The third occasion was on Wednesday morning 15 June 1 853, when Liszt played his
Sonata at the Altenburg in the presence of Mason, the twenty-year old composer and
pianist Johannes Brahms, violinist Edé Reményi, pupils Karl Klindworth and Dionys
Pruckner (1834-1896), composer Joachim Raff and others of Liszt’s pupils and friends.
Brahms and Reményi were on a concert tour at the time and had detoured to Weimar so
that Brahms could show some of his early unpublished compositions to the older
composer. What started out as a happy occasion, with Liszt’s brilliant sight reading of
Brahms’s hardly legible E flat minor Scherzo and part of his C major Sonata, ended quite
uncomfortably for all concerned.
‘A little later someone asked Liszt to play his own sonata, a work which was quite recent
at that time, and of which he was very fond. Without hesitation, he sat down and began
playing. As he progressed he came to a very expressive part of the sonata, which he
always imbued with extreme pathos, and in which he looked for the especial interest and
sympathy of his listeners. Casting a glance at Brahms, he found that the latter was dozing
in his chair. Liszt continued playing to the end of the sonata, then rose and left the room.
I was in such a position that Brahms was hidden from my view, but I was aware that
something unusual had taken place, and I think it was Reményi who afterward told me
what it was.’
Reményi corroborated Mason’s account in an interview for the ‘New York Herald’ of 18
January 1879, the first time the story found its way into print. It was later reprinted in
Kelly and Upton’s ‘Edouard Reményi’ (Chicago, 1906):
‘While Liszt was playing most sublimely to his pupils, Brahms calmly slept in a fauteuil
[arm-chair] or at least seemed to do so. It was an act that produced bad blood among
those present, and everyone looked astonished and annoyed. I was thunderstruck. In
going out I questioned Brahms concerning his behavior. Hie only excuse was: Well, I
was overcome with fatigue. I could not help it.” ’
In fairness to the young Brahms, it was very hot in Weimar that day and he had been
travelling all the previous night to get there. Reményi later fell out with Brahms and left
Weimar on his own. Reményi had sat beside Brahms during Liszt’s performance and
although his comments may have been exaggerated certainly something happened to
upset Liszt. Years later Klindworth corroborated the incident to Mason but ‘made no
specific reference to the drowsiness of Brahms’. The fast that it was very hot inWeimar
on 15 June 1853 is clear from Mason’s account of his much later conversation with
Brahms on 3 May 1888, yet no commentator mentions this circumstance.
Brahms stayed for ten days at the Altenburg accepting Liszt’s hospitality. When he left,
Liszt presented him with an ornamental cigar box entitled ‘Brams’ [sic]. It seems that
Mason and Klindworth were incorrect in their recollections that Brahms left that
afternoon or the next morning. Liszt obviously got over what upset him, if it was
Brahms’s drowsiness, but neither ever got to like each other’s music very much.