This second concert, indeed, stamped Brahms' visit to Vienna with the seal of decisive and permanent success--a success not immediately wide or popular, but which marked the beginning of a new epoch in the musical life of the city. Though he could not stoop to the attempt to dazzle his public by phenomenal feats of virtuosity, the grace, tenderness, and truth of his musical nature appealed to his southern audience, whilst the significance of his genius dawned on the perception of one or two discerning musicians. In a word, he had found a public which partially understood him; and a performance of the second serenade was announced for one of the Philharmonic concerts. Before the opening of the New Year, musical attention in Vienna was turned to Richard Wagner, who conducted three concerts devoted to selections from his own compositions, and was received and discussed with the extremes of enthusiasm and disapproval that usually attended his appearances and the early productions of his works. 'One evening,' writes Hanslick many years later,[6] 'when we listened to Brahms' sextet after attending a concert of excerpts from Wagner's "Tristan" in the afternoon, it was as though we were suddenly transported to a world of pure beauty.[7] ... The general impression made in public by the two men was almost as different as that of their music. Brahms approached the conductor's desk with almost awkward modesty; he responded reluctantly and doubtfully to the most stormy calls and could not disappear again quickly enough.' The attraction felt by Hanslick for Brahms' art increased with each opportunity of becoming acquainted with it. He secured his services as pianist at a lecture on Beethoven--one of a series--given by him in January, when Johannes, whose pianistic répertoire was almost inexhaustible, performed the thirty-three Variations on a waltz by Diabelli. Wagner remained at Penzing, a suburb of Vienna, until the spring, and Brahms, who was on cordial terms with Tausig and Cornelius, paid him a visit in Tausig's company. He was much pleased by Wagner's reception of him, and spoke heartily of the pleasure he had found in his society. There was no future personal intercourse between the two composers, who were too widely separated by disposition, tastes, and artistic faith to grow into intimacy, though it should never be forgotten that Brahms felt, from first to last, immense respect for Wagner's gifts and achievement. One of our composer's engrossing occupations during his nearly eight months' stay in Vienna was the study of Schubert's manuscripts, which Spina was delighted to show him, generously allowing him to copy from them for his own pleasure as he felt inclined. Shortly before his return home he sent some of the treasures thus obtained for Dietrich's perusal.