Johannes Brahms_ A Biography - Jan Swafford [366]
There are not many things that I have desired so long and so ardently at the time—that is at the right time. Many years had to pass before I could reconcile myself to the thought of being forced to tread other paths. Had things gone according to my wish, I might today be celebrating my jubilee with you, while you would be, as you are today, looking for a capable younger man. May you find him soon, and may he work in your interest with the same good will, the same modest degree of ability, and the same wholehearted zeal, as would have done yours very sincerely,
J. Brahms68
In March there emerged from his living room in Vienna one of his springtime projects: 49 Deutsche Volkslieder, in seven volumes, with his own loving and subtle piano accompaniments. They are a testimonial to his lifelong inspiration from these nominal products of the German Volk. He had never accepted that many of them were ersatz folk music. Their authenticity meant much to him; the connection to the spirit of the German people—or illusion of connection—was another aspect of his sense of the past. He had a great deal of his own work, both vocal and instrumental, to show for his love of folk music. This late collection returns, as Malcolm MacDonald writes, to “a world of gallant knights, deserted maidens, enchanted fiddlers, repentant nuns, lovers both sad and happy, and Death the Reaper—an idealized medieval world, fit for the dreams of Young Kreisler.”69
The folk songs, in other words, were a return to the Romantic inspiration of his teens, and so another cadence in his life. Deliberately, he ended the collection with “Verstohlen geht der Mond auf,” which had been the unspoken text of the slow movement of his Piano Sonata Opus 1. From Ischl that summer he wrote Clara: “I am expecting the proofs of the forty-nine (!) songs. It is probably the first time that I have looked forward with so much pleasure to a set of proofs and to the publication of one of my works.”70 And later that summer:
Has it ever occurred to you that the last of the songs comes in my Opus 1, and did anything strike you in this connection? It really ought to mean something. It ought to represent the snake which bites its own tail, that is to say, to express symbolically that the tale is told, the circle closed. But I know what good resolutions are, and I only think of them and don’t say them aloud to myself.… At sixty it is probably high time to stop, but again without any particular reason!!71
Whether there was a reason or not, he had a few pieces left in him. In the same vein, in Ischl Brahms responded to a friend who attempted to commiserate over the difficulties he had experienced in his career:
My God, what do you want? I’ve gotten far enough! People respect me, my friends and enemies both. If people don’t also love me—they respect me, and that’s the main thing. I don’t ask for more. I know very well what position I will occupy someday in the history of music: the position that Cherubini occupied then and now, that is also my lot, my Schicksal.”72
That summer he sent Clara two photos of himself, one fated to be famous: Brahms standing alongside Johann Strauss, Jr., on the porch of the Waltz King’s villa in Ischl. Strauss looks dashing, dark-haired, slim, and youthful next to the aged, portly, grizzled figure of Brahms. Strauss was older by eight years. Pictures of both men were already appearing on postcards.
That summer Brahms wrote the two clarinet sonatas, his last testament to Fräulein Klarinette and as beautiful as anything he ever wrote. One never forgets the first time one hears the opening of the Second Sonata, a flowing melody in his warmest and most nostalgic mood. An American tunesmith of the next century