[34] Sir C. Villiers Stanford remembers being present at a public performance of the German Requiem in London earlier than that of the Philharmonic Society. This was at a students' concert of the Royal Academy of Music under John Hullah, the then conductor of the orchestra, the date of which, however, the author has not succeeded in ascertaining. CHAPTER XV 1869-1872 Brahms and Opera--Professor Heinrich Bulthaupt--The Liebeslieder--First performance--The Rhapsody (Goethe's 'Harzreise') performed privately at Carlsruhe--First public performance at Jena--Geheimrath Gille--The 'Song of Triumph'--Performance of first chorus at Bremen--Bernhard Scholz--The 'Song of Destiny'--First performance--Death of Johann Jakob Brahms--First performance of completed 'Triumphlied' at Carlsruhe--Summary of Brahms' work as a composer since 1862. The theory that found wide acceptance during the lifetime of Brahms, and was discussed at length in a feuilleton of the _Strassburger Post_ immediately after his death, that he never had and never could have seriously entertained the idea of composing for the stage, was long ago conclusively refuted by Widmann in his 'Recollections.' He shows that the master's wishes pointed at more than one period of his career in the direction of dramatic composition, and that he was prevented from following them by the same difficulty which proved insoluble to Mendelssohn--that of finding a libretto to suit his fancy. 'He was always particularly animated when speaking of matters connected with the theatre, as for instance when he once very decidedly demonstrated to me the vaudeville character of the first act of "Fidelio," which generally passes for a very good text-book. He possessed a genuine dramatic perception, and it gave him real pleasure to analyze the merits and defects of a dramatic subject.'[35] The interest of this passage is enhanced by a few words that occur in an article on Brahms by Richard Heuberger:[36] 'We sat together the whole evening and I remember that Brahms spoke in detail of Mozart's "Figaro" and laid stress on the unparalleled manner in which Mozart has overcome the enormous difficulties of his text; "Mozart has composed it, not as a mere ordinary text-book, but as a complete, well-organized comedy."'