Johannes Brahms_ A Biography - Jan Swafford [358]
You know very well that I can’t accept the ostensible cause, the printing of the symphony, as the real cause. Years ago I had a profound feeling that this was so, though I said nothing about it, at the time when the Schumann piano pieces, which I was the first to publish, were not included in the Complete Edition. All I could think of on both occasions was that you did not like to see my name associated with them. With the best will in the world I can neither discover nor acknowledge any other reason.
In my dealings with my friends I am aware of only one fault—my lack of tact. For years now you have been kind enough to treat this leniently. If only you could have done so for a few years more!
After forty years of faithful service (or whatever you wish to call my relationship to you) it is very hard to be merely “another unhappy experience.” But after all this can be borne. I am accustomed to loneliness and will need to be with the prospect of this great void before me. But let me repeat to you today that you and your husband constitute the most beautiful experience of my life, and represent all that is richest and most noble in it.40
Now it was Clara’s turn to be dumbfounded. It really had been the symphony matter that enraged her—that, and bad health and depression amplifying her old self-righteousness. In any case, she was not yet prepared to forgive him. For that Johannes would have to grovel properly. She replied:
You reproach me with having shown you too little consideration in connection with the Schumann Edition. But I cannot for the life of me remember why the pieces did not appear.… If, however, I offended you, you should have told me at once quite openly and not have given free rein to the base suspicion that I did not like to see your name connected with Robert’s. Such a thought could only have occurred to you in an evil hour.… If your suspicion were well founded, surely I could not be reckoned among the more pleasant recollections of your life?…41
But enough of this! Nothing makes me more miserable than these disputes and explanations. Am I not the most peaceable person on earth? So, my dear Johannes, let us strike a more friendly note, for which your beautiful piano pieces, about which Ilona [Eibenschütz] has just written me, afford the best opportunity if you will only take it. Greeting you with the same old affection, I am, Your Clara.
He took the opportunity offered and groveled, if a little disingenuously:
From the bottom of my heart I thank you for your kind and comforting reply to my letter. The subject of our altercation, which seems to have upset you so much, I do not even remember, but I infinitely regret not having kept sharper guard over my tongue. With regard to the Schumann Edition I cannot remember whether it was you or I who wrote ambiguously.42
Finally the year-long battle, which had threatened to destroy four decades of love, friendship, collaboration, and service, trickled out. There would be no more battles. As Johannes had written: Why fight in the little time left them? They quickly straightened out the business over the Schumann pieces he had edited; the pieces would come out in a supplementary volume, with other opus-posthumous works that Brahms selected, including the variations Schumann had written on the spirits’ theme just before his leap into the Rhine. He approved when Clara burned some works of Robert’s that they considered unworthy. She was thrilled with his new piano pieces. Their relations went on.
Just before Christmas 1892 Brahms wrote her again about Robert’s variations as he worked on them for the supplementary edition. In the letter he used terms perhaps more flowery than he had ever used about music. He knew they were pleasant images Clara would like,