'Unfortunately the third is extremely inferior to it [No. 2]; the text demanded a strong increase of effect which the composer has been incapable of giving. The bass solo is not written gratefully for the voice and there is much that is obtrusively bizarre and unedifying in the chorus.... The movement was a failure....' Hirsch did not fail to make use of his opportunity in the _Wiener Zeitung_. He speaks of the 'heathenish noise of the kettledrums,' and declares 'in the interest of truth' that the opposition party in the audience had an immense majority.' The concert is mentioned by Billroth in a letter dated December 24: 'I like Brahms better every time I meet him. Hanslick says, quite rightly, that he has the same fault as Bach and Beethoven; he has too little of the sensuous in his art both as composer and pianist. I think it is rather an intentional avoidance of everything sensuous as of a fault. His Requiem is so nobly spiritual and so Protestant-Bachish that it was difficult to make it go down here. The hissing and clapping became really violent; it was a party conflict. In the end the applause conquered.' It is characteristic of Brahms that his belief in the future of his work was not diminished by the untoward incidents of this occasion. He looked forward to the result of the coming performance in Bremen with a confidence that was even enhanced by the fact that he had gained experience with respect to the instrumentation of the third chorus. He sent part of his manuscript to Marxsen with a letter from which the following quotation was first published by Sittard in his 'Studien und Charakteristiken': 'I send you some novelties and beg you, if time allows, to write me _one_ or _many_ words about them. I enclose also something from my Requiem and _on this I earnestly beg you to write to me_. It looks rather curious in places and perhaps, in order to spare my manuscript, you would take some music paper and put down useful remarks. _I should like that very much._ The eternal "D" in No. 3. If I do not use the organ it does not sound. There is much I should like to ask. I hope you have time and some inclination; then you will perceive at once what there is to ask and what to say.'