A Toast to the Greatest Composer
When violinist Joseph Joachim proposed a toast to the world’s greatest composer, he was cut off in mid flow.
1895
Queen Victoria 1837-1901
By Johann Wilhelm Preyer (1803–1889), via Wikimedia Commons. Licence: Public domain.
‘Früchtestilleben mit Sektkelch’ (Fruit still life and champagne flute) by Johann Wilhelm Preyer (1803–1889). In the 1890s German music criticism was preoccupied with Richard Wagner’s tortured operas, but as a composer Brahms remained in the classical tradition from Bach to Mozart, Schumann and of course Beethoven (Brahms’s first Symphony was even then dubbed Beethoven’s tenth). “We can write no more with such beauty as Mozart did” Brahms told Antonín Dvořák; “so let us try to write with as much purity.” Stanford’s enduring love of Brahms’s music was kindled by the German’s brilliant Handel Variations. See also Beethoven’s First.
Introduction
German composer Johannes Brahms was well-known for his mercurial attitude to praise. Up to a point he accepted it happily enough, but if ever it became oppressive he would do almost anything to escape it. Charles Villiers Stanford, professor of music at the Royal College of Music and at Cambridge University, was present on one of these occasions.
OUR next and last meeting was in Berlin, the Christmas of the famous Jameson Raid.* He came to conduct his two Piano Concertos and the Academic Festival Overture at a concert given by D’Albert, and was much fêted and in high good humour.*
At an interesting dinner-party given by Joachim,* at which were present also his friends Professor Dohrn of Naples, and von Herzogenberg the composer,* an amusingly characteristic scene occurred.* Joachim in a few well-chosen words was asking us not to lose the opportunity of drinking the health of the greatest composer, when, before he could finish the sentence, Brahms bounded to his feet, glass in hand, and called out, “Quite right! Here’s Mozart’s health!” and walked round, clinking glasses with us all. His old hatred of personal eulogy was never more prettily expressed.
From ‘Studies and Memories’ (1908), by Sir Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924).
A curious method of dating, which reflected Stanford’s interest in the politics of the British Empire. On December 29th, 1895, a force of 470 men led by Storr Jameson of the British South Africa Company tried to overthrow the bankrupt Dutch Boer government of the Transvaal. The raid failed, handing the rapidly expanding German Empire a propaganda field day. However, when the outraged Boers launched a counter-offensive, precipitating the 1899-1902 Boer War, the Germans abandoned them. See The Boer Wars.
Eugen (originally Eugène) Francois Charles d’Albert (1864-1932), born in Scotland to an English mother and German father of French and Italian descent. At seventeen, he helped Sullivan orchestrate the Overture to Patience, but his childhood in Britain had been unhappy and soon after he emigrated to Germany, where he studied piano with Liszt. He later said that his bitter memories of Britain had vanished long ago.
Joseph Joachim (1831-1907) was a Hungarian violinist, the greatest of his day, possibly the greatest ever.
Not Georg Dohrn (1867-1942) the pianist and composer whom Brahms encouraged into music, but Anton Dohrn (1840-1909), a Darwinist who founded the world’s first zoological research station, the Stazione Zoologica in Naples.
Heinrich Picot de Peccaduc, Freiherr von Herzogenberg (1843-1900), an Austrian composer and conductor. While he was living in Leipzig, he taught English composer Ethel Smyth.
