Stubborn and uncompromising, Brahms was also known to be brusque and sarcastic with adults. One account has him having to deny giving a woman piano lessons because of his attraction to her. It does seem as though Brahms fell in love easily. They included an affair with Agathe von Siebold in 1858, which he quickly, for reasons never really understood, withdrew from. Following his failed attempt at making Clara Schumann his lover, Brahms went on to have a small string of relationships. His compositions from this period included waltzes and two volumes of 'Hungarian Dances' for piano duet. The multi-layered piece brings together mixed chorus, solo voices and a complete orchestra.īrahms' contributions covered light ground too. In 1868, following the death of his mother, he finished 'A German Requiem,' a composition based on Biblical texts and often cited as one of the most important pieces of choral music created in the 19th century.

He also directed the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra for three seasons. By the early 1870s he was principal conductor of the Society of Friends of Music. In the early 1860s Brahms made his first visit to Vienna, and in 1863 he was named director of the Singakademie, a choral group, where he concentrated on historical and modern a cappella works.īrahms, for the most part, enjoyed steady success in Vienna. His output included 'String Sextet in B-flat Major' and 'Piano Concerto No. He also continued to write his own music. Over the next several years, Brahms held several different posts, including conductor of a women's choir in Hamburg, which he was appointed to in 1859. Even after Schumann's death in 1856, the two remained solely friends. Music historians believe that Brahms soon fell in love with Clara, though she doesn't seem to have reciprocated his admiration. In a sign of his close friendship with his mentor and his family, Brahms assisted Schumann's wife, Clara, with the management of her household affairs. Theirs was a sound predicated on organic structure and harmonic freedom, drawing from literature for its inspiration.įor Schumann and eventually Brahms, this new sound was sheer indulgence and negated the genius of composers like Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven. Modernist composers like Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner, the leading faces of the 'New German School' rebuked the more traditional sounds of Schumann. The kind words quickly made the young composer a known entity in the music world.īut this music world was also at a crossroads. He dubbed Brahms a genius and praised the 'young eagle' publicly in a famous article. The two men quickly grew close, with Schumann seeing in his younger friend great hope for the future of music. In 1853 Brahms was introduced to the renowned German composer and music critic Robert Schumann. His father was a double bassist in the Hamburg Philharmonic Society, and the young Brahms began playing piano at the age of seven.īy the time he was a teenager, Brahms was already an accomplished musician, and he used his talent to earn money at local inns, in brothels and along the city's docks to ease his family's often tight financial conditions. Music was introduced to his life at an early age. He was the second of Johanna Henrika Christiane Nissen and Johann Jakob Brahms' three children. Widely considered one of the 19th century's greatest composers and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic era, Johannes Brahms was born May 7, 1833, in Hamburg, Germany. He can be viewed as the protagonist of the Classical tradition of Joseph Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven.

It’s a mighty symphony and an unusual one in many ways: there is no exposition repeat in the first movement the Scherzo is in 2/4 time (rather than triple time) and the finale takes the form of a passacaglia, adapting a chaconne theme from one of Bach’s cantatas.Johannes Brahms was the great master of symphonic and sonata style in the second half of the 19th century. “I had the feeling that I was being given a beating by two incredibly intelligent people,” he wrote. “It is like a dark well the longer we look into it, the more brightly the stars shine back.” The critic Eduard Hanslick, who attended a private performance of Brahms’ Fourth Symphony performed on two pianos prior to its premiere, was bowled over. And who knows, maybe Brahms, a bit of a curmudgeon himself (“If there is anyone here whom I have not insulted, I beg his pardon.”), appreciated the criticism more than we think. What a giftless bastard!” Tchaikovsky and Brahms (who share a birthday) got on better than this quote might suggest. “I played over the music of that scoundrel Brahms.

Brahms compositions