Johannes Brahms

                1.  Blessed are they that mourn 2.  For all flesh is as grass                 3.  Lord, teach me that I have an end                 4.  How lovely are thy dwelling places                 5.  You now have sorrow                 6.  For we have here no abiding city                 7.  Blessed are the...

By the late 1870s Brahms’ position as a preëminent composer was well recognized.  He was almost universally admired for his first two symphonies, his two serenades, and the “Haydn” variations.    So, in 1879 the University of Breslau in Prussia (now Wrocław, Poland), in the best tradition of universities everywhere, brought honor to the distinguished composer—and distinction...

“This is a chosen one.”  Robert Schumann so characterized Johannes Brahms in his famous article that introduced the young Brahms to the public.  Little did he know!  Brahms went on to become the last great successor of the artistic mantle of musical Classicism that led from Joseph Haydn, through Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert.  That’s taking the rather narrow view, of course...

Who, indeed, can resist the spirited, soulful music of the “Hungarian” Gypsies?  Well, apparently, almost no one of the gifted, leading composers of nineteenth-century Europe, including such luminaries as Liszt, Schubert, and a host of others.  And, most notably, our Johannes Brahms—he of the most classical bent, the most serious mien, and the most redoubtable reputation as a composer...

Brahms wrote two piano concertos, separated by the passage of some twenty-two years.  This first one is the product of his relative youth, having been completed in 1859, when he was twenty-five.   A youthful work it is not, however.  Brahms had labored over it for most of the decade of the 1850s, and during that time it underwent several substantial transformations...

“This is a chosen one.”  Robert Schumann so characterized Johannes Brahms in his famous article that introduced the young Brahms to the public.  Little did he know!  Brahms went on to become the last great successor of the artistic mantle of musical Classicism that led from Joseph Haydn, through Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert.  That’s taking the rather narrow view, of course, for there were...

The some two-dozen chamber music works of Brahms constitute the most significant contribution to the genre in the Romantic style after those of Robert Schumann.  He began at the age of twenty-one with a piano trio, a “large, extravagant” work.   It featured a multiplicity of themes, a new development section in the recapitulation, and a fast section in the slow movement—to name a...

“This is a chosen one.”  Robert Schumann so characterized Johannes Brahms in his famous article that introduced the young Brahms to the public.  Little did he know!  Brahms went on to become the last great successor of the artistic mantle of musical Classicism that led from Joseph Haydn, through Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert.  That’s taking the rather narrow view, of course...

Simply put, the composers of the nineteenth century after Beethoven tended to divide themselves into two groups.  The progressives were true “Romantics,” and were greatly influenced by the extra-musical ideas that were the subjects of contemporary literature, poetry, and painting, among others.  They devised new genres, such as the tone poems of Smetana and Liszt, the music dramas of...

Generally speaking, the composers of the nineteenth century after Beethoven tended to divide themselves into two groups.  The progressives were true “Romantics,” and were greatly influenced by the extra-musical ideas that were the subjects of contemporary literature, poetry, and painting, among others.  They devised new genres, such as the tone poems of Smetana and Liszt, the music...