ompositions going at once.

The prelude to Johann's artistic life was successfully completed. Then
came a period of quiet study and inward growth. A deeper activity was
to succeed. It opened early in the year 1859, when the young musician
traveled to Hanover and Leipsic, bringing out his Concerto in D minor.
He performed it in the first named city, while Joachim conducted the
orchestra. It was said the work "with all its serious striving,
its rejection of the trivial, its skilled instrumentation, seemed
difficult to understand; but the pianist was considered not merely a
virtuoso but a great artist of piano playing."

The composer had now to hurry to Leipsic, as he was to play with the
famous Gewandhaus orchestra. How would Leipsic behave towards this new
and serious music? Johann was a dreamer, inexperienced in the ways
of the world; he was an idealist--in short, a genius gifted with an
"imagination, profound, original and romantic." The day after the
concert he wrote Joachim he had made a brilliant and decided failure.
However he was not a whit discouraged by the apathy of the Leipsigers
toward his new work. He wrote: "The Concerto will please some day,
when I have made some improvements, and a second shall sound quite
different."

It has taken more than half a century to establish the favor of the
Concerto, which still continues on upward wing. The writer heard the
composer play this Concerto in Berlin, toward the end of his life.
He made an unforgettable figure, as he sat at the piano with his long
hair and beard, turning to gray; and while his technic was not of
the virtuoso type, he created a powerful impression by his vivid
interpretation.

After these early performances of the Concerto, Johann returned
to Hamburg, to his composing and teaching. He, however, played the
Concerto in his native city on a distinguished occasion, when Joachim
was a soloist in Spohr's Gesang-Scene, Stockhausen in a magnificent
Aria, and then Johann, pale, blond, slight, but calm and self
controlled. The Concerto scored a considerable success at last, and
the young composer was content.

In the autumn of this year, Johann paid his third visit to Detmold,
and found himself socially as well as musically the fashion. It was
the correct thing to have lessons from him and his presence gave
distinction to any assemblage. But Johann did not wish to waste his
time at social functions; when obliged to be present at some of these
events he