Brahms and Other Composers

In 1879 Hugo Wolf showed some of his music to Brahms, who said, “First you must learn something. Then we shall see if you have any talent.” Brahms advised him to study counterpoint with Nottebohm. Wolf, who up until this point admired Brahms’s music, turned into a violent antagonist. During his three-year stint as critic of the Wiener Salonblatt he wrote many anti-Brahms pieces. He did not study counterpoint with Notteborhm.

Soon after this, Hans Rott--a gifted young colleague of Mahler’s--played two of his scores for Brahms hoping to obtain support in winning the coveted Beethoven Prize. Brahms advised him to give up any thought of a musical career. This harsh commentary appears to have driven Rott over the edge. On a train from Vienna to Alsace he was convinced that Brahms had loaded the train with dynamite and wouldn’t allow his travelling companion to light his cigar. Rott had to be taken back to Vienna, hospitalized, and he died four year later without recovering. Brahms was generally blamed for his demise (by Bruckner, for example.)
In 1885 Brahms met the young Richard Strauss and heard his Symphony in F minor. He said, “Very pretty, young man, but too full of thematic irrelevancies. There is no point in piling up themes which are only contrasted rhythmically on a single triad.”
Nor was Brahms easily won over by great eminence. At the age of twenty he visited Weimar with violinist Eduard Remenyi. Brahms was too shy to play his compositions for Liszt. So Liszt sight-read them, without difficulty and keeping up a running commentary. Then Liszt played his own Sonata in B Minor, which was still in manuscript. Brahms fell asleep during Liszt’s performance.