'The form, when one has found it out, is simple and clear; but the length of the first bass theme and the rhythmic and harmonic over-rich, I might say overladen, five-part development make enjoyment of the movement [the first] impossible except under great mental strain. One must be fresher and better in health for it than I am at present.... But it is easy to talk; we are always wanting something new, something which interests us more than the last; no one can quite satisfy us.'[76] Billroth heard the work the first time under the most favourable imaginable conditions, when his own powers of receptivity were strongly stimulated. He was depressed and out of health when he wrote the second letter. The majority of music-lovers would, we fancy, range themselves on the side of his original impression. The power and loveliness of the first movement, the romance of the second (the wonderful adagio), the plaintive daintiness of the third, the vivacity of the fourth, tinged with Hungarian colouring, all seem to foretell a continued prolongation of the composer's creative force and impulse. That Brahms himself, however, in the beginning of the nineties was conscious of needing rest is well known. Billroth says of him in a letter dated May 28, 1890, after visiting him at Ischl: 'He rejected the idea that he is composing or will ever compose anything. He is deep in Sybel's "Foundation of the German Empire," three thick volumes and the fourth to come.' To another friend Brahms said in 1891: 'I have tormented myself to no purpose lately, and till now I never had to do so at all; things always came easily to me.' He professed his intention of giving his creative activity a rest, and employing his time in reading, going excursions, and seeing his friends, but did not at once persevere in the resolution.