Brahms

Extract

When, on the 5th of April, 1897, Joseph Joachim made his appearance on the platform of St. James's Hall to lead the A minor Quartet of Johannes Brahms, who had died two days before, I think there can have been few persons present who did not feel that in these two names was summed up a particular aspect of music which, whether we like it or not, we cannot disregard. Brahms on the creative, and Joachim on the interpretative side, stand as the representatives of very definite—we might almost say, categorical—musical ideals, and the school of which they in their separate lines have been the leaders is that which, for want of a better name (and indeed the term is but a vague one), has been generally called the classical. If I interpret the signs of the times aright, the great majority of living composers have more or less definitely turned their energies into channels in which there is not much room for the active working of the principles which sufficed for Brahms, and it seems to me that, at the opening of what I personally regard as emphatically an era of decadence, it may not be without interest to try and formulate the ideas which formed the basis of the work of the last, so far as we can see at present, of the great composers.