The relations between Brahms and the city which owed its brilliant reputation as a musical centre to Mendelssohn's influence had been at no time really sympathetic. The attitude of expectant toleration that had been more or less adopted towards him by both its extreme parties after his first visit in 1853 had resulted on the one hand from Schumann's essay, and on the other, from the confidence felt by the Weimarites and expressed by Liszt that his 'new paths' must eventually bring him into close touch with themselves. Gradually, however, it, became clear how mistaken was the belief that the young musician would drift towards acceptance of the extreme new tendencies, whilst the originality of his musical thoughts and of his manner of expressing them was abhorrent to the inflexible conservatism that had come to represent the traditions of the Gewandhaus. If, moreover, there is every reason to surmise that Mendelssohn himself had no hearty appreciation of Schumann's genius, it is equally probable that neither Rietz, who conducted the Gewandhaus concerts from 1848 to 1860, nor Reinecke, who succeeded him, was in very warm sympathy with that of Brahms, and the predilections of the public followed those of their accredited guides. Brahms' works were, it is true, generally given at the orchestral or chamber concerts of the Gewandhaus soon after publication, but, excepting the Triumphlied, with its special appeal to the patriotic sentiment of the great German people, they met with but scanty response from an audience little accustomed to the exertion of trying to follow the expression of a new and original artistic individuality. That Reinecke was by no means an ideal conductor of them naturally resulted from the fact that by training, by conviction, and by practice, he was attached to a rigidly formal school of modern musical thought, and it can surprise no one that he should have been unable entirely to realize the deeper and richer utterances of Schumann's young prophet. Brahms' chamber music fared differently in the hands of David, who was almost alone amongst the authorities of the Gewandhaus in his sympathy for the composer's genius. To these considerations it must be added that not only the pianist, but the composer Rubinstein, had, as we indicated in an early chapter, an enthusiastic following amongst the typical Leipzig public who were disposed to resent any claim to recognition that might threaten to rival that of their favourite.