Having accepted engagements in Switzerland and Germany for the ante-Christmas concert-season, he remained on till the end of October in his quarters at Frau Becker's, and here, about a week before the commencement of his _tournée_, he received the news that his father had resolved to marry again, and had become engaged to a widow. The intelligence, such as it was, came direct from Jakob, but it contained no particulars whatever to soften the anxiety it aroused, no mention being made in it even of the name of the intended wife, and it threw the son into a state of the strongest agitation, in which the tender pang for the dear old mother may very possibly not have been the predominating element. Who could the wife-elect be? Would she make Jakob happy? Could the marriage state be happy except under the rarest combination of circumstances? Were there children of the widow's first marriage to be provided for? if so, by whom? Jakob's means could bear no additional burden. And yet, the dear, homely, uncultured father, often enough a butt for the wit of the younger musicians standing by his side in the Philharmonic orchestra; this musician without musical endowment, who loved his music and his instruments, as Johannes sometimes declared, if such affection were to be measured by proof given, better even than he himself loved his art; who had persevered doggedly through long years of privation and struggle in his endeavours to attain to some small place in the world of art, and had won it, his father--and it needs no prophet to realize the pathos of this thought to the loving heart of the great composer--did he not deserve happiness if happiness should follow the step? Johannes was that day capable of but two resolutions on the subject: first, that his father should be made happy if anything he could say or do could help to make him so, and, secondly, that as soon as his engagements should permit, he would go to Hamburg and judge for himself of the wisdom of Jakob's choice. The first of Brahms' concert undertakings for the autumn was fulfilled on November 3 in the hall of the Museum, Carlsruhe, where he performed his Pianoforte Concerto at the first subscription concert of the season, accompanied by the grand-ducal orchestra under Levi. The work was received, for the first time, with every sign of approval. 'The people had the surprising kindness to be quite satisfied, to call for me, praise me, and all the rest of it,' he wrote to Dietrich. Two of the vocal quartets, Op. 31, were included in the programme, and Brahms played some unaccompanied Schumann solos in the second part of the concert.