s career? Brahms had risen to a position of fame and influence that tended to invest everything he did, everything he said, everyone he smiled or failed to smile on, with a promise of the Historic.

That is why in mid-December 1890, young Gustav Mahler was electrified when someone passed him a note on the podium of the Royal Hungarian Opera House, just after he had conducted the overture of Mozart’s Don Giovanni. The note read, “Brahms is in the house!” It had been a dicey thing. Two friends from the Academy of Music in Budapest had invited him to the performance, but he snapped, “I wouldn’t dream of it. No one can do Don Giovanni right for me. I enjoy it much better from the score.… We’d be better off going to the beerhall.” However, the professors managed to snooker the famous guest. They led him toward the beerhall past the Royal Opera and mused: Say, since it’s so early and the beer won’t be ready yet, why don’t we just go in and catch the opera for a half hour?

Assured that there was a couch at the rear of the box, Brahms agreed to nap while they listened. Just after the overture, the professors heard a queer snort. Then Brahms was beside them, leaning over the railing with