Johannes Brahms

About the Johannes Brahms

Johannes Brahmswas a German composer, virtuoso pianist, and conductor of the mid-Romantic period. His music is rooted in the structures and compositional techniques of his Classicalforebears, including Ludwig van Beethoven and Johann Sebastian Bach. His compositions include four symphonies, four concertos, a Requiem, and many songs, amongst other music for symphony orchestra, piano, organ, voices, and chamber ensembles. They remain a staple of the concert repertoire.

Born to a musical family in Hamburg, he composed in his youth, concertizing locally. He toured Central Europe as a pianist in his early adulthood, working with Ede Remenyi and Joseph Joachim, meeting Franz Liszt in Weimar, and premiering many of his own works. He was self-conscious and could be severely self-critical, but his music was largely successful. It gradually formed the basis for a growing circle of supporters, friends, and musicians. With Joachim’s assistance, Brahms sought Robert Schumann’s approval, receiving both his and Clara Schumann’s vigorous support and guidance. Robert and later Hans von Bulow even cast him as Beethoven’s musical heir. After Brahms’s rued emergence counter to him in the War of the Romantics, Richard Wagner mocked this idea.

Amid Robert’s insanity and institutionalization, Brahms stayed with and became devoted to Clara in Dusseldorf. After Robert’s death, they remained close friends, and Brahms settled as a bachelor in Vienna. There Richard Muhlfeld inspired Brahms’s late clarinet music, and Brahms also wrote for cellist Robert Hausmann.

As both a traditionalist and an innovator, his contributions and craftsmanship were admired by a variety of composers, including Antonin Dvorakand Edward Elgar. Max Reger and Alexander Zemlinsky reconciled Brahms’s and Wagner’s often contrasted styles, as did Arnold Schoenberg. The latter and Anton Webern were inspired by the intricate structural coherence of Brahms’s music, including what Schoenberg termed its developing variation.