Johannes Brahms_ A Biography - Jan Swafford [59]
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BY THEN, Schumann’s article on the young eagle, the Niagara cataract, Young Kreisler, prophet and savior, had appeared in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik. Schumann had founded the journal himself in 1834. In his first New Year’s editorial, he had issued a statement of goals:
To be remindful of older times and their works and to emphasize that only from such a pure source can new artistic beauties be fostered; at the same time to oppose the trends of the more recent past, proceeding from mere virtuosity, and, finally, to prepare the way for, and to hasten, the acceptance of a new poetic era.23
At that point Robert Schumann was a friend of Liszt, both of them searching for a “new poetic era” in music. They would divide bitterly over the direction of that search, Schumann on the path of tradition, Liszt of revolution. After a historic decade of promoting progressive composers and flaying philistines, Schumann sold the Neue Zeitschrift to Franz Brendel. During his long tenure as editor, Brendel turned the journal into a propaganda organ for Liszt and the New Germans—in other words, into a standard-bearer for ideals Schumann hated. (It was Brendel who coined the term “New German School” for Liszt and his followers.)
So while Schumann had begun as a firebrand and champion of revolutionaries like Chopin and Berlioz, by 1850 he had become disillusioned with the progressive faction. He wanted nothing to do with the Artwork of the Future. His loyalty was to the past, the line of Beethoven and Felix Mendelssohn. Over and over, Schumann and Joachim and their circle called Brahms, approvingly, “a real Beethovener.”
Schumann’s “rhapsody” appeared in the Neue Zeitschrift on October 28, 1853, and fixed that date to the wall of history. He called it “Neue Bahnen,” “New Paths”:
Years have passed—almost as many in number as those dedicated by me to the previous editorship of this journal, namely, ten—since I appeared on this scene so rich to me in remembrances. Often, in spite of arduous productive activity, I have felt tempted; many new and considerable talents have appeared, a fresh musical energy has seemed to announce itself through many of the earnest artists of the present time, even though their works are, for the most part, known only to a limited circle. [In a footnote, Schumann cites these composers, including Joachim, Clara’s half-brother Woldemar Bargiel, Theodor Kirchner, and Albert Dietrich.] I have thought, watching the path of these chosen ones with the greatest sympathy, that after such a preparation someone must and would suddenly appear, destined to give ideal presentation to the highest expression of the time, who would bring us his mastership not in process of development, but springing forth like Minerva fully armed from the head of Jove. And he is come, a young blood by whose cradle graces and heroes kept watch. He is called Johannes Brahms.… He bore all the outward signs that proclaim to us, “This is one of the elect.” Sitting at the piano, he proceeded to reveal to us wondrous regions. We were drawn into circles of ever deeper enchantment. His playing, too, was full of genius, and transformed the piano into an orchestra of wailing and jubilant voices. There were sonatas, rather veiled symphonies—songs, whose poetry one would understand without knowing the words … single pianoforte pieces, partly demoniacal, of the most graceful form—then sonatas for violin and piano—quartets for strings [Brahms would suppress the latter pieces]—and every one so different from the rest that each seemed to flow from a separate source. And then it was as though he, like a tumultuous stream, united all into a waterfall, bearing a peaceful rainbow over the rushing waves, met on the shore by butterflies’ fluttering, and accompanied by nightingales’ voices.
If he will sink his magic staff in the region where the capacity of masses in chorus and orchestra can lend