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Excerpt from Studies in Music: By Various Authors, Reprinted From the Musician and Edited
I speak of Brahms as a great artist, and I assert that this Opinion will meet with general acceptance, though not undisputed by many. He is not one of those who can rouse vehement displays of feeling; in this respect he is the direct Opposite to Richard Wagner. On his first appearance it was curiosity that moved the public, and that soon died out. For many years he remained mute and was almost forgotten. During the sixties the number of his admirers gradually and very quietly multi plied; he himself seemed to shun everything that could attract attention. He wrote no Opera, no Oratorio, no Symphony; only songs, chamber-music, serenades. He never advertised his work: when once it was published he left it to its fate. He had held no appointment at the head of any well-known Institution or Society, he did not covet the laurels of the virtuoso. In later years he brought himself to be occasionally more conciliatory to the world at large; but essentially his attitude remained always the same.
His earliest compositions reveal the man. He was twenty when he began publishing his work. Till then he had been silently ripening; he had felt little external stimulus; his native town was anything rather than a high-class musical centre. He had to find the best of his inspiration in himself; nevertheless, as the son of an orchestral-player, he early learned the technique of the executant. In some aspects his musical youth resembled Beethoven's.
It is impossible to say that the young composer was a follower of any particular master. All the evidence that critics have adduced seems to me purely superficial. The discovery of certain resemblances is not sufficient.
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