calculated to compose and direct the mind towards Him. (12) They do not believe in pilgrimages and declare that holiness can only be attained by elevating and purifying the mind. (13) They put no faith in rites or ceremonies, nor do they believe in penances as instrumental in obtaining the grace of God. They declare that moral righteousness, the gaining of wisdom, divine contemplation, charity and the cultivation of devotional feelings are their rites and ceremonies. They further say, govern and regulate your feelings, discharge your duties to God and to man, and you will gain everlasting blessedness; purify your heart, cultivate devotional feelings and you will see Him who is unseen. (14) Theoretically there is no distinction of caste among the Brahmas. They declare that we are all the children of God, and therefore must consider ourselves as brothers and sisters.
For long the Brahmas did not attempt any social reforms. But about 1865 the younger section, headed by Babu Keshub Chunder Sen, who joined the Samaj in 1857, tried to carry their religious theories into practice by demanding the abandonment of the external signs of caste distinction. This, however, the older members opposed, declaring such innovations to be premature. A schism resulted, Keshub Chunder Sen and his followers founding the Progressive Samaj, while the conservative stock remained as the Adi (i.e. original) Samaj, their aim being to “fulfil” rather than to abrogate the old religion. The vitality of the movement, however, had left it, and its inconsistencies, combined with the lack of strong leadership, landed it in a position scarcely distinguishable from orthodox Hinduism. Debendra Nath Tagore sought refuge from the difficulty by becoming an ascetic. The “Brahma Samaj of India,” as Chunder Sen’s party styled itself, made considerable progress extensively and intensively until 1878, when a number of the most prominent adherents, led by Anand Mohan Bose, took umbrage at Chunder Sen’s despotic rule and at his disregard of the society’s regulations concerning child marriage. This led to the formation of the Sadharana (Universal) Brahma Samaj, now the most popular and progressive of the three sections of the movement and conspicuous for its work in the cause of literary culture, social reform and female education in India. But even when we add all sections of the Brahma Samaj together, the total number of adherents is only about 4000, mostly found in Calcutta and its neighbourhood. A small community (about 130) in Bombay, known as the Prarthna (Prayer) Samaj, was founded in 1867 through Keshub Chunder’s influence; they have a similar creed to that of the Brahma Samaj, but have broken less decisively with orthodox and ceremonial Hinduism.
See the articles on Arya Samaj, Keshub Chunder Sen, Ram Mohan Roy. Also John Robson, Hinduism and Christianity; and the Theistic Quarterly Review (the organ of the Society since 1880).
BRAHMS, JOHANNES (1833–1897), German composer, was born in Hamburg on the 7th of May 1833. He was the son of a double-bass player in the Hamburg city theatre and received his first musical instruction from his father. After some lessons from O. Cossel, he went to Cossel’s master, Eduard Marxsen of Altona, whose experience and artistic taste directed the young man’s genius into the highest paths. A couple of public appearances as a pianist were hardly an interruption to the course of his musical studies, and these were continued nearly up to the time when Brahms accepted an engagement as accompanist to the Hungarian violinist, Remenyi, for a concert tour in 1853. At Göttingen there occurred a famous contretemps which had a most important though indirect influence on the whole after-life of the young player. A piano on which he was to play the “Kreutzer” sonata of Beethoven with Remenyi turned out to be a semitone below the required pitch; and Brahms played the part by heart, transposing it from A to B flat, in such a way that the great violinist, Joachim, who was present and discerned what the feat implied, introduced himself to Brahms, and laid the foundation of a life-long friendship. Joachim gave him introductions to Liszt at Weimar and to Schumann at Düsseldorf; the former hailed him for a time as a member of the advanced party in music, on the strength of his E flat minor scherzo, but the misapprehension was not of long continuance. The introduction to Schumann impelled that master, now drawing near the tragic close of his career, to write the famous article “Neue Bahnen,” in which the young Brahms was proclaimed to be the great composer of the future, “he who was to come.” The critical insight in Schumann’s article is all the more surprising when it is remembered how small was the list of Brahms’s works at the time. A string quartet, the first pianoforte sonata, the scherzo already mentioned, and the earliest group of songs, containing the dramatic “Liebestreu,” are the works which drew forth the warm commendations of Schumann. In December 1853 Brahms gave a concert at Leipzig, as a result of which the firms of Breitkopf & Haertel and of Senff undertook to publish his compositions. In 1854 he was given the post of choir-director and music-master to the prince of Lippe-Detmold, but he resigned it after a few years, going first to Hamburg, and then to Zürich, where he enjoyed the friendship and artistic counsel of Theodor Kirchner. The unfavourable verdict of the Leipzig Gewandhaus audience upon his pianoforte concerto in D minor op. 15, and several remarkably successful appearances in Vienna, where he was appointed director of the Singakademie in 1863, were the most important external events of Brahms’s life, but again he gave up the conductorship after a few months of valuable work, and for about three years had no fixed place of abode. Concert tours with Joachim or Stockhausen were undertaken, and it was not until 1867 that he returned to Vienna, or till 1872 that he chose it definitely as his home, his longest absence from the Austrian capital being between 1874 and 1878, when he lived near Heidelberg. From 1871 to 1874 he conducted the concerts of the “Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde,” but after the later date he occupied no official position of any kind. With the exception of journeys to Italy in the spring, or to Switzerland in the summer, he rarely left Vienna. He refused to come to England to take the honorary degree of Mus.D. offered by the university of Cambridge; the university of Breslau made him Ph.D. in 1881; in 1886 he was created a knight of the Prussian order Pour le mérite, and in 1889 was presented with the freedom of his native city. He died in Vienna on the 3rd of April 1897.
The works of Brahms may be summarized as follows:—Various sacred compositions for chorus, op. 12, 13, 22, 27, 29, 30, 37, leading up to op. 45, the “German Requiem” first performed at Bremen in 1868, and subsequently completed by a soprano solo with chorus; the “Triumphlied” in commemoration of the German victories of 1870–71; and some choral songs and motets, op. 74, 109 and 110. Secular choral works, op. 17, 41, 42, 44, 50 (“Rinaldo” for tenor solo and male choir), 53 (“Rhapsodie,” alto solo and male choir), 54 (“Schicksalslied”), 62, 82 (Schiller’s Nänie), 89 (“Gesang der Parzen”), 93, 104, 113. Concerted vocal-works, op. 20, 28, 31, 52 (“Liebeslieder-Walzer”), 61, 64, 65 (“Neue Liebeslieder”), 75, 92, 103, 112. Solo songs, nearly 300. Orchestral works: four symphonies, op. 68, 73, 90 and 98; two serenades, op. 11 and 16; two pianoforte concertos, op. 15 and 83, one violin concerto, op. 77; concerto for violin and violoncello, op. 102; variations on a theme by Haydn, op. 56; two overtures, “Academische Festouvertüre,” op. 80, and “Tragic Overture,” op. 81. Chamber music: two sextets, op. 18 and 36; quintet, piano and strings, op. 34, strings, op. 88 and 111, clarinet and strings, op. 115; three string quartets, op. 51 and 67, three quartets for piano and strings, op. 25, 26 and 60. Three trios for piano and strings, op. 8, 87 and 101; trio for piano, violin and horn, op. 40; piano, clarinet and violoncello, op. 114. Duet sonatas, three for piano and violin, op. 78, 100 and 108; two for piano and violoncello, op. 38 and 99; two for piano and clarinet, op. 120. Pianoforte solos: three sonatas, op. 1, 2 and 5; scherzo, op. 4; variations, op. 9, 21, 23, 24, 35; 4 ballads, op. 10; waltzes, op. 39; two rhapsodies, op. 79; caprices and intermezzi, op. 76, 116, 117, 118 and 119. 5 studies and 51 Uebungen without opus-number, and a chorale-prelude and fugue for organ, besides four books of Hungarian Dances arranged for pianoforte duet.
Brahms has often been called the last of the great classical masters, in a sense wider than that of his place in the long line of
