Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
In music, the past begins with Johannes Brahms.
Hailed in his lifetime
as "the third B", a peer of Bach and Beethoven, Johannes Brahms was the last figure
to enter the canon of indisputably major 19th-century composers and he
was regarded as the foremost romantic composer of instrumental music
in classical forms;
today, he is the most frequently played classical
composer after Beethoven, and his popularity is rooted in what is now
seen as a conservative musical style.
He contributed masterpieces to almost every genre.
Born in Hamburg, the son of a double-bass player and his older
seamstress wife, Johannes Brahms attracted the attention of Schumann, to whom
he was introduced by the violinist Joachim, and after Schumann's death
he maintained a long friendship with his widow, the pianist Clara
Schumann, whose advice he always valuedhttp://artbylucian.com.
He toured with the Hungarian
violinist Reményi, meeting Joachim and Franz Liszt, and then Schumann, who
helped Johannes Brahms publish his piano sonatas.
Johannes Brahms eventually settled in
Vienna, where to some he seemed the awaited successor to Ludwig van Beethoven.
His blend of classicism in form with a romantic harmonic idiom made
him the champion of those opposed to the musical innovations of Wagner
and Liszt.
In Vienna he came to occupy a position similar to that once
held by Beethoven, his gruff idiosyncrasies tolerated by those who
valued his genius.
Firmly based on classical foundations, his works contain hardly any
programme music.
His great orchestral works are comparatively late,
the first, Variations on a Theme of Haydn, appearing when he was 40.
His main works include four symphonies, two piano concertos, a violin
concerto, a large amount of chamber and piano music, and many songs.
His greatest choral work is "The German Requiem" (first performed
complete in 1869).
Johannes Brahms was one of the seminal musical figures of the 19th century. Opera was the
only major musical medium in which he did not write.
Brahms, more than any other composer of the second half of the 19th
century, was responsible for reviving what is termed "absolute"
music-compositions to be accepted on their own terms as interplays of
sound rather than as works that depict a scene or tell a story
(program music).
Johannes Brahms was a master of the compositional craft. He
often used established techniques, such as counterpoint, especially in
his sets of variations, but in such novel and refreshing ways that the
listener first perceives the beauty and strength of the music and only
later becomes aware of the composer's technical mastery.
Johannes Brahms's love
of German folk song gave his music a sturdy Teutonic character.
Although most of his music is serious, his intimate folk-song settings
and his dazzling Hungarian-style finales, such as in the "G Minor Piano
Quartet" or in the double concerto, reveal lighter sides of his musical
personality.
His choral music includes the finest Protestant church
music since that of Bach, and in his lieder (songs) he created the
perfect partnership for voice and piano, although he selected many
undeserving texts for them. His piano writing is more difficult than
it sounds; hence, these works appeal to pianists who are more
concerned with musicality than with virtuosity.
Johannes Brahms's legacy of
musical craftsmanship is evident in the works of Max Reger and Paul
Hindemith.