Johannes Brahms_ A Biography - Jan Swafford [9]
I imagine that moment of mine as something like what Robert and Clara Schumann felt when a boyish blond stranger sat down at their piano and launched into the astounding C Major Sonata that became his Opus 1, and what Josef Joachim experienced when he first heard “Liebestreu,” and likewise millions since who have in a few dazzling moments taken Brahms into their hearts. In the book I call it the Brahms epiphany. I have had it many times with him since that first time, in my forty-year journey with one of the greatest and most elusive creators in our tradition.
If there are two composers most responsible for first drawing me into music, they are Brahms and Copland. Near the end of Copland’s life I was able to thank him in person. (He threw his head back and chortled, “Don’t stop! Don’t stop!”) Among other things, this book is my thanks to Brahms for his part of the same great and ambiguous gift.
OF THOSE TO WHOM I OWE thanks for their help with the book, I begin with the readers who added to it their sensitivity and expertise: musicologist and pianist Ira Braus, Raphael Atlas of Smith College, friend and composer Steven Gerber, and Terry Desser, all of whom read the whole manuscript and made dozens of suggestions that I happily adopted. Peter Burkholder and Veronica Jochum made some incisive corrections. Thanks to the Fulbright Foundation for sponsoring my research in Vienna and at the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde. Thanks to my editor at Knopf, Robin Desser, who once again provided the kind of insightful counsel that I thought had disappeared from the writing trade. What shortcomings that remain are entirely my own. Finally, thanks to Gilles from Chamonix, a stranger who materialized to prevent me from falling off an Alp while this book was in the works. As I said that day in my toast to Gilles: À la vie!
Note to the Vintage Edition
IN THIS EDITION I’ve made the corrections that have accumulated since the initial printing. Some I’ve discovered myself, others have been pointed out by critics and by some helpful readers. The latter include the gentleman who sent me a careful list of typos in the endnotes, and the one who pointed out that the Karlskirche is a church, not a cathedral, and Salzburger Knockerln a dessert, not an entree. More significantly, I’ve integrated information from Kurt Hofmann’s 1986 Johannes Brahms and Hamburg to clear up some haziness in the first chapter concerning family finances—as I suspected but did not spell out, the Brahmses were not as dirt-poor as history has painted them, and the part of town Brahms was born in was not the slum it later became. At the same time, I can’t accept Hofmann’s claim that Brahms never played in waterfront bars in his youth. I have addressed this question in detail elsewhere, but that aspect of the book is unchanged and I stand by it.
Prologue
THE MINOR CHORDS that drive the symphony to its end reeled to their final E minor shout, and the Viennese leaped to their feet. From audience and orchestra together a hysterical bellowing and clapping erupted, an ovation like none ever heard before in the Golden Hall. Hundreds of eyes rose past the golden caryatids to the balcony where the little figure stood in the director’s box. They cried out as if they could bring him back to life, revive him and what he embodied, to them and to the world.
Everyone in town had heard the rumor, but for most of the audience it was the first confirmation. Brahms was dying, they could see it all over him. He had risen to acknowledge the applause after each movement of this his last symphony, and everyone had looked up with a shudder, and the grieving had built through the course of the stark, sorrowful work until this explosion at the end. Brahms stood in the box leaning on the balustrade with tears pouring down his face. For once he did not try to hide them.
The sight of him was terrible, unbelievable to the Viennese. The little husky figure had bustled through the streets of the city for as long as most of this audience could remember, had stood before them in countless performances.