Allowing himself but three days _en route_ for a visit to beautiful Lichtenthal, a suburb of Baden-Baden, where Frau Schumann had purchased a house the previous year on giving up her residence in Berlin, Brahms was back again in Vienna by the last week of August, and soon engaged with characteristic earnestness in work connected with his new appointment. His scheme for the weekly practices of the Singakademie season included works by Bach, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Schumann, and masters of the earlier period whose music was a speciality of the society. The first concert of the season 1863-64, given on November 15 under his direction, presented the following programme: 1. Bach: Cantata, 'Ich hatte viel Bekümmerniss.' (First time in Vienna.) 2. Beethoven: 'Opferlied.' 3. H. Isaak (late 15th cent.): Three German Folk-songs-- _a._ 'Innsbruck ich muss dich lassen.' _b._ 'Es ist ein Schnitter heisst der Tod.' _c._ 'Ich fahr dahin wenn es muss seyn.' 4. Schumann: 'Requiem für Mignon.' (First time in Vienna.) The co-operating artists were Frau Wilt and Frau Ferrari; Herr Danzer, Herr Dalfy, and Herr Organist Bibl. No doubt could be felt at the close of the performances of Brahms' gifts as a conductor. 'The concert was not only excellent in itself, but was, with exception of the first performance in Vienna of Bach's "Matthew Passion," by far the most noteworthy achievement in the record of the Singakademie, and gave us the opportunity of recognising Brahms' rare talent as a conductor.' Bach's cantata was rendered 'with splendid colouring and spiritual insight'; the three delightful Volkslieder 'opened all hearts.' These were received with such stormy applause that a fourth, not less acceptable, was added. Considerable surprise seems to have been excited, not by the conductor's inspired conception of the works performed, but by the precision and clearness of his beat, which, remarks one critic, 'could hardly have been expected of an artist who has shown himself, in his creations and performances, so essentially a romanticist and dreamer.'