Dat Old Love - Johannes Brahms, Clara Schumann, and The Poetics of Musical Memory

72
The Journal of Musicology, Vol. 24, Issue 1, pp. 72111, ISSN 0277-9269, electronic ISSN 1533-8347.
2007 by the Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. Please direct all requests for per-
mission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Presss Rights and
Permissions website, http://www.ucpressjournals.com/reprintInfo.asp. DOI: 10.1525/ jm.2007.24.1.72.
A version of this essay was presented at the 2005 annual meeting
of the American Musicological Society. My thanks to Dr. Sylvia
Uhlemann of the Universitts- und Landesbibliothek Darmstadt,
Dr. Thomas Synofzik of the Robert-Schumann-Haus in Zwickau,
and Richard Saunders of the Hudson Rogue Company for their
help in tracing relevant manuscripts and printed editions, and to
Seth Monahan for his assistance in preparing music examples.
1
Music Deposit 17, Special Collections, Yale University Music Library, New Haven,
Connecticut.
Old Love: Johannes Brahms,
Clara Schumann, and the
Poetics of Musical Memory
PAUL BERRY
Claras Private Reception of the F
-Minor Capriccio
The oldest surviving record of Johannes
Brahmss Capriccio in F
minor for solo piano is an autograph manu-

script in the special collections of the Yale University Music Library.
1
Brahms made the manuscript for Clara Schumann on 12 September
1871. He placed the date and a shorthand version of her name, Cl.
Sch., at the top of the title page, along with an indication of tempo and
affect, Unruhig bewegt, that remained unchanged in the Capriccios later,
published version. He wrote in ink on ornately decorated music paper;
his manuscript is virtually devoid of notational errors but replete with
pedal indications, dynamic and expressive marks, and even specic n-
gerings. All these features can be seen on the autographs rst page, re-
produced in Figure 1. Its legibility, the precision of its performance in-
structions, and the paper on which it was written all indicate that the
03.Berry_pp72-111 3/20/07 10:42 AM Page 72
berry
73
manuscript was a presentation copy of a nished composition.
2
Brahms
presumably presented his gift both in honor of Clara and Robert Schu-
manns 31st wedding anniversary on 12 September 1871 and to cele-
brate Claras 52nd birthday the following day.
3
He almost certainly gave
2
For a transcription of the manuscript and a short introduction to the composi-
tional history of the F
-minor Capriccio, see Peter Petersen, ed., Klavierstcke op. 76: mit der
Urfassung des Capriccio s-moll (Vienna: Wiener Urtext Edition, Universal Edition, 1992).
3
In perhaps the most inuential account of the Capriccios genesis, Max Kalbecks
biography atly assumes that Claras birthday was the occasion for which Brahmss manu-
script was intended; see Kalbeck, Johannes Brahms (Berlin: Deutsche Brahms-Gesellschaft,
19151927), 3: 193. The birthday celebration on September 13 gures prominently in
the portions of Claras diary and correspondence that Berthold Litzmann rst published
in 19028 and to which Kalbeck had access, whereas her anniversary goes unmentioned;
see Litzmann, Clara Schumann: Ein Knstlerleben, nach Tagebchern und Briefen (Leipzig:
Breitkopf & Hrtel, 1923), 3: 26263. Since no direct evidence favors one occasion over
the other, however, we should acknowledge both Claras birthday and her anniversary as
potentially important motivations for the manuscripts presentation. Petersens introduc-
tion to his edition of Opus 76 steers such a middle course; see Petersen, Klavierstcke,
5 and 45.
gure 1. Johannes Brahms, untitled manuscript, 1871 (later revised
as the F
-minor Capriccio, op. 76/1), rst page. Music De-

posit 17, Special Collections, Yale University Music Library,
New Haven, Connecticut
03.Berry_pp72-111 3/20/07 10:42 AM Page 73
the j ournal of musi cology
her the manuscript in person: He had been visiting her home in Baden-
Baden since May, and her diary places him among a group of old
friends who gathered at her house on the evening of September 13.
4
Clara appears to have kept Brahmss new composition to herself.
No surviving evidence hints that anyone else was aware of the works ex-
istence until the summer of 1878, when Brahms began assembling old
solo piano pieces and composing new ones for publication in his
Klavierstcke, op. 76. In early July 1878, Theodor Billroth had access to
all eight of the op. 76 Klavierstcke through the copyist Franz Hlava-
czek;
5
between September 8 and 12, Brahms played three pieces from
the set, including Claras gift, for Heinrich and Elisabet von Herzogen-
berg.
6
At some point before November, the work preserved in Claras
manuscript had undergone signicant revisions;
7
by 6 February 1879,
when Brahms sent a nal version to his publisher, the piece had ac-
quired its now familiar title, Capriccio.
8
Starting in the summer of 1878,
then, the F
-minor Capriccio circulated among the composers musical

friends in a manner typical of works he was about to publish, but until
it began to nd a place in opus 76, the piece Brahms had presented to
Clara in September 1871 seems to have remained a thoroughly private
musical utterance.
Three extant letters allow us to gauge Claras response to Brahmss
gift. First, in a letter to Rosalie Leser from 16 September 1871, she dis-
played new-found warmth in her attitude toward Brahms, proclaiming
74
4
Litzmann, Clara Schumann, 3: 263. For details on Brahmss movements during
1871, see Renate and Kurt Hofman, Johannes Brahms: Zeittafel zu Leben und Werk (Tutzing:
Schneider, 1983), 1047.
5
Theodor Billroth and Johannes Brahms, Billroth und Brahms im Briefwechsel (Berlin:
Urban & Schwarzenberg, 1935), 26775. Brahms informed Billroth that new music
awaited him at Hlavaczeks in an undated letter from early July (ibid., 26768). By July 9,
Billroth had seen all but nos. 3 and 4 of op. 76 and commented on them individually,
including the F
-minor Capriccio (ibid., 26971).

6
Johannes Brahms and Elisabet and Heinrich von Herzogenberg, Johannes Brahms
im Briefwechsel mit Heinrich und Elisabet von Herzogenberg, ed. Max Kalbeck (Berlin:
Deutsche Brahms-Gesellschaft, 1907), 1: 7275. Brahms played the works later published
as nos. 1, 2 and 7 of op. 76.
7
Because Brahmss autograph for the nal version of the Capriccio does not survive
and Hlavaczeks copy is in private hands, it is impossible to determine when these revi-
sions took place. Fortunately, George Bozarth has examined Hlavaczeks copies of opp.
76/14. In his edition of Brahmss correspondence with Robert Keller, Bozarth claims
that Brahms also made numerous small-scale compositional revisions in the Hlavaczek
manuscript. Given Bozarths description, we might tentatively assume that Claras Capric-
cio was revised in late June or early July 1878, just before it began to circulate among
Brahmss other friends. See George Bozarth and Wiltrud Martin, eds., The Brahms-Keller
Correspondence (Lincoln: Univ. of Nebraska Press, 1996), 38. For the current location of
Hlavaczeks copy, see Margit L. McCorkle, Johannes Brahms: Thematisch-bibliographisches
Werkverzeichnis (Munich: Henle, 1984), 323.
8
Johannes Brahms, Briefe an P. J. und Fritz Simrock, ed. Max Kalbeck (Berlin:
Deutsche Brahms-Gesellschaft, 191719), 2: 106.
03.Berry_pp72-111 3/20/07 10:42 AM Page 74
him charming as never before.
9
Perhaps her old friends gift of an
original, unpublished composition helped color her impression of
their time together at the birthday celebration three days prior. Next, a
letter to Brahms from 6 July 1877 conrms that Clara still enjoyed play-
ing from her manuscript long after its presentation and noted its date
when she did so: But I must still tell you that I take great pleasure in a
piece in F
minor, Unruhig bewegt, which you sent me on September

12th, 1871.
10
This letter preserves Claras most detailed surviving de-
scription of the Capriccio itself. Her account stresses the works affective
ambiguity and records how powerfully she experienced that ambiguity
in the act of performance: The piece was dreadfully difcult, but so
wonderful, so tender and melancholy, that when I play it, joy and sad-
ness always surround my heart.
11
Finally, in response to Brahmss
request for her impressions of all eight piano pieces from op. 76, in-
cluding the newly revised Capriccio,
12
Clara replied in writing on 7 No-
vember 1878; her letter argued forcefully against Brahmss revisions.
Her criticisms reveal a deep prior engagement with her manuscript gift,
both at the piano and in her musical memory.
Clara presented two specic objections to Brahmss changes. First,
in evaluating the Capriccios newly condensed return to its opening
ourish in measures 5253, her letter appeals explicitly to her long fa-
miliarity with the works manuscript version, which stretches the same
material over four measures instead of two: The earlier reading simply
always delighted me so much. Why did you change it?
13
Here is direct
9
All translations in this article are my own. For the original German of this passage,
see Litzmann, Clara Schumann, 3: 263: so liebenswrdig . . . wie nie frher. Clara used
the same word, liebenswrdig, in a diary entry describing Brahmss behavior in the days
surrounding her birthday: Zu unser aller Gemthlichkeit hatte auch viel Johannes
Liebenswrdigkeit beigetragen (ibid., 262).
10
Johannes Brahms and Clara Schumann, Briefe aus den Jahren 18531896: Im Auf-
trage von Marie Schumann, ed. Berthold Litzmann (Leipzig: Breitkopf & Hrtel, 1927), 2:
115: Groe Freude, das mu ich Dir doch noch sagen, habe ich an einem Stck in Fis-
moll Unruhig bewegt, welches Du mir am 12. September 1871 schicktest.
11
Ibid. Es ist furchtbar schwer, aber so wundervoll, so innig und schwermtig, da
mir beim Spielen immer ganz wonnig und wehmtig ums Herz wird. The Capriccio prob-
ably posed a particular challenge for Clara in July 1877 because she had recently injured
her right hand (ibid., 112).
12
A letter from Brahms, no longer extant, prompted Clara to address the op. 76
Klavierstcke: Ich war gerade dabei, mich an den Klavierstcken zu ergtzen . . . da kam
Dein Brief, und so will ich nicht zgern (ibid., 157). Brahms must have asked explicitly
for comments about the individual pieces, or at least mentioned some of his plans for the
opus as a whole, since Claras letter responds Ein Liebling von mir ist auch das C dur,
und Du willst es weglassen? Warum das gerade? Soll eines weggelassen sein, so bin ich
mehr fr das in A dur (ibid.). Brahms eventually retained the C-major Capriccio as the -
nal piece in op. 76.
13
Brahms/Schumann, Briefe, 2: 159: Gerade hat mich die frhere Lesart immer so
sehr entzckt. Aus welchem Grunde hast Du es gendert?
berry
75
03.Berry_pp72-111 3/20/07 10:42 AM Page 75
76
14
Brahms had given Clara a manuscript of the Deutsches Requiem on Christmas Day
1866, but most of that choral score was in a copyists hand. Curiously, the last two signed
autographs he made for her were also of solo piano pieces and also intended as birthday
presents. In September 1861, Brahms gave Clara a signed autograph of his Handel Varia-
tions, op. 24, apparently continuing a custom begun the previous year with a piano
arrangement of the second movement of the string sextet, op. 18; see McCorkle, Werk-
verzeichnis, 65 and 82. Claras manuscript present of 1871 was the rst of another series of
birthday autographs; see ibid., 19799 and 251.
15
Brahms/Schumann, Briefe, 2: 15859: Frher so: [musical example] jetzt anders
in Oktaven gehend, was hrter klingt. Claras letter also applies the same criticism to
mm. 3233 of the revised Capriccio, which present a literal transposition of mm. 2829.
16
Such performance could undoubtedly take place in the mind rather than at the
keyboard: For a musician of Clara Schumanns caliber, simply looking at a score may have
evidence that Clara felt signicant personal attachment, at least in ret-
rospect, to particular passages from the composition she had come to
know. Perhaps the unapologetic directness of her question registered a
hint of annoyance that Brahms was not only publishing a musical work
she had long considered her own, but also altering it signicantly in the
process. After all, when she had rst received Brahmss gift in 1871, he
seems not to have given her a signed autograph in ten years.
14
What-
ever the actual substance of Brahmss revisions, the simple fact that he
had deviated from her original manuscript may have removed some of
what she perceived as the works personal aura.
Supplementing her claim of personal attachment to the piece was a
point of focused music-analytic criticism regarding measures 2829 of
the revised Capriccio, which correspond to measures 2728 of the origi-
nal version. Although her comment was terse, she took care to include
a musical example: What used to be like this: [here she copied mm.
2728 from the 1871 manuscript] now goes differently, in octaves,
which sounds harsher.
15
Examples 1a and 1b compare the two versions
of the passage. For Clara, Brahmss revised left hand created obtrusive
parallel octaves against the bass on the third and sixth eighth-note par-
tials of each measure. On the page, these octaves are buried amid cas-
cading guration; in singling them out, Claras letter hints that her as-
sessment of Brahmss compositions depended upon the constraints of
performance as well as the analysis of musical structure. The new oc-
taves are problematic partly because of their consistent metric place-
ment, but mostly because of the ngering implied by the score, which
places the last two 16ths of each half-measure on the lower staff. This
spatial arrangement naturally leads a conscientious pianist to play each
measures third and sixth partials with the left thumb, inadvertently but
almost inevitably creating the aural impression of an accentuated inner
voice that progresses in parallel with the bass. While a glance at the
score may expose this inner voice, it becomes prominent only when
played.
16
03.Berry_pp72-111 3/20/07 10:42 AM Page 76
berry
Most importantly, the musical excerpt Clara included in her letter
illustrates how well she knew the original version of the Capriccio, ironi-
cally because the two do not correspond precisely. Examples 2a and 2b
compare her interpolated example to the passage it was meant to re-
produce.
17
Of the 24 notes in Claras excerpt, fully 12 diverge from her
77
been tantamount to experiencing the sonic implications of the physical demands it im-
posed. But regardless of exactly how Clara rst noticed Brahmss parallel octaves, the fact
that she singled out mm. 2829 for particular criticism registers her sensitivity to the exi-
gencies of performance.
17
Like most of Claras correspondence with Brahms, the original manuscript of this
letter is lost, either destroyed or untraceable in private hands. Nevertheless, there are two
good reasons to trust Litzmanns transcription of her interpolated musical example. First,
Litzmann had already transcribed the same letter in Clara Schumann (3: 391). His later
transcription in the Brahms/Schumann Briefe is clearly a new engraving, but it matches
his earlier reading of the original letter except for the F
on the second beat of the sec-

ond measure, which acquires a dot in the Brahms/Schumann correspondence. This
change indicates that he returned to the original letter or at least scrutinized the earlier
publication carefully before printing the excerpt a second time. Second, Litzmann took
considerable pains to reproduce Claras original as precisely as possible, even when it
contravened standard notational practice. His two transcriptions are unanimous not only
in the two successive upward stems on the second and third 16th notes in the last mea-
sures second beat, but also in their substitution of paired eighth rests where Clara un-
doubtedly meant to place single 16th rests; here Litzmanns zeal for precise replication
seems to have led, ironically, to an error in transcription.
_
_
,
,
,
,
,
,
s
s
s
s

_
_
_
,
,
,
,
,
,
s
s
s
s

_
example 1.
a. Capriccio, mm. 2829, revised version (1878), annotated
b. Capriccio, mm. 2728, MS version (1871)
03.Berry_pp72-111 3/20/07 10:42 AM Page 77
78
own copy of the piece owing to discrepancies in pitch, register, or scor-
ing. The nal three 16ths present rearranged or entirely different
pitches. The 16ths on the third eighth-note partial of the excerpts sec-
ond measure are transposed to the wrong octave with respect to the
original; the fth partial of the second measure has acquired an up-
ward stem. Finally, the excerpt scores the upper staff of its rst measure
in treble rather than bass clef, shifting the rst three 16ths of each beat
into new positions on the page while leaving their pitches intact. The
result preserves the essential melodic and harmonic features of the pas-
sage in question and its departures prove negligible when heard in con-
text. Nevertheless, it is inconceivable that Clara Schumann could have
so thoroughly miscopied a passage of music directly from her score.
One can only conclude, instead, that she was quoting from memory.
Claras misremembered musical excerpt, her explicit enthusiasm
for the earlier reading preserved in her manuscript, and her stated
admiration for the Capriccios affective ambiguity all suggest that the
work remained important to her long after its presentation in 1871.
Whereas the circumstances under which she rst received Brahmss au-
tograph and the personal connotations his gift might have evoked
thereafter remain inaccessible, we know that by 1878, her memories of
example 2.
a. Capriccio, mm. 2728, MS version (1871)
b. Clara Schumann to Johannes Brahms, 7 November 1878: musical
example
_
_
,
,
,
,
,
,
s
s
s
s

_
_
_
,
,
,
,
,
,
s
s
s
s

_
[ ]
03.Berry_pp72-111 3/20/07 10:42 AM Page 78
the Capriccio itself were emotionally powerful, musically specic, and in-
timately tied to the medium of performance at her instrument. Brahms
seems to have anticipated the nature and depth of his friends familiar-
ity with his piano piece before she criticized his revisions. Indeed, I be-
lieve he had already used her familiarity as a compositional resource,
purposefully designing a setting of Carl Candiduss poem Alte Liebe
in order to stir her musical memories of the Capriccio. Such a song
would incorporate an allusion in the strongest sense: a deliberate refer-
ence to a previously existing work, specically meant to be perceived as
such by some intended audience.
Allusion is a vexing topic in the Brahms literature. On the one
hand, Brahmss knowledge of music by his predecessors and contempo-
raries was famously detailed, and his own compositional style often
strikes us as nostalgic or evocative.
18
His surviving correspondence with
such intimate friends as Theodor Billroth, Elisabet von Herzogenberg,
and Clara herself shows that he acknowledged employing allusive pro-
cedures on multiple occasions, particularly in the comparatively private
genres of chamber music and song.
19
The tradition of interpreting in-
stances of allusion as windows into Brahmss compositional thought
and interpersonal relationships thus began within the composers own
circle and with his implicit sanction before taking permanent root in
Max Kalbecks biography.
20
Several American scholars have recently
reinvigorated that tradition by teasing widely divergent instances and
berry
79
18
Leaving aside the issue of allusion itself, recent studies display renewed interest in
and a wide variety of approaches toward the complex issues of memory, nostalgia, and the
past in Brahmss compositional style. Examples include Daniel Beller-McKenna, Distance
and Disembodiment: Harps, Horns, and the Requiem Idea in Schumann and Brahms,
Journal of Musicology 22 (2005): 4789; Karen Bottge, Brahmss Wiegenlied and the
Maternal Voice, 19th Century Music 28 (2005): 185213; Elmar Budde, Brahms oder
der Versuch, das Ende zu denken, in Abschied in die Gegenwart: Teleologie und Zustand in
der Musik (Vienna: Universal, 1998), 26778; Marjorie Hirsch, The Spiral Journey Back
Home: Brahmss Heimweh Lieder, Journal of Musicology 22 (2005): 45489; and Mar-
garet Notleys new book Lateness and Brahms: Music and Culture in the Twilight of Viennese
Liberalism (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2006). Reinhold Brinkmanns Late Idyll: The Sec-
ond Symphony of Johannes Brahms, trans. Peter Palmer (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press,
1995) has already become a locus classicus of interest in the nostalgic aspects of Brahmss
music.
19
Brahms/Billroth, Briefe, 28283 and 398; Brahms/Herzogenberg, Briefe, 2: 140;
and Brahms/Schumann, Briefe, 2: 562.
20
See Kalbecks interpretation of the closing theme of the op. 36 string sextets rst
movement as a cipher for Agathe von Siebolds rst name, in Brahms, 1: 33031, and 2:
15759. This argument relies on both music-analytic and biographical-documentary sup-
port, and it remains one of the few widely accepted interpretations of its kind. Kalbeck
also addressed other, less emotionally charged allusions throughout his biography, in-
cluding a quotation from the unpublished Brautgesang in Von ewiger Liebe, op. 43/1, and a
reference to Bachs so-called Passion Chorale in Auf dem Kirchhofe, op. 105/4. See Brahms,
1: 37578, and 4: 13336.
03.Berry_pp72-111 3/20/07 10:42 AM Page 79
theories of allusion out of Brahmss songs and instrumental works.
21
On the other hand, given how easy it is to nd purely musical resem-
blances if one wants to, many of us justiably distrust supposed allu-
sions unless they are supported by documentary evidence of a com-
posers intentions.
22
Brahmss notorious blend of reticence and ironic
detachment regarding his own music usually renders his letters and the
recollections of his friends unreliable witnesses to his allusive composi-
tional procedures.
23
Left with few documents from which one might
assess his motivations in creating particular musical references or iden-
tify the audiences for whom those references were designed, allusion-
hunting in Brahmss works remains an intriguing but often unconvinc-
ing hermeneutic.
In the case of Alte Liebe, however, a virtually unprecedented array of
evidence indicates that Brahms intended a single listener to perceive a
referential relationship to the F
-minor Capriccio. Clara Schumann was

deeply and exclusively familiar with the Capriccio itself; surviving corre-
80
21
Particularly in the 1990s, musicologists found fertile ground for the study of allu-
sion in Brahmss symphonies. Examples include David Brodbeck, Brahms: Symphony No. 1
(Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1997); Kenneth Hull, Allusive Irony in Brahmss
Fourth Symphony, in Brahms Studies II, ed. David Brodbeck (Lincoln: Univ. of Nebraska
1998), 13568; idem, Brahms the Allusive: Extra-Compositional Reference in the Instru-
mental Music of Johannes Brahms (Ph.D. diss., Princeton Univ., 1989); Raymond
Knapp, Brahms and the Challenge of the Symphony (Stuyvesant: Pendragon Press, 1997), and
idem,The Finale of Brahmss Fourth Symphony: The Tale of the Subject, 19th Century
Music 13 (1989): 317. Other recent studies have begun to focus on chamber music and
song, among them David Clampitt, In Brahmss Workshop: Compositional Modeling in
op. 40, Adagio mesto (paper presented at the Society for Music Theory annual meeting,
Seattle, 11 November 2004); two studies by Dillon Parmer, Brahms and the Poetic
Motto: A Hermeneutic Aid? Journal of Musicology 15 (1997): 35389, and Brahms, Song
Quotation, and Secret Programs, 19th Century Music 19 (1995): 16190, both based on
his dissertation, Brahms the Programmatic? A Critical Assessment (Ph.D. diss., Eastman
School of Music, 1995); and Christopher Reynolds, Motives for Allusion: Context and Con-
tent in Ninteenth-Century Music (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 2003).
22
Perhaps the most resounding call for reform in current scholarly approaches to
Brahmss allusive procedures is John Daverios thorough and reasoned critique of Eric
Samss so-called Clara cipher in Crossing Paths: Schubert, Schumann, and Brahms (Oxford:
Oxford Univ. Press, 2002), 6587. Although Daverios critique is directed toward a spe-
cial subset of allusive techniques, it has also stimulated broader criticisms of allusion-
hunting in general. See Virginia Hancocks review of Michael Musgrave, ed., The Cam-
bridge Companion to Brahms in Music & Letters 83 (2002): 13133.
23
One exception is a letter to Arthur Faber from 15 July 1868, in which Brahms de-
scribed the allusive relationship between his newly composed Wiegenlied, op. 49/4, and a
preexistent popular love song; see Kalbeck, Brahms, 2: 32627. Another is his famous dis-
cussion of song composition with Georg Henschel in February 1876. Henschel described
in his diary how Brahms used the opening melodic line of Die Mainacht, op. 43/2, to illus-
trate his opinions on the complementary roles of inspiration and compositional craft. See
Henschel, Personal Recollections of Johannes Brahms (Boston: Richard C. Badger [Gorham
Press], 1907), 2223. Christopher Reynolds has recently interpreted Brahmss words as
referring obliquely to an allusive relationship between Die Mainacht and Chopins second
impromptu, op. 36; see Reynolds, Motives for Allusion, 10910.
03.Berry_pp72-111 3/20/07 10:42 AM Page 80
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81
spondence, diary entries, and early compositional variants permit de-
tailed investigation of Brahmss attitudes with respect to Alte Liebe; and
the two works share musical material that is aurally salient and rich in
music-analytic and hermeneutic implications. After examining Alte Liebes
newly rediscovered autograph and reconstructing the circumstances of
the songs rst performance, this article proposes a detailed account of
Brahmss compositional process and explores how Clara might have ap-
prehended the musical memories opened up by the song. Imaginatively
adopting a perspective originally unique to Alte Liebes intended listener
yields fresh insights into Brahmss compositional practice in the inti-
mate genres of song and small-scale chamber music, a rich new histori-
cal context in which to ground the study of allusion in his works, and a
hitherto unnoticed opportunity to explore the musical and personal
dynamics of his closest friendship.
The Manuscript of Alte Liebe and the Circumstances of Its Premiere
Brahms completed Alte Liebe on 6 May 1876, more than four years
after he had given Clara her Capriccio but still two years before its re-
vised version rst surfaced among his broader circle. Three days later,
on May 9, he nished a setting of Goethes Unberwindlich. Dated
fair copies of both songs survive today in Brahmss hand. The auto-
graph of Unberwindlich is in the Universitts- und Landesbibliothek in
Darmstadt; Brahms gave it to the baritone Josef Hauser during a visit to
Karlsruhe in late October 1876.
24
The autograph of Alte Liebe is cur-
rently in the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale Uni-
versity;
25
the history of its ownership has not been thoroughly docu-
mented until now. Like the early version of Claras Capriccio, the songs
in both manuscripts differ from the readings Brahms eventually pub-
lished. Most discrepancies are negligible, but each manuscript also
preserves at least one musically signicant variant. The autograph of
Alte Liebe raises the third of the songs nal tonic triad, whereas the pub-
lished version ends on the minor tonic. The autograph of Unber-
windlich scores its vocal line entirely in the bass clef, while the published
version uses treble; in addition, the published version brackets the
pianos opening two-measure motive and attributes it to Domenico
24
Mus. Ms. 1522, Universitts- und Landesbibliothek, Darmstadt. Brahms was in
Karlsruhe from October 28 through November 4, when his First Symphony was played
under Dessoffs direction; see Hofmann, Zeittafel, 134. Hauser probably received the auto-
graph in late October rather than early November, since he also acquired a copyists man-
uscript of Alte Liebe dated Okt 76; this copyists manuscript is also preserved in Darm-
stadts Universitts- und Landesbibliothek as Mus. Ms. 1523.
25
FRKF 870, Friedrich R. Koch Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Li-
brary, Yale University.
03.Berry_pp72-111 3/20/07 10:42 AM Page 81
82
Scarlatti, but the manuscript neither brackets nor attributes the motive.
Leaving aside the music itself, both autographs include another detail
that the published versions omit: Immediately following the closing
double bar lines, Brahms appended his signature and the date on
which he completed each song. Figure 2 presents a facsimile of Alte
Liebes nal two measures and dated signature.
A natural sign, a bass clef, an unattributed borrowing, and a pair of
dated signatures: Once we piece together details of the songs dissemi-
nation between their composition in May 1876 and their printed re-
lease in August 1877, these variants in Brahmss original autographs
will help reconstruct Claras experience of Unberwindlich and espe-
cially of Alte Liebe. As usual, the songs circulated widely among Brahmss
close friends immediately prior to their publication as the rst and last
of the Fnf Gesnge, op. 72. In the spring of 1877, the composer sent
them, along with many of the other songs from opp. 6972, to Billroth,
and then to the Herzogenbergs and Clara herself, on their way to Fritz
Simrocks publishing rm.
26
Several members of the Brahms circle en-
26
Billroth/Brahms, Briefe, 23436; Brahms/Herzogenberg, Briefe, 1: 1921 and
2627; Brahms/Schumann, Briefe, 2: 9698; and Fritz Simrock, Johannes Brahms und Fritz
Simrock: Weg einer FreundschaftBriefe des Verlegers an den Komponisten (Verffentlichungen aus
der Hamburger Staats- und Universitts-Bibliothek, VI), Kurt Stephenson, ed. (Hamburg:
J. J. Augustin, 1961), 99.
gure 2. Johannes Brahms, fair copy of Alte Liebe, closing measures
and dated signature. FRKF 870, Friedrich R. Koch Collec-
tion, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale Uni-
versity, New Haven, Connecticut
03.Berry_pp72-111 3/20/07 10:42 AM Page 82
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83
27
Amalie Joachim and Julius Stockhausen heard many of the songs in opp. 6972
in late March or early April (see Billroth/Brahms, Briefe, 236). Wilhelm Engelmann must
have encountered at least some of them by early July 1877, since he referred playfully to
the text of Mdchenuch, op. 69/9, in a letter from July 10; see Johannes Brahms and
Theodor Wilhelm Engelmann, Johannes Brahms im Briefwechsel mit Th. Wilhelm Engelmann
(Berlin: Deutsche Brahms-Gesellschaft, 1918), 64. Moreover, a letter to Brahms from
Simrock mentions a mid July party at which both of the Engelmanns enjoyed performing
from scores that incorporated Brahmss recent revisions to opp. 6972; see Simrock,
Briefe, 107.
28
Brahms/Herzogenberg, Briefe, 1: 27. Labeling the song von Henschel allowed
Elisabet to remind Brahms tactfully of an old promise to send her an autograph manu-
script of her own. Brahms had mentioned the promise in a letter to her husband from
the previous month (ibid., 26) but did not fulll it until 13 November 1877, when he
sent an autograph of the vocal quartet O Schne Nacht, op. 92/1 (ibid., 2829).
29
See McCorkle, Werkverzeichnis, 307. George Bozarth also lists Henschels copy on
page 260 of The First Generation of Brahms Manuscript Collections, Notes 40 (1983):
23962.
30
I am indebted to Richard Saunders of the Hudson Rogue Company for providing
a facsimile of the manuscript he sold in 1982. I have also traced its intermediary owners:
an anonymous American who owned the manuscript from 1982 to 1985; Christies King
Street in London, which sold it on 27 March 1985; and a London art dealer who sold it
to a representative of Friedrich Koch sometime before the Koch Collection became part
of the Beineckes holdings.
countered the songs second hand, through mutual friends, during this
urry of prepublication activity.
27
Others, however, had already encoun-
tered Alte Liebe and Unberwindlich before Brahms released manuscripts
widely within his circle, even before he had written the bulk of the
songs in opp. 6972.
Surviving correspondence shows that an independent current of
reception began shortly after Brahms completed the surviving auto-
graphs. After getting to know the songs of opp. 6972 during a visit to
the Schumanns in Berlin on 5 May 1877, Elisabet von Herzogenberg
wrote a letter to Brahms in which she referred to Alte Liebe as belonging
to the baritone Georg Henschel. In fact, she was referring not to the
song itself but to an autograph manuscript.
28
In November 1881, Hen-
schel gave an autograph of Alte Liebe to Henry Lee Higginson, who had
founded the Boston Symphony Orchestra and brought Henschel from
Europe to be its rst conductor that fall.
29
Sold in 1982 to an unidenti-
ed American buyer by a small antiquarian company in upstate New
York, Henschels manuscript subsequently vanished from scholarly at-
tention; but a reproduction retained by the antiquarian company con-
rms that it is precisely the autograph currently housed in the Beinecke
Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
30
Elisabets letter shows, in turn,
that Henschel already owned this autograph in the spring of 1877.
When did he rst acquire it?
In 1901 and 1907, having since moved to England, Henschel pub-
lished two different English translations of a diary he had kept during a
03.Berry_pp72-111 3/20/07 10:42 AM Page 83
84
31
George (formerly Georg) Henschel, Personal Recollections of Johannes
Brahms, Century Illustrated Magazine 66/5 (March 1901): 72536; and Personal Recollec-
tions of Johannes Brahms (Boston: Richard C. Badger [Gorham Press], 1907).
32
Max Kalbeck, Neues ber Brahms, mitgetheilt von Max Kalbeck, Neues Wiener
Tagblatt, April 2 and 5, 1898; both parts of the article appear in the popular Feuilleton
section, below the fold on pp. 13 of their respective issues.
33
I intend to investigate these discrepancies more fully in a forthcoming publication.
34
Henschel, Personal Recollections, 732, and Personal Recollections, 33.
35
Kalbeck, Neues ber Brahms, part 1 (April 2), page 2: Ein ebenfalls neues,
sehr schnes Lied: Alte Liebe von Candidus, schenkte er mir im Manuskript, so da ich
nun schon die Manuskripte von vier Liedern von ihm besitze. Kalbeck relied upon this
sentence when preparing his edition of the Brahms/Herzogenberg correspondence, in
which Elisabets remark about Alte Liebe from 5 May 1877 received the following annota-
tion: Der Snger Georg Henschel (geb. 1850) ist gemeint, dem Brahms das Manuskript
von Alte Liebe im Sommer 1876 bei ihrem gemeinsamen Aufenthalt auf Rgen
geschenkt hatte (Brahms/Herzogenberg, Briefe, 1: 27n).
vacation shared with Brahms on the island of Rgen in the Baltic Sea in
July 1876.
31
These publications are often cited, particularly the widely
available Personal Recollections of 1907, but Henschels translations from
his diary are neither as accurate nor as comprehensive as they purport
to be. In 1898, well before publishing either of his own translations,
Henschel allowed Max Kalbeck to print portions of his diary in an arti-
cle in the Neues Wiener Tagblatt.
32
Passages from Kalbecks 1898 article
may preserve some portions of the original German diary more accu-
rately than the singers own translations.
33
With respect to Alte Liebe and
Unberwindlich, at any rate, the discrepancy between the two versions is
striking. On the afternoon of 9 July 1876, Henschel and Brahms dis-
cussed some of the composers latest songs. Henschels translations
name only one specic song, Unberwindlich.
34
But immediately after
mentioning Unberwindlich, Kalbecks account adds: He gave me in
manuscript an equally new, very beautiful song, Alte Liebe of Can-
didus, so that I now already possess the manuscripts of four of his
songs.
35
The autographs later history itself provides a plausible reason
for Henschels omission of this sentence in his English translations: By
1901, he had long since given his manuscript away, rendering irrele-
vant and inaccurate his enthusiastic claim of ownership.
After Henschel acquired the autograph now in the Beinecke Li-
brary, it seems scarcely to have inuenced the songs reception: Elisabet
von Herzogenbergs letter remains the sole evidence that anyone in
Brahmss circle was aware of his gift to Henschel, and nothing suggests
that their mutual friends ever saw the manuscript again after July 1876.
But Clara Schumann may already have encountered the autograph
before Henschel acquired it. Prior to sending Alte Liebe and Unber-
windlich on the usual prepublication rounds or showing them to
Henschel, Brahms ensured that his new songs, like the 1871 Capriccio,
03.Berry_pp72-111 3/20/07 10:42 AM Page 84
reached Claras ears rst. He could not deliver them immediately in
person, since he was still in Vienna during May 1876, far from her
home in Berlin. Instead, sometime between May 9 and May 28, he sent
manuscript copies to Julius Stockhausen, a mutual close friend and the
best Lieder singer in Berlin, along with a note asking him to sing them
to Clara: Immediately before and after my birthday I wrote two songs
that seem to me well suited for you. But go to Frau Schumann with
them and sing them to her.
36
Stockhausen fullled Brahmss request
for a performance immediately, singing Alte Liebe and Unberwindlich
for Clara on 28 May 1876. Circumstantial evidence suggests that he
performed from the very autographs that survive today in New Haven
and Darmstadt.
Brahms put off deciding where he would spend the summer of
1876 until late May or early June, after he had already sent Stock-
hausen copies of his new songs.
37
Once he nally chose the island of
Rgen, he quickly arranged to visit Clara in Berlin during June 811 on
his way north.
38
His time in Berlin gave him ample opportunity to re-
trieve the manuscripts he had sent to Stockhausen, and their unantici-
pated recovery might explain why Brahms was carrying apparently
expendable autographs when he encountered Georg Henschel in July
and, while still on his way home to Vienna, Josef Hauser in October.
Brahmss movements and correspondence thus support a plausible nar-
rative that traces the surviving autographs from their creation, through
Claras hands, to their eventual dispersal and present locations, without
requiring the existence of any more fair copies. Narratives involving
multiple fair copies could also be derived from the same evidence, but
by the mid 1870s, Brahms was not in the habit of making multiple auto-
graphs of a single version of a solo song.
39
In this case, having drafted
36
Johannes Brahms and Julius Stockhausen, Johannes Brahms im Briefwechsel mit
Julius Stockhausen ( Johannes-Brahms-Briefwechsel, Neue Folge, XVIII ), ed. Renate Hofmann
(Tutzing: Schneider, 1993), 118. The original reads: Grade vor u. nach m. Geburtstag
machte ich 2 Lieder die gar so gut mir fr Dich zu passen scheinen. Gehe doch damit zu
Frau Schumann u singe sie ihr.
37
Brahms may have rst begun considering the Baltic Sea as a potential summer re-
treat several months prior. Henschels diary records that he and Brahms discussed possi-
ble vacation destinations on the evening of February 27 (Personal Recollections, 731,
and Personal Recollections, 26). In late April, however, Brahms was clearly still torn between
various options: In a letter postmarked April 22, he asked Simrock whether he ought to
return to Rschlikon, near Zrich, where he had spent the summer of 1874 (Brahms,
Briefe an Simrock, 1: 221). The rst surviving evidence of his nal decision to go to the is-
land of Rgen dates from June 5, well after he had sent Stockhausen the manuscripts of
Alte Liebe and Unberwindlich; see Brahms/Engelmann, Briefe, 45.
38
Clara described his visit in her diary (printed in Litzmann, Clara Schumann, 3:
335).
39
While quite a few duplicate song autographs survive in Brahmss hand from the
1850s and early 1860s, the number drops precipitously after the premiere of the
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86
his new pair of songs and copied them cleanly by hand in early May,
why would Brahms have taken the time and effort to make a second set
of fair copies within a week or two of the rst? The work habits evident
from his previous decade of song composition suggest, instead, that he
simply sent to Stockhausen the autographs he had made (expecting
him to return them by mail) and retained his own drafts, which, as
usual, no longer survive.
Thus it plausible to suppose that Clara had access to the song man-
uscripts in question. And even if she did not see the autographs them-
selves, she must have encountered both songs in the versions they pre-
serve, complete with the Picardy third at the end of Alte Liebe and the
bass clef and unattributed borrowing in Unberwindlich. Brahmss letter
refers to the songs as having been nished immediately before and
after his birthday, May 7; the surviving autographs (dated May 6 and
May 9) were therefore made as soon as the songs were nished, leaving
no time for earlier versions that might have been sent to Berlin instead.
At the same time, he did not consider altering any of the musical vari-
ants preserved in his autographs until several months after he mailed
copies to Stockhausen.
40
In sum, documentary evidence shows that
Brahms arranged a special premiere performance of his new songs for
Clara shortly after completing them and signicantly before releasing
them among the rest of his circle; we know which versions of the songs
he intended her to hear, and we can examine the manuscripts she
probably saw. Finally, Brahmss letter to Stockhausen preserves an in-
triguing indication of the composers attitude toward his new songs and
their rst audience. To his straightforward request for a performance
of the songs, Brahms added a curious comment: For as you are the
Deutsches Requiem in 1868. This trend is too marked to be blamed simply on chance losses
of later autographs, especially as one would expect their owners to retain more of
Brahmss manuscripts as his fame increased. One explanation might be that the com-
posers growing nancial independence permitted him to rely more often on profes-
sional copyists instead of spending the time to make multiple fair copies himself. Indeed,
the appearance and dates of the duplicate autographs which do survive from the 1870s
suggest that Brahms understood the value of his manuscripts and created duplicates de-
liberately as formal presents. Many were clearly commemorative gifts, made on decorative
paper for particular occasions long after the music they contained had already been pub-
lished; see, for instance, the copies of An ein Veilchen, op. 49/2, and Wiegenlied, op. 49/4,
that Brahms prepared for Clara Schumann in September 1872, almost four years after
op. 49 had been published (McCorkle, Werkverzeichnis, 19799).
40
Josef Hausers dated copyists manuscript of Alte Liebe shows that the songs origi-
nal Picardy third persisted at least through October 1876. Brahms informed his publisher
of his nal decisions to rescore Unberwindlichs vocal line in treble clef and to attribute
its opening motive to Scarlatti only on 4 May 1877 (Brahms, Briefe an Simrock, 2: 3132),
though he discussed possible ways of citing the source of his borrowed material with Hen-
schel on 9 July 1876 (Henschel, Personal Recollections, 33).
03.Berry_pp72-111 3/20/07 10:42 AM Page 86
best to sing them, yet she is the best to hear them.
41
What did he mean
by this?
With regard to Stockhausens voice, Brahms might have intended
his comment to be understood in at least two distinct senses. Read as
applying to the baritones singing in general, the claim acknowledges
his position among Brahmss friends as the preeminent male singer of
Brahmss songs. By explicitly reminding Stockhausen of the authority of
his vocal interpretations, Brahms implicitly reinforced the baritones
sense of place within their shared social circle.
42
At the same time, how-
ever, Alte Liebe and Unberwindlich seem particularly well suited to Stock-
hausens voice, insofar as echoes of that voice remain in music Brahms
clearly intended for it. Take three examples from the 1860s, when
Brahms formed his lasting impression of Stockhausens singing during
frequent collaborations in Lieder recitals: He composed the baritone so-
los in movements 3 and 6 of the Deutsches Requiem (186566) and the
orchestral arrangement of Schuberts An Schwager Kronos (1862), in-
tending Stockhausen to perform them. All three movements employ
similar overall ranges (Af , B
, and Af
) and treat either f or f
as a carefully prepared climax; all three avoid prolonged passages be-

tween d and f , but demand from a baritone the rare exibility re-
quired to approach these high notes swiftly, both by step and by leap
from the middle register. Unlike any of Brahmss other songs from the
mid 1870s (the nine Lieder und Gesnge, op. 63, from 187374, and
Abendregen, op. 70/4, from 1875), Alte Liebe and Unberwindlich employ
virtually the same ambitus and the same climaxes as our three test cases
(their ranges are cf and G
) and require the same agility in the

upper tessitura. A man in whose voice the Requiem solos and Schubert
arrangement rang true would be an ideal singer for the songs Brahms
sent to Stockhausen in May 1876.
Brahms thus seems to have had ample motivation, both personal
and musical, for his comment regarding Stockhausens singing. What
about Claras listening? That Brahms respected her opinion of his un-
published compositions was certainly no secret among their mutual
41
Brahms/Stockhausen, Briefwechsel, 118: Denn wie Du der Beste zum Singen, ist
sie doch die Beste zum Hren!
42
This is just one of many overt expressions of admiration preserved in Brahmss
correspondence with Stockhausen. Conspicuously reinforcing their respect for one an-
others talent helped the pair maintain their friendship from its beginnings in 1861, de-
spite distances later created by geographical separation and professional competition (for
instance, the fact that Stockhausen was chosen over Brahms in 1862 to direct the con-
certs of the Hamburg Philharmonic; for a concise and balanced description of this cir-
cumstance and its effects on their friendship, see Renate Hofmanns introduction to
Brahms/Stockhausen, Briefe, 1619).
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03.Berry_pp72-111 3/20/07 10:42 AM Page 87
88
43
Brahms/Schumann, Briefe, 2: 98: Op. 72. 1. Alte Liebe, das war schon eine alte
Liebe, oh wie herrlich ist das! . . . Nr. 4 und 5, groe Lieblinge, welch ein Schwung in Nr.
4 Verzagen und wie ganz originell das Schlulied [Unberwindlich]. (Das kannte ich
auch.)
44
Litzmann, Clara Schumann, 3: 335: Den 28. bei Stockhausen. Brahms hatte ihm
zwei wunderbar schne neue Lieder geschickt mit der Bitte, sie der besten Zuhrerin
(mir) vorzusingen. Pressed for time amid her busy concert schedule and hampered by
tiredness in her arms and hands, Clara occasionally completed her diary in retrospect,
weeks or even months after the events it describes took place. Her entries for May 1876
were actually completed in August (see Brahms/Schumann, Briefe, 2: 7273), which may
explain the vagueness of her account of Stockhausens performance.
friends. But his formulation also indicates that he might have had musi-
cal reasons for considering these songs especially tting for Clara to
hear. Denn wie Du der Beste zum Singen, ist sie doch die Beste zum
Hren: The letters balanced syntax implies that Alte Liebe and Unber-
windlich t Claras ears as precisely as they matched Stockhausens
voice, and the word denn establishes her privileged listening as the
reason for Brahmss wish that she hear the songs. He urged Stock-
hausen to perform them for her precisely because she was the best lis-
tener. Unfortunately, no immediate record of Claras impressions of
the new songs survives in her correspondence with Brahms, perhaps be-
cause his visit in early June gave her swift and ample opportunity to
discuss them in person. When he asked her almost a year later for com-
ments on all the songs he would soon publish in opp. 6972, she re-
sponded on 2 May 1877 with barely a sentence each of unqualied but
vague praise for Alte Liebe and Unberwindlich, explaining in both cases
that she was already familiar with the songs.
43
Even her diary entry
from the day of Stockhausens performance conveys her opinion only
in the most general terms: The 28
th
at Stockhausens home. Brahms
had sent him two wonderfully beautiful new songs and asked him to
sing them to the best listener (me).
44
Nevertheless, while Claras surviving writings reveal little about her
response to Brahmss new songs, her diary entry still preserves a den-
ing aspect of her encounter with them: Whatever Brahms meant by
proclaiming Clara the best person to listen, she was aware of his claim.
Presumably on the day of the premiere, Stockhausen must have shown
her Brahmss letter or told her exactly what he had read there. From
the rst, then, Claras impression of Alte Liebe and Unberwindlich was
potentially charged with the awareness that, at least in their case, the
composer privileged her ear above all others. Thus made conscious of
the individuality of her own musical mind, attuned to the tendencies
peculiar to her own experience, what did Clara hear when Stockhausen
sang Brahmss new songs? Alte Liebes piano postlude conceals an in-
triguing possibility. Guided back by the nal measures of the song into
03.Berry_pp72-111 3/20/07 10:42 AM Page 88
musical memories that only Brahms and Clara shared, we may recon-
struct a plausible scenario for the reception of Alte Liebe and Unber-
windlich in which compositional intent and informed listening drew
together the texts Brahms set, the choices he made in setting them, and
the musical knowledge unique to Claras perspective.
An Old Dream: Echoes of the Capriccio in Alte Liebe
Here is the poem Alte Liebe as it appeared in Brahmss copy of
Carl Candiduss Vermischte Gedichte of 1869,
45
along with my translation:
Es kehrt die dunkle Schwalbe The dark swallow returns
Aus fernem Land zurck, Again from far-off lands;
Die frommen Strche kehren The pious storks return
Und bringen neues Glck. And bring new happiness.
An diesem Frhlingsmorgen Upon this springtime morning
So trb verhngt und warm So cloudy, drear, and warm
Ist mir als fnd ich wieder I feel as if Ive found
Den alten Liebesharm. Loves old grief again.
Es ist als ob mich leise I feel as if somebody
Wer auf die Schulter schlug, Had gently touched my shoulder,
Als ob ich suseln hrte As if I heard a whisper
Wie einer Taube Flug. As of a dove in ight.
Es klopft an meine Thre, A knock comes at my door,
Und ist doch niemand draus; But no one stands outside;
Ich atme Jasmindfte, I breathe the scent of jasmine
und habe keinen Strau. But have no owers here.
Es ruft mir aus der Ferne, A voice calls in the distance,
Ein Auge sieht mich an, An eye returns my gaze,
Ein alter Traum erfat mich An old dream takes hold of me
Und fhrt mich seine Bahn. And leads me along its path.
To read this poem is to eavesdrop on the emotional workings of
nostalgia. Once apprised of the season and scene surrounding the
45
Candiduss original poem omitted many of the internal and line-end commas
that appear in printed editions of Brahmss setting. I have examined Brahmss copy of the
Vermischte Gedichte in the archive of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna; like the
other texts he set from that volume, Alte Liebe is dog-eared and clearly worn, but bears
no marks in pencil or ink.
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89
03.Berry_pp72-111 3/20/07 10:42 AM Page 89
poetic speaker, we sink ever deeper into mingled fantasy and reminis-
cence. The speaker cannot recover or even fully name the former inti-
macy hinted at in the glance of an eye or the call of a familiar voice; yet
once recalled, the past irresistibly reasserts its own patterns of thought
and emotion. Candiduss brand of nostalgia is inevitable but not conso-
latory. Springtimes warm weather and migratory birds initiate the
process of recollection, but unlike the returning seasons, the speakers
old dream is now lost forever. The cognitive dissonance between the
speakers unrecoverable memories and cyclically renewed natural sur-
roundings resonates for the reader in the implicitly uneasy relationship
between the content of the poem and its title, which parodies a venera-
ble and well known proverb, Alte Liebe rostet nicht (literally, old
love never rusts).
46
Read in the context of its potential popular conno-
tations, the title Alte Liebe may suggest the possibility of reconcilia-
tion with the speakers old love; but within the poem itself, love has
already faded entirely into self-conscious regret. The resulting disjunc-
tion between our initially positive expectations for the poem and the
hopeless reality we nd within its text forces the reader to mimic the
speakers disturbing experience of half-forgotten memories.
Brahmss setting of Candiduss poem creates an analogy in tones
for the process by which those memories inltrate and destabilize the
poetic speakers present mood. Against a through-composed structure
that accommodates the affective turns of each poetic stanza, Alte Liebe
overlays strategic repetitions of the singers initial motive. Example 3
presents annotated score excerpts of this six-pitch vocal incipit and its
recurrences throughout the song. Following its initial appearance in
measures 23 (Ex. 3a), the motive rst recurs tentatively, buried in the
accompaniment in measures 1112 (Ex. 3b); it then disappears until
measures 3435 and 3839 (Ex. 3c), where it returns to the vocal line,
limited now to its rst ve pitches; it recurs in full six-note form in the
vocal line in measures 4647 (Ex. 3d) and nally in the piano in mea-
90
46
By the mid 19th century in German-speaking countries, collections of folk
proverbs (Sprichwrter) had become important corollaries of the popular and academic
enthusiasm for folk stories and folksongs exemplied by the Grimms Mrchen or
Brentanos Des Knaben Wunderhorn. Alte Liebe rostet nicht found a place in nearly all
collections of proverbs, including Karl Simrocks seminal 1846 collection, Die deutschen
Sprichwrter, vol. 20 of Die deutschen Volksbcher (Frankfurt am Main: H. L. Brnner, 1846;
repr. Stuttgart: Reclam, 1988) and its monumental successor, Karl Friedrich Wilhelm
Wanders Deutsche Sprichwrterlexikon (Leipzig: F. A. Brockhaus, 186780). The sayings
popularity is also demonstrated by the fact that many collections contained variants on
its basic form, such as Alte Liebe rostet nicht, und wenn sie zehn Jahr in Schornstein
hinge, which appeared in both Karl Simrocks Sprichwrter, 331 (repr. ed.) and Wanders
Sprichwrterlexikon, 3 (1873): 129; Wanders lexicon included six other variants as well.
For a concise history of these and other German collections, see Wolfgang Mieders intro-
duction to the Reclam reprint of Simrocks Sprichwrter, 1015.
03.Berry_pp72-111 3/20/07 10:42 AM Page 90
berry
sures 5557 (Ex. 3e). Taken together, these repetitions allow Alte Liebe
to link the gradual reappearance of the vocal incipit in its original form
with the progressive resurgence of the speakers past by engaging the
listeners memory of the songs opening measures at moments carefully
aligned with the speakers various reactions to recollected intimacy.
The rst repetition occurs just before the second stanza of the poem,
in which the speaker begins to perceive echoes of lost love in natural
phenomena. By rhythmically and texturally obscuring the singers
initial motive, measures 1112 reect the hesitancy with which the
speaker at rst engages the past; by avoiding the vocal line in favor of
the piano accompaniment, the tentative recurrence of the motive rein-
forces our sense that the initial impetus behind the speakers nostalgia
91
_
Es kehrt
5
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6
dunk
8
- le
7
Schwal
9
- be
5
,
,

,

;

_
Gluck.
5
An
5
example 3. Annotated Excerpts from Alte Liebe, op. 72/1, published

version
a. Alte Liebe, mm. 23
b. Alte Liebe, mm. 1112
03.Berry_pp72-111 3/20/07 10:42 AM Page 91
92
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comes from outside, in some chance conguration of season, climate,
and natural surroundings. The next two repetitions (mm. 3435 and
3839) parallel the moments in stanza 4 when the speakers reminis-
cences begin to produce sensory impressions that explicitly contradict
empirical reality: But no one stands outside/ . . . But have no owers
here. The song reverts suddenly to melodic material, accompanimen-
tal textures, and (in mm. 3435) dynamic levels taken directly from the
singers opening measures, but the six-pitch vocal incipit is curtailed to
ve pitches in order to accommodate six syllables of text rather than
seven. The abrupt reappearance and subsequent truncation of the mo-
tive make its familiar pitches sound out of place at this point in the
song, registering in tones the speakers increasingly agitated realization
that resurgent memories cannot be reconciled with current reality. In
the closing couplet, the speaker nally acknowledges that the past re-
mains emotionally overwhelming despite being unrecoverable: An old
dream takes hold of me/ And leads me along its path. At the moment
of this pivotal admission, the six-pitch vocal incipit returns at last in full
(mm. 4647), complete with its original accompaniment from mea-
sures 23.
Carried away from the reader and into private reminiscence, Can-
diduss speaker then falls silent and the poem ends, but Brahmss song
accompanies the poets silence with a musical image of the old dream
the speaker has just reencountered. As the singer ceases in measure 55,
the six-pitch motive emerges once more in the accompaniment, lifted
momentarily into the highest register employed in the song by either
voice or piano. Steady dotted half notes replace the halting rhythm
characteristic of all ve of the vocal incipits previous appearances; the
resulting agogic uniformity focuses the listeners attention fully on the
motives pitch content and simultaneously establishes a clear distinction
in melodic and harmonic pace between the piano postlude and the rest
of the song. The piano has never before played these six pitches on the
beat, nor has the left hand been reduced to unobtrusive off-beat en-
trances. Range, rhythm, and relationship between tune and accompani-
ment all transform the motive into a lyrical melody of unprecedented
clarity. Having already heard the motive itself ve times, we naturally
apprehend this nal, augmented statement of its pitches as retrospec-
tively evoking those previous occurrences. Measures 5559 inevitably
sound like a redaction of what preceded thema nal, distilled recol-
lection of the songs most important melodic material. Yet the postludes
exceptional lyricism also tempts us to hear its newly tuneful version of
the motive as the songs true underlying theme. Indeed, for the space
of ve measures, we can almost let ourselves be teased out of musical
time into understanding Alte Liebes postlude as an echo from the past
94
03.Berry_pp72-111 3/20/07 10:42 AM Page 94
berry
to which the song refers, a heretofore elusive musical dream of which
the motives earlier manifestations were themselves only dim waking
memories. Heard in the context of those earlier manifestations, the
piano postlude is the goal of a consistent trajectory. From the vocal in-
cipits initial appearance, through stages of its partial and then full re-
covery, to its nal lyric transformation, the song shapes the listeners
progressive experiences of the motive in ways that model the speakers
nostalgic turn of mind.
So far I have outlined, in effect, a public hearing of Alte Liebe: an in-
terpretation of the relationship between Candiduss text and Brahmss
setting such as might have informed the impressions of any trained
musician who encountered the song after it was published in 1877.
Whatever personal idiosyncrasies one might bring to the task of listen-
ing, Alte Liebe engages in sophisticated and compelling play with musi-
cal memory. Indeed, its capacity to establish and then manipulate the
hearers apprehension of a specic and seemingly self-contained musi-
cal past probably accounted for much of the Brahms circles prepubli-
cation enthusiasm for the song, not to mention its subsequent public
popularity
47
: The second lithograph in Max Klingers Brahmsphantasie
of 1894 is one testament to the songs prominence among aesthetic de-
pictions of nostalgia during the years following its release. But in May
1876, for one listener only, Alte Liebe could unlock far older and more
intimate musical memories because its piano postlude incorporated
salient musical material hitherto unique to the still-unpublished Capric-
cio that Brahms had given Clara Schumann in September 1871.
Although the F
-minor Capriccio resists interpretation according to

any historically familiar formal outline, its theme is readily identiable,
whether a theme is understood as a scrap of music one can remember
and hum to oneself later on, a polyphonic complex whose recurrences
are aligned in a works structure with moments of re-beginning, or a
melodic and rhythmic prole that remains recognizable despite compo-
sitional manipulations such as fragmentation or inversion. The Capric-
cios theme begins after an emphatic introductory half cadence, when a
continuous melody separates itself from the hitherto relentlessly ho-
mogenous texture and, for the rst time, relegates the works prevailing
16th-note guration to an unambiguously accompanimental role. This
melody traces a slow, circuitous ascent from scale degree 5 to scale
95
47
The songs motivic organization is evidently compelling in its own right, even in-
dependent of Candiduss text; Michael Musgrave describes Alte Liebe as a paradigmatic ex-
ample of Brahmss instrumental type of song composition (in contrast to the declama-
tory type). See Musgrave, Cambridge Companion, 218, and The Music of Brahms (London:
Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1985), 15152.
03.Berry_pp72-111 3/20/07 10:42 AM Page 95
96
degree 9, then accelerates while dropping precipitously toward scale
degree 3 (Ex. 4 includes a reproduction on the upper right). Literal,
transposed, and inverted repetitions of the rst four pitches (scale de-
grees 5 6 8

7) pervade the entire Capriccio, especially at structurally piv-
otal moments: transitions to and from fragmentary or developmental
textures, sudden disappearances and reappearances of 16th-note gu-
ration, and the nal return to the tonic key (shown on the lower left of
Ex. 4).
The Capriccios theme is also the locus of Brahmss private allusion
in Alte Liebe. From May 1876 until July 1878, only he and Clara could
have recognized that the melody of the theme and the recurrent vocal
incipit of the song are virtually identical. Both begin by tracing scale de-
grees 5 6 8

7 9; both treat scale degree 9 as the apex of their melodic
span and follow it with a downward leap. Not all of the songs presenta-
tions of this melodic material are equally evocative of the Capriccios
theme. In contrast to earlier occurrences of the vocal incipit, the lyrical
version in the piano postlude supplements identical scale degree con-
tent with familiar rhythmic and registral strategies: It places the tune in
the same octave as the main theme of the piano piece and presents
melodic pitches on successive downbeats and upbeats in a compound
duple framework, just as they always appear in the Capriccio. The center
of Example 4 reproduces Alte Liebes postlude, and the remainder of the
gure illustrates its most salient parallels with Claras piano piece (in
the manuscript version with which she was familiar in 1876). On the
upper right is the primary occurrence of the Capriccios theme, starting
in measure 13. Aside from a semitone transposition and an aurally im-
perceptible metric shift from
6
8 to
6
4, the rst ve notes of its melody are
the same as those of the postludes tune.
Yet despite all these resemblances, the postlude does not constitute
a straightforward quotation from measures 1315 of the Capriccio. In-
stead, it accompanies its melodic reference with polyphonic complexes
and harmonic characteristics taken from three other specic moments
in the piano piece. First, the postlude doubles its melody an octave be-
low and places a third voice in the middle, as does the Capriccios nal
return to a tonic pedal in measure 65, shown on the lower left of Exam-
ple 4; the tonic pedal itself also reappears in the bottom pitches of the
postludes left hand. Second, the register and spacing of the pianists
hands in the rst measure of the postlude duplicate precisely those
characteristics of the Capriccios opening ourish, as illustrated on the
upper left of Example 4. The right hands rootless arpeggio becomes a
rootless simultaneity, while the restless, fth-less guration in the left
hand is translated into the unidirectional musical dialect of the songs
accompaniment as a fth-less arpeggio. Finally, Alte Liebes last chord is
03.Berry_pp72-111 3/20/07 10:42 AM Page 96

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03.Berry_pp72-111 3/20/07 10:42 AM Page 97

of special interest. Heard in relation to the Capriccio, the major triad
preserved in the surviving autograph resonates strongly. Not only does
the piano piece also end with a major triad, as reproduced on the bot-
tom right of Example 4, but the major tonic displaces its minor double
throughout the last 15 measures of the Capriccio, inecting the works
mesmerizing conclusion with the affective ambiguity of modal mixture.
For an ear steeped in the Capriccio, the nal sonority in the version of
Alte Liebe that Clara rst encountered efciently evokes the harmonic
landscape in which the piano piece slowly comes to rest.
In addition to recalling the Capriccios theme, then, the last ve
measures of Alte Liebe conate aurally identiable moments and inter-
pretively salient materials that together span the length of the piano
piece, from rst measure to last. As one might summarize a long con-
versation, the postlude encapsulates the essence of Claras manuscript
gift rather than literally quoting any single phrase. The resulting con-
uence of musical references is too powerful and too specic to have
occurred by chance. Brahms must have woven these echoes of the
Capriccio into the postlude deliberately, knowing where his new song
might lead the mind of a musician intimately familiar with his old pi-
ano piece, and knowing one listener whose mind was equipped to fol-
low where it led. This hypothesis provides a detailed and plausible ex-
planation for Brahmss actionshis compositional decision-making in
Alte Liebe, his efforts to arrange a timely performance especially for
Clara, and his statement proclaiming her the songs best listener
insofar as those actions can be traced through the music and docu-
ments he left behind. But what motivated his actions? Let us explore
how Clara might have experienced the music and text of Alte Liebe. Re-
constructing what it would have meant for her to recognize the songs
allusion to her Capriccio will help reveal why Brahms used musical mem-
ories only she shared as compositional inspiration for the setting of
Candiduss text.
Imagining Claras Encounter with Alte Liebe
At the very least, hearing echoes of music from nearly ve years ear-
lier in Brahmss new song would have enhanced Claras experience of
his text-setting. For any other audience, Alte Liebes strategic repetitions
of the vocal incipit might have constituted a persuasive musical repre-
sentation of long-term recollection. But for her, the piano postludes
basis in preexistent thematic material could insinuate the act of long-
term recollection itself into the apprehension and understanding of
the song. By fashioning the poetic speakers past in tones she could ap-
prehend through the medium of her own memory, Alte Liebe created
98
03.Berry_pp72-111 3/20/07 10:42 AM Page 98
berry
for Clara a uniquely compelling connection between words and music.
By the same token, her prior memories of the Capriccio undoubtedly
colored Claras reception of Alte Liebe in ways that will never be recov-
ered unless new evidence surfaces regarding her original impressions
of the manuscript gift or the circumstances of its presentation. For in-
stance, taking a cue from her stated admiration for the peculiar blend
of tenderness and melancholy that she had found in the Capriccio, one
might wonder if its evocation in Alte Liebe made the song sound more
specically bittersweet than either Candiduss poem or Brahmss setting
could imply on its own terms.
Even leaving aside prior emotional connotations, however, recog-
nizing the Capriccios theme in Alte Liebes postlude would have ren-
dered Claras encounter with the song a highly personal experience,
for two reasons. First, realizing that Brahms had borrowed musical ma-
terial known to her alone would have made Alte Liebe seem designed
for her ears only, lending the song the quality of a private utterance
and urging her to interpret Brahmss intentions in personal as well as
aesthetic terms. Such a situation was clearly extraordinary. Although
she and the composer were famously close, there is no reason to believe
that Clara examined each of Brahmss new works for traces of private
signication;
48
yet Alte Liebes piano postlude would have all but com-
pelled her to do so, especially given her awareness that he had charac-
terized her as the songs best listener. Second, the Capriccio resurfaces
just where the postlude presents a musical image of the poetic speakers
old dream. By conjuring up her private musical past as the implicit
object of the poems nostalgia, Alte Liebe permitted Clara to participate
vicariously in the speakers unexpected encounter with neglected mem-
ories. Brahmss compositional choices thus allowed and perhaps en-
couraged her to imagine herself as the poems disquieted protagonist
rather than as a detached reader.
In combination, then, the intimacy of Brahmss allusion and its
alignment with Candiduss text facilitated for Clara a particular way of
interacting with vocal music, a perspective peculiarly attuned to the
dual possibilities of private signicance and empathetic identication
99
48
One exception was the Alto Rhapsody, op. 53, which Brahms showed to Clara in
late September 1869 as an implicit response to her daughter Julies marriage on Septem-
ber 22. Goethes misanthropic protagonist bears a clear resemblance to the self-image
Brahms presented to the Schumann family in the wake of Julies betrothal, and his mu-
sics stark projection of its text moved Clara deeply (see Litzmann, Clara Schumann, 3:
22930 and 232; Malcolm MacDonald describes the situation succinctly in Brahms (Ox-
ford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2001), 13940). In this case, however, it was primarily the text
Brahms chose, not the music he wrote, which established a private connection between
his creative output and his relationship with the Schumanns.
03.Berry_pp72-111 3/20/07 10:42 AM Page 99
with the poetic speaker. Both the act of the performing Alte Liebe and
the broader musical context in which Clara rst encountered the song
would have reinforced this interpretive perspective. So far we have con-
sidered her response to Brahmss music as a purely aural phenomenon,
but surely the best pianist in the room on 28 May 1876 was not content
simply to listen. One assumes she would rather have been at her instru-
ment, accompanying Stockhausens premiere of Brahmss new songs.
In any case, a letter from the following spring shows that she later en-
joyed playing the songs herself and even sang them to her own accom-
paniment if no other singer was available.
49
Keeping in mind the kinds
of physical engagement she brought to bear in assessing Brahmss
revised Capriccio of 1878, how would playing Alte Liebe have affected
Claras experience of Brahmss compositional choices?
Most obviously, the reference to the Capriccio occurs just as the
singer falls silent and accompaniment becomes solo postlude. In the
midst of performance, the songs textural organization focuses the pi-
anists ear fully on her own music-making precisely when Clara would
have needed to listen and establishes the piano as the primary medium
through which the Capriccio enters the song. However Clara was meant
to understand Brahmss allusive gesture, excluding the singer from its
production could have helped underscore its intimacy by conning her
private musical material to her instrument alone. But there is a compli-
cation: Alte Liebe and the Capriccio are separated by the gap of a semi-
tone. Although such a change in key is barely perceptible to the ear
(unless one has absolute pitch or hears the two works in close succes-
sion), it forces a pianists hands into entirely new positions on the key-
board. For every note of the Capriccios primary melody, the songs
postlude inverts the relationship between white and black keys. Insofar
as Clara identied the source from which Brahms borrowed his piano
postlude in Alte Liebe, her ngers could also interfere with the full re-
covery of her musical memories, making the Capriccios theme feel
strange just as it began to sound familiar. This built-in dissonance be-
tween aural and kinesthetic recollection could have instantiated for
Clara the temporal distance that ultimately renders Candiduss old
dream unrecoverable, adding a uniquely visceral impact to her identi-
cation with the poetic speaker. The very act of playing her instrument
opened up a new and powerful way to experience rsthand the tempo-
ral disjunction inherent in the poems disquieting nostalgia.
100
49
Brahms/Schumann, Briefe, 2: 96: Ich habe dieser Tage viel daran [with the songs
in opp. 6972, including Alte Liebe and Unberwindlich] zugebracht, htte ich nur gleich
eine recht xe Sngerin dabei gehabtso mute ich mir alles heraussthnen mit meiner
heiseren Stimme.
03.Berry_pp72-111 3/20/07 10:42 AM Page 100
berry
Claras perspective on Alte Liebe may also have depended upon its
pairing with Unberwindlich, the second song Brahms urged Stock-
hausen to sing for her. Here is Goethes text as Brahms set it on 9 May
1876,
50
along with my translation:
Hab ich tausendmal geschworen I must have sworn a thousand
times
Dieser Flasche nicht zu trauen, Never again to trust that bottle;
Bin ich doch wie neu geboren, Still its like Im born anew
Lt mein Schenke fern sie schauen. When my innkeeper lets me see it.
Alles ist an ihr zu loben, Everything about it beckons,
Glaskrystall und Purpurwein; Crystal glass and purple wine;
Wird der Propf herausgehoben, Once the corks been popped, the
bottles
Sie ist leer und ich nicht mein. Empty, and Im not myself.
Hab ich tausendmal geschworen, I must have sworn a thousand
times
Dieser Falschen nicht zu trauen, Never to trust that lying woman,
Und doch bin ich neu geboren, And yet Im still born anew
Lt sie sich ins Auge schauen. When she lets my eye meet hers.
Mag sie doch mit mir verfahren, Even if she treats me falsely
Wies dem strksten Mann geschah. As befell the strongest man:
Deine Scheer in meinen Haaren, Put your scissors in my hair,
Allerliebste Delila! My beloved Delilah!
Like Candiduss poetic speaker, Goethes protagonist nds himself irre-
sistibly reminded of an old romantic attachment, but the circumstances
of that attachment and his attitude toward it are entirely different.
Rather than listening to the beating pinions of imaginary doves, he
orders another drink; instead of coyly conding delicate memories of
unrecoverable love, he roguishly submits to repeated seductions by a
faithless lover. Brahmss settings of the two poems project opposite ex-
tremes with regard to nearly every compositional parameter, diverging
markedly in mode, meter, tempo, affect, and overall form. To Stock-
hausen (or to us) they probably seemed charmingly unrelatedtwo in-
dependent and distinctive lyrical utterances paired by chronological
happenstance.
For Clara, however, a single shared compositional procedure could
bring Brahmss new songs into close interpretive proximity: Like Alte
Liebe, Unberwindlich borrows musical material from a solo piano piece,
101
50
Goethe had used the word pfropf instead of propf. The version of the poem
given here follows the punctuation Brahms used in the songs surviving fair copy.
03.Berry_pp72-111 3/20/07 10:42 AM Page 101
in this case a keyboard sonata in D major by Domenico Scarlatti, K.
223. As described above, Brahms eventually labeled this allusion explic-
itly when he published Unberwindlich, but the version Clara rst en-
countered leaves the borrowed material unacknowledged. Although
Clara performed many of Scarlattis works during solo recitals through-
out her career, no mention of this particular sonata survives in her ex-
tant correspondence or diary entries, and no copy of the piece remains
among the remnants of the Schumann library.
51
It is therefore impossi-
ble to determine for certain whether she could have recognized Brahmss
reference, and whatever private associations the work might have car-
ried for her are now lost. Nevertheless, it is safe to assume that Brahms
meant Clara to perceive the allusion in Unberwindlich at least as easily
as that inscribed in Alte Liebe. Having constructed two new compositions
around allusions to works for solo piano, sent both to the same woman,
and referred to her as their best listener, he surely expected her to
recognize what he had done. Even if she missed his point at rst, his
bracketed attribution in the published version of Unberwindlich soon
ensured that any literate musician would notice his borrowing and
identify its source.
Once Clara perceived the central compositional technique the two
songs shared, she might have heard them as an intimately related and
deliberately complementary pair. This is not to deny the important dif-
ferences between the two allusions. Instead of emerging near the end
through a sublimated amalgam of musical references, the head motive
of Scarlattis sonata cheerfully commandeers the opening measures of
Unberwindlich with a texturally enhanced but nearly literal quotation.
Examples 5a and 5b compare the songs piano introduction with the
beginning of the sonata in the edition Brahms knew.
52
Yet even though
102
51
Consistently programming a short piece by Bach or Scarlatti as a concert opener
was one of many ways in which Clara decisively inuenced the emerging spectacle of the
public piano recital in the mid 19th century; see Nancy B. Reich, Clara Schumann: The
Artist and the Woman, rev. ed. (Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 2001), 25557. Unfortunately,
contemporary concert reviewers rarely recorded even the key or tempo marking of the
Scarlatti sonatas that Clara played. The most accurate and comprehensive account of
Claras concerts and performing repertoire is found in Claudia de Vries, Die Pianistin
Clara Wieck-Schumann: Interpretation im Spannungsfeld von Tradition und Individualitt
(Schumann-Forschungen V ), ed. Akio Meyer and Klaus Wolfgang Niemller, through the
Robert-Schumann-Gesellschaft, Dsseldorf (Mainz: Schott Musik International, 1996),
34777. I am grateful to Dr. Thomas Synofzik, Director of the Robert-Schumann-Haus in
Zwickau, for information regarding Scarlatti-related materials formerly in the Schumann
library.
52
The placement of the trill in Brahmss quotation and the lack of alternative
printed sources for K. 223 in the 19th century conrm that he knew the sonata from Carl
Czernys edition, Smmtliche Werke fr das Piano-Forte von Dominic Scarlatti (Vienna: Tobias
Haslinger, 1839), where it appears as no. 133 on p. 402. Since Brahms did not acquire
Czernys publication until 1884, he must have encountered K. 223 in someone elses
03.Berry_pp72-111 3/20/07 10:42 AM Page 102
berry
the two references occur at opposite ends of their respective songs,
Brahms incorporated them into their new contexts in fundamentally
similar ways. Scarlattis melody vanishes from the songs motivic surface
soon after the piano introduction, only to return triumphantly in the
voice to set lines 7 and 15 of the text, where Goethes speaker nally
gives in to the dual temptations of wine and lovemaking. In other words,
both songs align recurrences of borrowed melodies with the resurgence
of old feelings. In light of this fundamental similarity, Brahmss contrast-
ing choices of borrowed material and divergent methods of large-scale
103
copy of the edition. Robert Schumann had reviewed the edition himself when it rst
appeared in 1839 (see the Neue Zeitschrift fr Musik, 10/39: 15354); we might reasonably
assume that he had kept a copy, although no record of such a volume survives today.
Brahmss quotation of K. 223 in a song intended for Clara would have seemed particu-
larly appropriate if he had initially found the sonata in her library. For more on Unber-
windlichs allusion to K. 223 and Brahmss copy of Czernys Scarlatti edition, see Joel
Leonard Sheveloff, The Keyboard Music of Domenico Scarlatti: A Re-Evaluation of the
Present State of Knowledge in the Light of the Sources (Ph.D. diss., Brandeis Univ.,
1970), 27579, and Elizabeth McKay, Brahms and Scarlatti, Musical Times 130 (1989):
58688.
example 5.
a. Unberwindlich, published version, piano introduction
b. Scarlatti, K. 223, Czernys edition, opening measures
_
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
/
;
,
,
_
Vivace
D. Scarlatti
Hab ich
_
,
,
,
,

,

_
-
Allegro vivace.
03.Berry_pp72-111 3/20/07 10:42 AM Page 103
musical organization can be understood to register the contrasting ori-
gins of those old feelings and the divergent emotional responses they
elicit from the two poetic speakers. Obvious and immediate quotation
of Scarlattis melody parallels Goethes cavalier attitude toward past ex-
perience, whereas the subtle and delayed return of the Capriccio in Alte
Liebe underscores Candiduss comparatively bashful stance.
By sending both songs at once, Brahms encouraged Clara to recog-
nize their shared allusive strategy and to interpret their differing sur-
faces as opposite sides of a coin: one public and self-mockingly humor-
ous, the other private and melancholically nostalgic. In turn, perceiving
the pair as complementary counterparts might have added a gender-
specic dimension to her imagined identication with Alte Liebes pro-
tagonist. Unlike Candiduss poetic speaker, Goethes is characterized
unambiguously as a man, both by the explicitly feminine pronouns that
describe his seducer and by his self-proclaimed association with Samson
in the poems nal stanza. In the version of Unberwindlich that Clara
rst encountered in May 1876, the musical setting reinforces the
speakers masculinity by scoring the vocal line in bass clef. Brahmss de-
cision carried special weight. Although he had already published more
than 120 solo songs, many of them appropriate for baritone or bass
voices, Unberwindlich was the rst for which even a draft survives that
employs a clef other than treble.
53
Once Clara recognized Brahmss
new songs as a contrasting but integrally related pair, his choice of text
and vocal clef in Unberwindlich might have encouraged her to place
the two members of that pair on opposite sides of a prevailing gender
binarythat is, to imagine the speaker in Alte Liebe as a woman, an in-
trospective female alternative to the brash male protagonist of Unber-
windlich. Such imagining would have opened new ways for Clara to em-
pathize with the perspective of Candiduss speaker.
Brahmss Private Allusion: Motivations and Implications
Gender-based identication with the poetic speaker in Alte Liebe was
yet another level of engagement that Brahms seems to have reserved
for the songs best listener alone. By the time the Capriccio began to
circulate (potentially allowing others to notice the shared allusive proce-
dure that bound the two songs together), Brahms had already changed
Unberwindlichs vocal clef, undermining the musically heightened mas-
104
53
For instance, see Nicht mehr zu dir zu gehen, Ich schleich umher, and Der Strom, der
neben mir verrauschte, op. 32/24; Die Mainacht, op. 43/2; Sonntag, op. 47/3; and Der Gang
zum Liebchen, Der berlufer, and Herbstgefhl, op. 48/1, 2, and 6. Brahms even avoided us-
ing the bass clef in Dmmrung senkte sich von oben, op. 59/1, whose vocal line spans G to e
(a signicantly lower tessitura than that of Unberwindlich or, indeed, any other song
Brahms composed prior to 1884).
03.Berry_pp72-111 3/20/07 10:42 AM Page 104
berry
culinity that had marked the song as an explicitly male counterpart to
Alte Liebe in its manuscript version. For Clara, however, the implicitly
gendered contrast with Unberwindlich would have reinforced the same
interpretive stance that Alte Liebe already facilitated on its own. The mu-
sical structure of the song, the physical articulation of that structure
during the act of performance, and the broader musical context in
which she rst encountered Alte Liebe all encouraged her to search for
personal signicance in Brahmss compositional decision-making and,
simultaneously, to identify empathetically with Candiduss poetic
speaker. Why would Brahms have wanted Clara to adopt such an inter-
pretive perspective toward his new song? What intentions did he mean
her to perceive beneath his setting of Candiduss text?
How Clara actually understood Alte Liebe will always remain a
mystery; she may never even have noticed the allusion to her Capriccio.
Nevertheless, we have reviewed overwhelming documentary and music-
analytic evidence indicating that the song incorporated a deliberate at-
tempt to reawaken in her mind a particular musical memory and use it
to manipulate her methods of listening. Whether or not that attempt
actually succeeded, its potential effects upon her are revealing in them-
selves. When those aspects of Alte Liebe or its initial performance context
in which we have identied traces of Brahmss conscious decision-
making seem likely to have elicited a powerful and consistent interpreta-
tion from a listener with Claras memories and manner of interacting
with keyboard music, we may plausibly argue that Brahms meant to
elicit a similar interpretation from Clara herself. Reconstructing how
she might have reacted to the song on 28 May 1876 can therefore
deepen our understanding of Brahmss compositional choices and the
personal motivations that guided them.
Indeed, some of the tendencies already uncovered by considering
Claras reception of Alte Liebe warrant further study elsewhere among
Brahmss songs and chamber music. Imagining how the Capriccios theme
felt in Claras hands when transposed by semitone yields circumstantial
evidence of a rich phenomenological dimension to Brahmss musical
poetics.
54
Recognizing the physical effects of half-step transposition in
Alte Liebe alerts us to the use of the same technique as an analogue for
textual images of temporal or physical disjunction in other songs, as
well as to the potential hermeneutic importance of such transpositions
105
54
That Brahms himself was sensitive to the inherent relationship of particular musi-
cal material to the key in which it was originally composed is documented in Kalbeck,
Brahms, 3: 44243. For more on the role of half-step transposition in Brahmss compo-
sitional approach to chamber music, see Margaret Notley, Brahmss Cello Sonata in
F major and Its Genesis: A Study in Half-Step Relations, Brahms Studies (ed. Brodbeck) 1:
13960. For an alternative view of transposed allusions, see Reynolds, Motives for Allusion,
13637.
03.Berry_pp72-111 3/20/07 10:42 AM Page 105
106
55
The hidden compositional similarities between Alte Liebe and Unberwindlich
might provide a new way of accounting for Brahmss decision-making with respect to
opuses and ordering in his song publications of 1877. The public presentation of these
two songs as counterpoised bookends to op. 72 is striking in light of their private, pre-
publication pairing.
in instrumental music. Similarly, asking how the presence of borrowed
material might have affected Claras perception of the relationship
between Alte Liebe and Unberwindlich sets into relief the poetic subject
matter and compositional approaches that the two songs share. This
line of inquiry not only opens up new directions for the analysis of
these two songs
55
but also calls attention to underlying congruences in
compositional method among other works that Brahms circulated in
pairs or groups prior to their publication. Even the mere precedent of
Alte Liebes private allusion is illuminating: Alongside the publicly acces-
sible and historically oriented referential gestures so often cited in
Brahmss symphonies, string quartets, and piano sonatas, this study has
demonstrated how, in the more intimate genre of the Lied, allusive pro-
cedures could give one listener exclusive access to a particular interpre-
tive perspective on a new composition. That Brahms unquestionably
designed at least some aspects of a song for Claras ears alone encour-
ages us to search his vocal and chamber works for evidence of other
compositional decisions that might have carried special signicance for
select members of his circle.
At the same time, the complex interrelationship between Brahmss
music and Claras interpretive perspective on Alte Liebe cautions against
treating further examples in a cursory fashion. Amid the recent prolif-
eration of research on allusion in 19th-century music, the most impor-
tant contribution of this case study is its grounding in a particular his-
torical moment. I have approached Brahmss allusion to the Capriccio
not simply as a feature of his song, but as a function of that songs
effect upon the mind of its intended listener in May 1876. Such an ap-
proach is often infeasible or even inappropriate: Determining how
specic historical listeners might have understood particular musical
works requires substantial evidence of those listeners prior musical ex-
periences and modes of musical apprehension, and some of Brahmss
referential gestures were clearly designed to be grasped by a general
audience rather than by specic members of his circle. But given suf-
cient musical and documentary evidence, investigating the private re-
ception of allusions like Alte Liebes can help untangle the hidden
threads of compositional intent and informed listening that wove
Brahmss songs and small-scale chamber music into the fabric of his
interpersonal relationships.
03.Berry_pp72-111 3/20/07 10:42 AM Page 106
berry
In the case of Alte Liebe itself, the deliberate privacy of the allusion
and the subject matter of Candiduss text make it tempting to evaluate
Brahmss song against the backdrop of his early relationship with Clara.
The idea almost certainly occurred to Clara herself when she rst en-
countered the song. After all, Brahms had used the Capriccio, a work
composed explicitly and exclusively for her, as his musical image for
Candiduss dream of old love. By presenting echoes from her secret
piano piece as nostalgic memories of an irrevocably lost romantic at-
tachment, Alte Liebe established a metonymic equation that encouraged
her to imagine herself as the poems absent beloved and, in turn, to
align Brahms with the solitary poetic speaker who cannot escape his
memories of her. Moreover, Clara was well aware that Brahms had writ-
ten Alte Liebe in early May, either because she encountered the dated
manuscript currently in the Beinecke Library or through contact with
the letter he had sent to Stockhausen, which dates Brahmss new
songs to immediately before and after my birthday and from which
she quoted a passage in her diary entry for May 28. Knowing the songs
date equipped her to perceive a connection between the season in
which Brahms drew memories of the Capriccio into the making of new
music and the returning springtime by which the speaker is reminded
of his past and spurred to poetic utterance. The timing of Alte Liebes
composition could therefore help her to perceive Brahms as further
aligning himself with the poetic speakers nostalgic perspective.
Put together, the songs date and the origins of its borrowed mater-
ial would have made it difcult for Clara to avoid interpreting the text
of Alte Liebe as retrospectively addressing the composers old feelings for
her. On the other hand, every compositional and contextual parameter
that facilitated her apprehension of private extramusical meaning also
implicitly aligned her perspective with that of the poems protagonist
rather than the absent love interest, compelling her mind and body to
reenact the poetic speakers experiences and even encouraging her to
imagine the speaker as a woman. For Clara, then, recognizing strains of
the Capriccio in Alte Liebes postlude could lead to two seemingly distinct
modes of reception: She might picture herself as a lost beloved whose
memory was still a source of inspiration for the composer, or as a solitary
musician herself caught in the throes of nostalgia. On its own, either
mode could have profoundly affected her understanding of Brahmss at-
titude toward her, regardless of when the song was written or of pre-
cisely how she perceived the intense beginnings of their shared history
at two decades remove.
56
But their correspondence suggests that in
107
56
Perceiving the song as an indication that Brahms understood her to be his lost
love would have brought their early relationship into their current discourse with a forth-
rightness for which no precedent survives in their written correspondence from the
03.Berry_pp72-111 3/20/07 10:42 AM Page 107
late May 1876, the combination of both modes of reception might have
resonated strongly against the interpersonal dynamic of their friendship.
Having just returned to Berlin after completing her 12th English
concert tour during March and April of 1876,
57
Clara sent Brahms an
early birthday greeting on May 5, the day before he completed the sur-
viving manuscript of Alte Liebe. The rst paragraph of her letter reads:
So Im home again then, and my rst letter is a greeting to you
for the 7
th
of Mayhow long its been already that Ive had to commit
such greetings to paper, which seems so cold compared to a real affec-
tionate handclasp! I will not recount [my] many good wishes for you,
but for us I wish that you may always be given renewed creative pow-
ers. How gladly I would like to know what you are working on now? I
still keep thinking that a symphony is coming!
58
Brahms appears to have left this letter unanswered.
59
From Claras per-
spective, Alte Liebe itself must have seemed a tting response when she
rst heard it three weeks later. She had asked for news of Brahmss cur-
rent compositional projects and alluded to his musics special impor-
tance for her. Here was a brand new song, accompanied by a letter pro-
claiming her its best listener. She had longed for the chance to greet
him on his birthday and lamented how long it had been since such a
meeting last took place. Here, buried in the postlude of a song com-
108
1870s. On the other hand, perceiving that Brahms wanted her to reenact the poetic
speakers confrontation with distant memories might have led Clara to imagine her late
husband as the absent beloved whose memory served as muse for both his widow and his
compositional successor (although Brahmss choice of his own music rather than
Roberts as the source for Alte Liebes allusion would surely have complicated such an in-
terpretation). Since Candidus coyly leaves the precise nature and extent of the poetic
speakers former relationship undened, his poem could accommodate a wide spectrum
of attitudes and memories that the topic of her shared history with Brahms might have
elicited from Clara.
57
De Vries, Die Pianistin, 357.
58
Brahms/Schumann, Briefe, 2: 6769: Da wre ich denn wieder zu Haus, und
mein erster Brief der Gru an Dich zum siebenten Maiwie lange nun schon, da ich
denselben immer dem Papier anvertrauen mte, da so kalt erscheint gegen einen wirk-
lichen herzlichen Hndedruck! Die vielen guten Wnsche fr Dich zhle ich nicht auf,
uns aber wnsche ich, da Dir immer neue Kraft zum Schaffen verleihen sein mge. Wie
gern wte ich, was Du jetzt arbeitest? Ich denke doch immer, es kommt nun mal eine
Symphonie! I can nd no reason for the subjunctive mood in Claras initial clause and
have omitted it for the sake of clarity in my translation.
59
Not only does no written response survive, but Clara wrote again on May 23 with
a second request, this time more oblique, for news of his current compositional projects
(ibid., 70): Musikalisch Interessantes lt sich von hier nichts melden als das, was Du
gespendet, wie uns denn Neues, Schnes ja nur von Dir kmmt! This second letter does
not mention any response from Brahms in the intervening weeks. Its close is further evi-
dence that had Brahms never written. Claras nal sentence echoes both the diction and
the tone of her plaintive wish that she could greet Brahms in person on his birthday:
Und nun noch einen herzlichen Hndedruck von Deiner alten Clara (ibid.).
03.Berry_pp72-111 3/20/07 10:42 AM Page 108
berry
pleted on the day before his birthday, were echoes from an older work
completed on the day before her birthday. The postlude could even be
heard as obliquely addressing Claras rhetorical question, how long its
been already that Ive had to commit such greetings to paper, for the
occasion of the Capriccios presentation in 1871 appears to have been
the last time she and Brahms were together on either of their
birthdays.
60
Brahms had almost certainly composed Alte Liebe before receiving
Claras letter of May 5. Mail sent from Berlin would have taken at least a
day to reach Vienna, by which time the fair copy now in the Beinecke
Library was already signed and dated. But realizing that Brahms had al-
ready nished Alte Liebe before receiving her letter might actually have
strengthened Claras perception of a meaningful relationship between
the two, because the song would then have anticipated and responded
to hopes that she herself had just begun to express at the time of its
composition. Encountering Alte Liebe in the immediate aftermath of her
unanswered birthday greeting hinted at the existence of an extraordi-
nary communicative bond, a privately shared intuition, connecting
Brahmss mind to hers. In the context of such communication, the two
seemingly distinct modes of reception elicited by Alte Liebe could merge
harmoniously. Understanding Candiduss poetic speaker as a surrogate
for Brahms gave Clara a glimpse of the composers long-neglected feel-
ings for her; vicariously enacting the speakers nostalgia through the
process of apprehending the allusion to her Capriccio enabled her to ex-
perience those neglected feelings as if they were her own. In the right
context, both modes of reception reinforced the same conclusion: Alte
Liebe was designed to reveal Brahmss private thoughts especially for her.
In short, the interpretive tendencies that hearing or playing Alte
Liebe encouraged from a listener familiar with the Capriccio conrmed
precisely the type of personal, intuitive connection that Clara longed
for in her relationship with Brahms during May of 1876. Even simply
recognizing the songs allusive gesture would have invited her into a
uniquely intimate understanding of Brahmss music, creating a private
exchange in which only he could reawaken her musical past and only
109
60
The only possible exception was Claras 55th birthday, 13 September 1874. She
and Brahms were together in Zurich on September 15, but both were only passing
through the city en route to different destinations. As late as September 10, Brahms was
unsure if Clara was even going to travel through Zurich at all, which also argues against
a longer visit. Most importantly, they certainly had not spent any of Brahmss birthdays
together since the Capriccios presentation in 1871. For evidence of their geographical
separation on either birthday during the years 187275, see (in chronological order)
Brahms/Schumann, Briefe, 2: 12; Hofmann, Zeittafel, 108; ibid., 112; Brahms/Schumann,
Briefe, 2: 25; Brahms, Briefe an Simrock, 1: 173 and Simrock, Briefe, 67; Brahms, Briefe an
Simrock, 1: 17879; Litzmann, Clara Schumann, 3: 32122; ibid., 32526.
03.Berry_pp72-111 3/20/07 10:42 AM Page 109
she could retrace his compositional process. On any interpretive level,
from the purely music-analytic to the broadly contextual, Brahmss
compositional choices and his actions in sending her the song facili-
tated for Clara an imagined sharing of memories and emotions, a care-
fully constructed experience of mutual closeness between currently dis-
tant minds. Heard from Claras perspective on 28 May 1876, Alte Liebes
allusion summoned up her musical past and her shared history with
Brahms not in order to mourn whatever they had lost over the years but
to renew and deepen their current friendship.
61
For her alone,
Brahmss music could transform Candiduss nostalgia into a vehicle for
personal reassurance.
Here at last is a plausible motivation for Brahmss decision to intro-
duce his new song so conspicuously into the dynamic of his friendship
with Clara. The tenderness of that motivation may surprise us. We are
accustomed to thinking of the mature Brahms as solitary and tactless, an
introspective loner often on the brink of alienating those around him.
When we search for connections between his compositional choices and
personal interactions, we tend to assume that the nostalgic aspects of
his music bear witness to the consequences of his most antisocial char-
acter traits. Yet the imagined closeness that Clara could experience in
Alte Liebes allusion to her Capriccio preserves traces of another Brahms,
a sensitive friend who used his music to maintain and strengthen his
deepest and most important relationship in the face of geographic sep-
aration and the passage of time. Similar traces survive in songs com-
posed for other intimate friends, waiting to be teased out through care-
ful musical analysis and imaginative reading of their correspondence.
At stake are a fairer appraisal of Brahmss personality and a clearer un-
derstanding of how his music was made and meant to function in its
original interpersonal context.
Yale University
110
61
Styra Avins has cogently addressed the nature of Brahms and Claras relationship
in her appendix to Johannes Brahms: Life and Letters (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 1997).
She demonstrates persuasively that the couples surviving correspondence does not sup-
port the conjecture of sexual intimacy between them. This view nds support in the deli-
cacy with which Alte Liebe implicitly broaches the topic of Brahmss shared history with
Clara. However, Avins also argues compellingly that whether Brahms and Clara were ever
lovers is far less interesting than what, given their difference in background, character,
and age, kept them bound to each other throughout their entire lives, in an alliance as
close as any family tie (ibid., 758). It is this second, far more important question that Alte
Liebe helps us answer.
03.Berry_pp72-111 3/20/07 10:42 AM Page 110
berry
ABSTRACT
In September 1871, Johannes Brahms presented Clara Schumann
with an untitled work in F
minor for solo piano, which he later revised

and published as the Capriccio, op. 76/1. Surviving correspondence
demonstrates Claras intimate familiarity with the work throughout
the 1870s. In May 1876, two years before releasing manuscripts of the
Capriccio among his wider circle, Brahms composed the song Alte Liebe
(Old Love) to a poem by Carl Candidus; he immediately sent an auto-
graph to the baritone Julius Stockhausen, along with instructions to
sing it to Clara, whom he proclaimed the best person to hear it. Exami-
nation of the music against the backdrop of its origins and the circum-
stances of its initial performance reveals that Brahms deliberately incor-
porated echoes of the Capriccio into Alte Liebe and points to ways in
which those echoes might have inuenced Claras understanding of the
song and its text. A broad array of music-analytic and documentary evi-
dence (including the newly rediscovered autograph of Alte Liebe) per-
mits detailed investigation of the interpretive perspective that Brahmss
compositional choices encouraged from a listener with Claras unique
musical memories and manner of interacting with chamber music.
Imaginatively reconstructing her encounter with Alte Liebe yields fresh
insights into Brahmss compositional practice in the private genres of
song and small-scale chamber music, a rich new historical context in
which to ground the study of allusion in his works, and a rare opportu-
nity to explore the musical and personal dynamics of his closest friendship.
Keywords:
Johannes Brahms
Clara Schumann
Alte Liebe
allusion
memory
111
03.Berry_pp72-111 3/20/07 10:42 AM Page 111
Reproducedwith permission of thecopyright owner. Further reproductionprohibited without permission.

Dat Old Love - Johannes Brahms, Clara Schumann, and The Poetics of Musical Memory

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72

minor for solo piano is an autograph manu-

-minor Capriccio, op. 76/1), rst page. Music De-

-minor Capriccio circulated among the composers musical

-minor Capriccio (ibid., 26971).

minor, Unruhig bewegt, which you sent me on September

on the second beat of the sec-

-minor Capriccio. Clara Schumann was

) and treat either f or f

as a carefully prepared climax; all three avoid prolonged passages be-

) and require the same agility in the

example 3. Annotated Excerpts from Alte Liebe, op. 72/1, published

-minor Capriccio resists interpretation according to

03.Berry_pp72-111 3/20/07 10:42 AM Page 97

minor for solo piano, which he later revised

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