by Dave Kester
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) was said to have been a man who loved children, but was rather gruff and impatient when dealing with adults, including his musical peers. Among other composers with whom he was closely associated, however, he was quick to come to their defense upon hearing anyone speak ill of them.
Irish composer, teacher and conductor Charles Villiers Standford relates a visit to Brahms' Vienna apartment in the company of conductor Hans Richter, a long time friend of Brahms.
Exhibit A:
"He opened the door of his little flat himself, clad in a jersey and trousers, and led us through a bare outer room, and his bedroom, scarcely less bare save for a drawing of 'Anselmo's Tomb" over his very short and stumpy bed, and into his study, a double room crammed with books, music, and literature of all sorts. He greeted Richter warmly, and when I was introduced gave me a most distant and suspicious bow... I was quite sure he was aware of who I was, but was going to measure my capacity for lion-hunting. His chance came; he offered Richter a cigar, and was then handing the box to me, when he snatched it back with a curt, 'You are English, you don't smoke!' To which I replied, with an impertinence which it required some courage to assume, 'I beg pardon, the English not only smoke, but they even compose music sometimes,' making a simultaneous dash after the retreating cigar box. For one moment he looked at me like a dangerous mastiff, and then burst out laughing. The ice was broken and never froze again. I caught site of some fine engravings, and he spent the best part of the morning showing me his complete collection of Piranesi engravings, and other treasures which he had picked up in Italy during the previous summer. He only mentioned music once..."
Exhibit B:
Continuing with Standford on Brahms: "When I next visited Vienna I went to see him without an appointment, thinking that I should surely find him home at eleven o'clock. But his housekeeper told me that he had just gone to dinner. I was so astonished that I said to her, 'In Heaven's name, what time does Brahms eat his breakfast?' 'At five' said the dame; he does all his work before eleven, and is out the rest of the day.' However, I fell in with him later, and sat with him through a rehearsal of Gluck's Alcest at the Opera House, over which he waxed enthusiastic. His two favorite haunts in Vienna were Strauss's band and the Opera. While there I heard of a tremendous verbal castigation which he had given at a restaurant to a young man who thought he would gain his favor by sneering at Wagner...
A most remarkable and extraordinary personality was Brahms. Humorous, fearless, far-seeing, sometimes over-rough to his contemporaries, but a worshipper of and worshipped by young children; with a very noble, generous, and ideal side to his character, and a curiously warped and sensual side as well. He could look like Jupiter Olympus at one moment, and like Falstaff the next."
C.V. Standford, 1887, Studies and Memories
