Lion Hunting in Heidelberg
Composer Johannes Brahms disliked the adulation sometimes heaped on him by fans, and found quite imaginative ways to avoid it.
before 1897
Queen Victoria 1837-1901
© Hiroki Ogawa, Wikimedia Commons. Licence: CC BY-SA 3.0.
The city of Heidelberg in Baden-Württemberg, on the river Neckar in southwest Germany. In 1848, the year of several European rebellions, Heidelberg became the birthplace of the movement that led to the first attempts at a pan-German Parliament on liberal principles, which in the event met in Frankfurt on March 31st. However, this excited the opposition of Prussia and Otto von Bismarck, whose idea of a united Germany was rather different. Prussian troops broke up the movement, and several of the reformers sought refuge in the USA.
Introduction
Composer Johannes Brahms liked his music to be appreciated, but if the eulogies became cloying his manner would undergo a marked change. His friend Charles Villiers Stanford tells us about one occasion when Brahms used all his ingenuity to escape a too-flattering fan.
LIKE many great men, he had a suit of armour which he put on to meet the stranger. Tennyson’s armour was brusqueness, Leighton’s was excessive polish,* Brahms’ could be downright rudeness. But all three as soon as their armour was put by, were alike in one respect - they were simple to the point of boyishness.
Brahms most of all hated the lioniser, and was for ever on the look-out for him. Returning one day from a walk at Heidelberg, he was met by a man who stopped him and asked if he were not Brahms; on receiving an affirmative reply, the stranger expanded into eulogies of his compositions. Brahms put on a puzzled look, then suddenly said, ‘Oh, you must mean my brother; he was taking a walk with me on the hill just now,’ indicating where the mythical relation had gone, and the unwelcome celebrity-hunter rushed on up the hill.
Frederic Leighton, 1st Baron Leighton (1830-1896), a distinguished painter from Scarborough who was a friend of the supreme violinist Joseph Joachim and of many other figures in the artistic world. In 1896 Leighton became the first painter to be raised to the peerage for his art.
