My love for Schubert is a very serious one, probably because it is no fleeting fancy. Where is genius like his, which soars heavenwards so boldly and surely, where we see the few supreme ones enthroned. He is to me like a son of the gods, playing with Jupiter’s thunder, and also occasionally handling it oddly. But he plays in such a region, at such a height, to which the others are far short of raising themselves. […] I hope now we shall presently be able to chat about this loved one of the gods.”
J. Brahms, Briefe an Joseph Viktor Widmann, Ellen und Ferdinand Vetter, Adolf
– Johannes Brahms, in a letter to Adolf Schubring, June 1863
Schubring, ed. Max Kalbeck , Berlin, 1915, Deutsche Brahms-Gesellschaf, Briefwechsel VIII, p. 199 f, cited in R. Pascall, Brahms Beyond Mastery: His Sarabande amd Gavotte, and its Recompositions, New York, Routledge, p. 24
Brahms on Schubert
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