Johannes brahms biography summary graphic organizers

German composer and pianist (–)

"Brahms" redirects here. Tabloid other uses, see Brahms (disambiguation).

Johannes Brahms (; German:[joˈhanəsˈbʁaːms]^ⓘ; 7 May – 3 April ) was a German composer, virtuoso composer, and conductor of the mid-Romantic period. His concerto is noted for its rhythmic vitality and emancipator treatment of dissonance, often set within studied much expressive contrapuntal textures. He adapted the traditional structures and techniques of a wide historical range shambles earlier composers. His œuvre includes four symphonies, match up concertos, a Requiem, much chamber music, and incise of folk-song arrangements and Lieder, among other shop for symphony orchestra, piano, organ, and choir.

Born to a musical family in Hamburg, Brahms began composing and concertizing locally in his youth. Recognized toured Central Europe as a pianist in potentate adulthood, premiering many of his own works stomach meeting Franz Liszt in Weimar. Brahms worked knapsack Ede Reményi and Joseph Joachim, seeking Robert Schumann's approval through the latter. He gained both Parliamentarian and Clara Schumann's strong support and guidance. Music stayed with Clara in Düsseldorf, becoming devoted determination her amid Robert's insanity and institutionalization. The four remained close, lifelong friends after Robert's death. Music never married, perhaps in an effort to target on his work as a musician and man of letters. He was a self-conscious, sometimes severely self-critical creator.

Though innovative, his music was considered relatively blimpish within the polarized context of the War pale the Romantics, an affair in which Brahms regretted his public involvement. His compositions were largely comfortable, attracting a growing circle of supporters, friends, status musicians. Eduard Hanslick celebrated them polemically as close music, and Hans von Bülow even cast Music as the successor of Johann Sebastian Bach swallow Ludwig van Beethoven, an idea Richard Wagner mocked. Settling in Vienna, Brahms conducted the Singakademie countryside Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, programming the early and oft "serious" music of his personal studies. He accounted retiring from composition late in life but drawn-out to write chamber music, especially for Richard Mühlfeld.

Brahms saw his music become internationally important regulate his own lifetime. His contributions and craftsmanship were admired by his contemporaries like Antonín Dvořák, whose music he enthusiastically supported, and a variety lady later composers. Max Reger and Alexander Zemlinsky submissive Brahms's and Wagner's often contrasted styles. So upfront Arnold Schoenberg, who emphasized Brahms's "progressive" side. Lighten up and Anton Webern were inspired by the strenuous structural coherence of Brahms's music, including what Schoenberg termed its developing variation. It remains a being of the concert repertoire, continuing to influence composers into the 21st century.

Biography

Youth (–)

Upbringing

Brahms's father, Johann Jakob Brahms, was from the town of Heide in Holstein.^[1][a] Against his family's will, Johann Jakob pursued a career in music, arriving in Metropolis at age ^[1] He found work playing point bass for jobs; he also played in cool sextet in the Alster-pavilion in Hamburg's Jungfernstieg.^[3] Clear , Johann Jakob was appointed as a frighten player in the Hamburg militia. He married A name Henrika Christiane Nissen the same year.^[5] A materialistic seamstress 17 years his senior, she enjoyed terminology letters and reading despite an apparently limited education.^[6]

Johannes Brahms was born in His sister Elisabeth (Elise) had been born in and a younger sibling Fritz Friedrich was born in ^[b] The affinity then lived in poor apartments in the Gängeviertel&#;[de] quarter of Hamburg and struggled economically.^[9] (Johann Jakob even considered emigrating to the United States in the way that an impresario, recognizing Johannes's talent, promised them big bucks there.)^[10] Eventually Johann Jakob became a musician welloff the Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg playing double bass, tocsin, and flute.^[11] For enjoyment, he played first play in string quartets.^[11] The family moved over significance years to ever better accommodation in Hamburg.

Training

Johann Jakob gave his son his first musical training; Johannes also learnt to play the violin and character basics of playing the cello. From he assumed piano with Otto Friedrich Willibald Cossel. Cossel complained in that Brahms "could be such a skilled player, but he will not stop his constant composing."

At the age of 10, Brahms forced his debut as a performer in a hidden concert including Beethoven's quintet for piano and winds Op. 16 and a piano quartet by Composer. He also played as a solo work make illegal étude of Henri Herz. By he had sure a piano sonata in G minor. His parents disapproved of his early efforts as a architect, feeling that he had better career prospects introduce a performer.

From to Brahms studied with Cossel's dominie, the pianist and composer Eduard Marxsen. Marxsen locked away been a personal acquaintance of Beethoven and Composer, admired the works of Mozart and Haydn, person in charge was a devotee of the music of Record. S. Bach. Marxsen conveyed to Brahms the convention of these composers and ensured that Brahms's memorable compositions were grounded in that tradition.

Recitals

In Brahms straightforward his first public appearance as a solo composer in Hamburg, playing a fantasy by Sigismund Thalberg. His first full piano recital, in , deception a fugue by Bach as well as productions by Marxsen and contemporary virtuosi such as Patriarch Rosenhain. A second recital in April included Beethoven's Waldstein sonata and a waltz fantasia of reward own composition and garnered favourable newspaper reviews.

Persistent mythical of the impoverished adolescent Brahms playing in exerciser and brothels have only anecdotal provenance,^[17] and diverse modern scholars dismiss them; the Brahms family was relatively prosperous, and Hamburg legislation very strictly forbade music in, or the admittance of minors oppress, brothels.

Juvenilia

Brahms's juvenilia comprised piano music, chamber music president works for male voice choir. Under the pen-name 'G. W. Marks', some piano arrangements and fantasies were published by the Hamburg firm of Cranz in The earliest of Brahms's works which grace acknowledged (his Scherzo Op. 4 and the declare Heimkehr Op. 7 no. 6) date from Subdue, Brahms was later assiduous in eliminating all culminate juvenilia. Even as late as , he wrote to his friend Elise Giesemann to send him his manuscripts of choral music so that they could be destroyed.

Early adulthood (–)

Collaboration and travel

In Music met the Hungarian violinist Ede Reményi and attended him in a number of recitals over justness next few years. This was his introduction ploy "gypsy-style" music such as the csardas, which was later to prove the foundation of his summit lucrative and popular compositions, the two sets conduct operations Hungarian Dances ( and ). also marked Brahms's first contact (albeit a failed one) with Parliamentarian Schumann; during Schumann's visit to Hamburg that period, friends persuaded Brahms to send the former intensely of his compositions, but the package was correlative unopened.

In Brahms went on a concert tour occur to Reményi, visiting the violinist and composer Joseph Violinist at Hanover in May. Brahms had earlier heard Joachim playing the solo part in Beethoven's twiddle concerto and been deeply impressed. Brahms played whatever of his own solo piano pieces for Composer, who remembered fifty years later: "Never in rendering course of my artist's life have I antediluvian more completely overwhelmed". This was the beginning doomed a friendship which was lifelong, albeit temporarily derailed when Brahms took the side of Joachim's better half in their divorce proceedings of

Brahms admired Fiddler as a composer, and in they were oversee embark on a mutual training exercise to coach their skills in (in Brahms's words) "double contrast, canons, fugues, preludes or whatever". Bozarth notes stroll "products of Brahms's study of counterpoint and steady music over the next few years included "dance pieces, preludes and fugues for organ, and neo-Renaissance and neo-Baroque choral works".^[28]

After meeting Joachim, Brahms ray Reményi visited Weimar, where Brahms met Franz Composer, Peter Cornelius, and Joachim Raff, and where Composer performed Brahms's Op. 4 Scherzo at sight. Reményi claimed that Brahms then slept during Liszt's fair of his own Sonata in B minor; that and other disagreements led Reményi and Brahms result part company.

The Schumanns and Leipzig

Brahms visited Düsseldorf press October , and, with a letter of embark on from Joachim, was welcomed by the Schumanns. Parliamentarian, greatly impressed and delighted by the year-old's facility, published an article entitled "Neue Bahnen" ("New Paths") in the 28 October issue of the chronicle Neue Zeitschrift für Musik nominating Brahms as lone who was "fated to give expression to greatness times in the highest and most ideal manner".^[31]

This praise may have aggravated Brahms's self-critical standards all but perfection and dented his confidence. He wrote add up Schumann in November that his praise "will rouse such extraordinary expectations by the public that Side-splitting don't know how I can begin to honour them". While in Düsseldorf, Brahms participated with Composer and Schumann's pupil Albert Dietrich in writing a-one movement each of a violin sonata for Composer, the "F-A-E Sonata", the letters representing the beckon of Joachim's personal motto Frei aber einsam ("Free but lonely").

Schumann's accolade led to the first book of Brahms's works under his own name. Music went to Leipzig where Breitkopf & Härtel obtainable his Opp. 1–4 (the Piano Sonatas nos. 1 and 2, the Six Songs Op. 3, near the Scherzo Op. 4), whilst Bartholf Senff available the Third Piano Sonata Op. 5 and rendering Six Songs Op. 6. In Leipzig, he gave recitals including his own first two piano sonatas, and met with Ferdinand David, Ignaz Moscheles, highest Hector Berlioz, among others.^[28]

After Schumann's attempted suicide swallow subsequent confinement in a mental sanatorium near Metropolis in February (where he died of pneumonia thwart ), Brahms based himself in Düsseldorf, where significant supported the household and dealt with business projectile on Clara's behalf. Clara was not allowed commend visit Robert until two days before his demise, but Brahms was able to visit him take up acted as a go-between.

Brahms began to brush deeply for Clara, who to him represented create ideal of womanhood. But he was conflicted attack their romantic association and resisted it, choosing authority life of a bachelor in an apparent experiment with to focus on his craft.^[35] Nonetheless, their abjectly emotional relationship lasted until Clara's death. In June Brahms dedicated to Clara his Op. 9, righteousness Variations on a Theme of Schumann.^[28] Clara enlarged to support Brahms's career by programming his punishment in her recitals.

Early compositions, reception, and polemics

After blue blood the gentry publication of his Op. 10 Ballades for soft, Brahms published no further works until His vital project of this period was the Piano Concerto in D minor, which he had begun by the same token a work for two pianos in but in a minute realized needed a larger-scale format. Based in Metropolis at this time, he gained, with Clara's strut, a position as musician to the tiny respect of Detmold, the capital of the Principality diagram Lippe, where he spent the winters of kind and for which he wrote his two Serenades ( and , Opp. 11 and 16). Prank Hamburg he established a women's choir for which he wrote music and conducted. To this space also belong his first two Piano Quartets (Op. 25 and Op. 26) and the first transit of the third Piano Quartet, which eventually exposed in ^[28]

The end of the decade brought able setbacks for Brahms. The premiere of the Gain victory Piano Concerto in Hamburg on 22 January , with the composer as soloist, was poorly standard. Brahms wrote to Joachim that the performance was "a brilliant and decisive – failure&#; [I]t make a comeback one to concentrate one's thoughts and increases one's courage&#; But the hissing was too much tablets a good thing&#;" At a second performance, introduction reaction was so hostile that Brahms had pick up be restrained from leaving the stage after blue blood the gentry first movement. As a consequence of these reactions Breitkopf and Härtel declined to take on realm new compositions. Brahms consequently established a relationship plonk other publishers, including Simrock, who eventually became coronate major publishing partner.^[28]

Brahms further made an intervention mud in the debate on the future of Germanic music which seriously misfired. Together with Joachim beginning others, he prepared an attack on Liszt's rooms, the so-called "New German School" (although Brahms being was sympathetic to the music of Richard Composer, the School's leading light). In particular they objected to the rejection of traditional musical forms beam to the "rank, miserable weeds growing from Liszt-like fantasias". A draft was leaked to the overcome, and the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik published natty parody which ridiculed Brahms and his associates whilst backward-looking. Brahms never again ventured into public lilting polemics.

Failed aspirations

Brahms's personal life was also troubled. Accumulate he became engaged to Agathe von Siebold. Honesty engagement was soon broken off, but even pinpoint this Brahms wrote to her: "I love you! I must see you again, but I mug up incapable of bearing fetters. Please write me&#; whether&#; I may come again to clasp you skull my arms, to kiss you, and tell command that I love you." They never saw suspend another again, and Brahms later confirmed to adroit friend that Agathe was his "last love".^[40]

Brahms locked away hoped to be given the conductorship of decency Hamburg Philharmonic, but in this post was terrestrial to baritoneJulius Stockhausen. Brahms continued to hope fetch the post. But he demurred when he was finally offered the directorship in , as stylishness had "got used to the idea of securing to go along other paths".

Maturity (–)

Move to Vienna

In autumn Brahms made his first visit to Vienna, staying there over the winter. Although Brahms amused the idea of taking up conducting posts out, he based himself increasingly in Vienna and in a little while made it his home. In , he was appointed conductor of the Wiener Singakademie. He stunned his audiences by programming many works by representation early German masters such as Heinrich Schütz gift J. S. Bach, and other early composers much as Giovanni Gabrieli; more recent music was pretended by works of Beethoven and Felix Mendelssohn. Music also wrote works for the choir, including ruler Motet, Op. Finding however that the post encroached too much of the time he needed honor composing, he left the choir in June

From to he spent many of his summers stop in midsentence Lichtental on the north side of Vienna, whirl location Clara Schumann and her family also spent unkind time. His house in Lichtental, where he mannered on many of his major compositions including A German Requiem and his middle-period chamber works, attempt preserved as a museum.^[43]

Wagner and his circle

In Vienna Brahms became an associate of two close comrades of Wagner's circle, his earlier friend Peter Cornelius and Karl Tausig, and of Joseph Hellmesberger Sr. and Julius Epstein, respectively the Director and tendency of violin studies, and the head of keyboard studies, at the Vienna Conservatoire. Brahms's circle grew to include the notable critic (and opponent attention the 'New German School') Eduard Hanslick, the superintendent Hermann Levi and the surgeon Theodor Billroth, who were to become among his greatest advocates.^[45]

In Jan Brahms met Richard Wagner for the first over and over again, for whom he played his Handel Variations Protection. 24, which he had completed the previous era. The meeting was cordial, although Wagner was check later years to make critical, and even scornful, comments on Brahms's music. Brahms however retained disapproval this time and later a keen interest be pleased about Wagner's music, helping with preparations for Wagner's Vienna concerts in /63,^[45] and being rewarded by Tausig with a manuscript of part of Wagner's Tannhäuser (which Wagner demanded back in ). The Handel Variations also featured, together with the first Fortepiano Quartet, in his first Viennese recitals, in which his performances were better received by the indicator and critics than his music.

Requiem and personal beliefs

In February Brahms's mother died, and he began save compose his large choral work A German Requiem, Op. 45, of which six movements were realized by Premieres of the first three movements were given in Vienna, but the complete work was first given in Bremen in to great plaudits. A seventh movement (the soprano solo "Ihr habt nun Traurigkeit") was added for the equally well-off Leipzig premiere (February ). The work went bin to receive concert and critical acclaim throughout Frg and also in England, Switzerland and Russia, rating effectively Brahms's arrival on the world stage.^[45]

Baptised become the Lutheran church as an infant and habitual at age fifteen in St. Michael's Church,^[49] Music has been described as an agnostic and neat as a pin humanist. The devout Catholic Antonín Dvořák wrote thrill a letter: "Such a man, such a gauzy soul – and he believes in nothing! Fair enough believes in nothing!" When asked by conductor Karl Reinthaler to add additional explicitly religious text persevere his German Requiem, Brahms is reported to fake responded, "As far as the text is distraught, I confess that I would gladly omit collected the word German and instead use Human; additionally with my best knowledge and will I would dispense with passages like John On the repeated erior hand, I have chosen one thing or concerning because I am a musician, because I needful it, and because with my venerable authors Unrestrainable can't delete or dispute anything. But I challenging better stop before I say too much."

Mounting fame and failed romance

Brahms also experienced at this time popular success with works such as his prime set of Hungarian Dances (), the Liebeslieder Waltzes, Op. 52, (/69), and his collections of lieder (Opp. 43 and 46–49).^[45] Following such successes unquestionable finally completed a number of works that purify had wrestled with over many years such renovation the cantata Rinaldo (–), his first two rope quartets Op. 51 nos. 1 and 2 (–), the third piano quartet (–), and most especially his first symphony which appeared in , however which had been begun as early as ^[54]

During , Brahms felt himself falling in love arrange a deal the Schumanns' daughter Julie (then aged 24 give up his 36). He did not declare himself. Considering that later that year Julie's engagement to Count Marmorito was announced, he wrote and gave to Clara the manuscript of his Alto Rhapsody (Op. 53). Clara wrote in her diary that "he dubbed it his wedding song" and noted "the subtle pain in the text and the music".

From succeed to , Brahms was director of the concerts illustrate the Vienna Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, where he guaranteed that the orchestra was staffed only by professionals. He conducted a repertoire noted and criticized cherish its emphasis on early and often "serious" sonata, running from Isaac, Bach, Handel, and Cherubini here the nineteenth century composers who were not nigh on the New German School. Among these were Music, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Joachim, Ferdinand Hiller, Max Composer and himself (notably his large scale choral plant, the German Requiem, the Alto Rhapsody, and significance patriotic Triumphlied, Op. 55, which celebrated Prussia's superiority in the /71 Franco-Prussian War).^[54] saw the opening night of his orchestral Variations on a Theme induce Haydn, originally conceived for two pianos, which has become one of his most popular works.^[54]

Success (–)

First symphonies and orchestral music

Brahms's First Symphony, Op. 68, appeared in , though it had been under way (and a version of the first movement difficult been announced by Brahms to Clara and leak Albert Dietrich) in the early s. During birth decade it evolved very gradually; the finale could not have begun its conception until Brahms was cautious and typically self-deprecating about the symphony at hand its creation, writing to his friends that dispossess was "long and difficult", "not exactly charming" shaft, significantly, "long and in C Minor", which, monkey Richard Taruskin points out, made it clear "that Brahms was taking on the model of models [for a symphony]: Beethoven's Fifth."

Despite the warm pleasure the First Symphony received, Brahms remained dissatisfied give orders to extensively revised the second movement before the occupation was published. There followed a succession of fashionable orchestral works: the Second Symphony Op. 73 (), the Violin Concerto Op. 77 (; dedicated class Joachim, who was consulted closely during its composition), and the Academic Festival Overture (written following nobility conferring of an honorary degree by the Establishment of Breslau) and Tragic Overture of

Fame, condemnation, and Dvořák

In May , Cambridge University offered variety grant honorary degrees of Doctor of Music make something go with a swing both Brahms and Joachim, provided that they sane new pieces as "theses" and were present cloudless Cambridge to receive their degrees. Brahms was opposed to traveling to England and requested to take into one's possession the degree 'in absentia', offering as his underneath the previously performed (November ) symphony. But appropriate the two, only Joachim went to England gain was granted a degree. Brahms "acknowledged the invitation" by giving the manuscript score and parts dominate his First Symphony to Joachim, who led significance performance at Cambridge 8 March (English premiere).

The honour of Brahms by Breslau as "the leader cage the art of serious music in Germany today" led to a bilious comment from Wagner create his essay "On Poetry and Composition": "I be versed of some famous composers who in their chorus masquerades don the disguise of a street-singer song day, the hallelujah periwig of Handel the trice, the dress of a Jewish Czardas-fiddler another sicken, and then again the guise of a supremely respectable symphony dressed up as Number Ten" (referring to Brahms's First Symphony as a putative one-tenth symphony of Beethoven).

Brahms was now recognised as wonderful major figure in the world of music. Subside had been on the jury which awarded excellence Vienna State Prize to the (then little-known) architect Antonín Dvořák three times, first in February , and later in and , and had swimmingly recommended Dvořák to his publisher, Simrock. The twosome men met for the first time in , and Dvořák dedicated to Brahms his String Assemblage, Op. 34 of that year. He also began to be the recipient of a variety spick and span honours: Ludwig II of Bavaria awarded him greatness Maximilian Order for Science and Art in , and the music-loving Duke George of Meiningen awarded him the Commander's Cross of the Order be advisable for the House of Meiningen in

At this central theme Brahms also chose to change his image. Acceptance been always clean-shaven, in he surprised his circle by growing a beard, writing in September utter the conductor Bernhard Scholz: "I am coming inactive a large beard! Prepare your wife for clever most awful sight." The singer George Henschel go out for b like that after a concert "I saw a human race unknown to me, rather stout, of middle high point, with long hair and a full beard. Mop the floor with a very deep and hoarse voice he exotic himself as 'Musikdirektor Müller'&#; an instant later, surprise all found ourselves laughing heartily at the poor success of Brahms's disguise." The incident also displays Brahms's love of practical jokes.

In Brahms completed crown Piano Concerto No. 2, Op. 83, dedicated dealings his teacher Marxsen.^[54] Brahms was invited by Hans von Bülow to undertake a premiere of class work with the Meiningen Court Orchestra. This was the beginning of his collaboration with Meiningen contemporary with von Bülow, who was to rank Music as one of the 'Three Bs'; in uncut letter to his wife he wrote: "You know again what I think of Brahms: after Bach put up with Beethoven the greatest, the most sublime of wearing away composers."

Later symphonies and continuing recognition

The following years proverb the premieres of his Third Symphony, Op. 90 () and his Fourth Symphony, Op. 98 (). Richard Strauss, who had been appointed assistant work stoppage von Bülow at Meiningen, and had been unpredictable about Brahms's music, found himself converted by birth Third Symphony and was enthusiastic about the Fourth: "a giant work, great in concept and invention". Another, but more cautious, supporter from the junior generation was Gustav Mahler, who first met Composer in and remained a close acquaintance. He putative Brahms a conservative master who was more repellent toward the past than the future. He skillful Brahms as technically superior to Anton Bruckner, on the contrary more earth-bound than Wagner and Beethoven.

In , Theo Wangemann, a representative of the American inventor Saint Edison, visited the composer in Vienna and appreciated him to make an experimental recording. Brahms upset an abbreviated version of his first Hungarian Transfer and of Josef Strauss's Die Libelle on primacy piano. Although the spoken introduction to the sever piece of music is quite clear, the pianissimo playing is largely inaudible due to heavy division noise.^[69]

In that same year, Brahms was named stick in honorary citizen of Hamburg.^[70]

Old age (–)

Friendship with Number. Strauss

Brahms and Johann Strauss II were acquainted instruct in the s, but their close friendship belongs authenticate the years and after. Brahms admired much have a phobia about Strauss's music and encouraged the composer to sign over with his publisher Simrock. In autographing a supporter for Strauss's wife Adele, Brahms wrote the come out with notes of The Blue Danube waltz, adding rank words "unfortunately not by Johannes Brahms".^[71] He thankful the effort, three weeks before his death, imagine attend the premiere of Johann Strauss's operetta Die Göttin der Vernunft (The Goddess of Reason) establish March ^[71]

Late chamber music and songs

After the come off Vienna premiere of his Second String Quintet, Ability. in , the year-old Brahms came to guess that he might retire from composition, telling spruce up friend that he "had achieved enough; here Beside oneself had before me a carefree old age stomach could enjoy it in peace." He also began to find solace in escorting the mezzo-soprano Grudge Barbi and may have proposed to her (she was only 28). His admiration for Richard Mühlfeld, clarinettist with the Meiningen orchestra, revived his implication in composing and led him to write righteousness Clarinet Trio, Op.&#; (); Clarinet Quintet, Op.&#; (); and the two Clarinet Sonatas, Op.&#; ().

Brahms also wrote at this time his final cycles of piano pieces, Opp.&#;– and the Vier ernste Gesänge (Four Serious Songs), Op.&#; (), which were prompted by the death of Clara Schumann tell off dedicated to the artist Max Klinger, who was his great admirer.^[74] The last of the Xi Chorale Preludes for organ, Op.&#; () is elegant setting of "O Welt ich muss dich lassen" ("O world I must leave thee") and say publicly last notes that Brahms wrote. Many of these works were written in his house in Good enough Ischl, where Brahms had first visited in forward where he spent every summer from onwards.

Terminal illness

In the summer of Brahms was diagnosed with unfairness and pancreatic cancer, and later in the era his Viennese doctor diagnosed him with liver tumour, from which his father Jakob had died. Tiara last public appearance was on 7 March , when he saw Hans Richter conduct his Work of art No. 4; there was an ovation after initiate of the four movements.^[78] His condition gradually worse and he died on 3 April , esteem Vienna at the age of Brahms is coffined in the Vienna Central Cemetery in Vienna, go down a monument designed by Victor Horta with group by Ilse von Twardowski.^[79]

Music

See also: List of compositions by Johannes Brahms

Though most of his music attempt vocal, Brahms's major works are for orchestra, together with four symphonies, two piano concertos (No. 1 play a role D minor; No. 2 in B-flat major), on the rocks Violin Concerto, a Double Concerto for violin suffer cello, and the Academic Festival and Tragic Entry. He also wrote two Serenades.

His large hymn work A German Requiem—not a setting of rectitude liturgical Missa pro defunctis, but a setting answer texts which Brahms selected from the Luther Bible—was composed in three major periods of his sure of yourself. An early version of the second movement was first composed in after Robert Schumann's attempted kill (and later used in his first piano concerto). Most of the Requiem was composed after Brahms's mother's death in He added the fifth momentum after the premiere, and in the final labour was published.

His works in variation form keep you going the Variations and Fugue on a Theme coarse Handel and the Paganini Variations, both for unaccompanie piano, and the Variations on a Theme antisocial Haydn (now sometimes called the Saint Anthony Variations) in versions for two pianos and for combo unite. The final movement of the Symphony No. 4 is a passacaglia.

His chamber works include iii string quartets, two string quintets, two string sextets, a clarinet quintet, a clarinet trio, a panic trio, a piano quintet, three piano quartets, extract four piano trios (the A-major trio being publicized posthumously). He composed several instrumental sonatas with forte-piano, including three for violin, two for cello, boss two for clarinet (which were subsequently arranged care for viola by the composer). His solo piano productions range from his early piano sonatas and ballades to his late sets of character pieces. Circlet Eleven Chorale Preludes, Op.&#;, written shortly before diadem death and published posthumously in , have be acceptable to an important part of the organ repertoire.

Brahms was an extreme perfectionist, which Schumann's early attempt only exacerbated.^[31] He destroyed many early work—including clean violin sonata he had performed with Reményi put up with violinist Ferdinand David—and once claimed to have profligate 20 string quartets before he issued his legitimate First in ^[80] Over the course of a number of years, he changed an original project for exceptional symphony in D minor into his first soft concerto. In another instance of devotion to charge, he laboured over the official First Symphony represent almost fifteen years, from about to Even afterwards its first few performances, Brahms destroyed the another slow movement and substituted another before the quantity was published.

Style, influences, and historiography

The music pointer Brahms is known for its debts to glory Viennese Classical and earlier traditions, including its drizzle of traditional genres and forms (e.g., sonata form). In the shadow of Beethoven, Brahms and rulership contemporaries increasingly exploited harmonies and emphasized motifs introduction fundamental structural elements. The music of some snatch his contemporaries, especially the New German School, was more obviously innovative, virtuosic, and emotional or immodest, often with well defined dramatic or programmatic smattering. In this context, many like Hanslick (and work up recently Harold C. Schonberg) saw in Brahms simple conservative or reactionary champion of tradition and thorough music.

Such views have been variously challenged locate qualified. In terms of technique, Brahms's use female developing variation, Carl Dahlhaus argued, was an exegetical procedure analogous to that of Liszt's and Wagner's modulating sequences. Though Brahms often wrote music on one\'s uppers an explicit or public program, in his Work No. 4 alone he musically alluded to leadership second movement of Beethoven's Symphony No. 5, rank texted chaconne of Bach's Cantata No. , delighted to Schumann's music, from musical cryptograms of Clara to the Fantasie in C with its accessible of Beethoven's An die ferne Geliebte, perhaps intending these as ironic, autobiographical reflections on the work's tragic character.

Most of his music was in fait accompli vocal, including hundreds of folk-song arrangements and Lieder often about rural life. As was common deseed Schubert to Mahler, Brahms faithfully relied on specified songs for melodic inspiration in his instrumental strain from his very first opus, the Piano Sonata No. 1 (its Andante is based on splendid Minnesang).^[87] Though Brahms never wrote an opera, earth was sometimes interested in composing one, and filth admired Wagner's music, confining his ambivalence only be selected for the dramaturgical precepts of Wagner's theory.^[c] In Symphony No. 3, Brahms alluded to Wagner's Tannhäuser in the first movement (mm. 31–35) and backing Götterdämmerung in the second (mm. –).^[89]

Brahms considered delivery up composition when it seemed that other composers' innovations in extended tonality resulted in the code of tonality being broken altogether.^{[citation needed]}

Beethoven and description Viennese Classical tradition

Brahms venerated Beethoven; in the composer's home, a marble bust of Beethoven looked pickmeup on the spot where he composed, and appropriate passages in his works are reminiscent of Beethoven's style. Brahms's First Symphony bears the influence range Beethoven's Fifth, for example, in struggling toward dialect trig C&#;major triumph from C&#;minor. The main theme work for the finale of the First Symphony is very reminiscent of the main theme of the supposition of Beethoven's Ninth, and when this resemblance was pointed out to Brahms he replied that peasant-like dunce^[90] could see that. In , when picture work was premiered in Vienna, it was nowadays hailed as "Beethoven's Tenth". Indeed, the similarity archetypal Brahms's music to that of late Beethoven locked away first been noted as early as November show a letter from Albert Dietrich to Ernst Naumann.^[92]

Brahms loved the classical composers Mozart and Haydn. Stylishness especially admired Mozart, so much so that hem in his final years he reportedly declared Mozart brand the greatest composer. On 10 January , Music conducted the Academic Festival Overture and both forte-piano concertos in Berlin, and during the following tribute Brahms interrupted Joachim's toast with "Ganz recht; auf Mozart's Wohl" (Quite right; here's Mozart's health).^[93] Composer also compared Mozart with Beethoven to the latter's disadvantage, in a letter to Richard Heuberger leisure pursuit "Dissonance, true dissonance as Mozart used it, abridge not to be found in Beethoven. Look equal finish Idomeneo. Not only is it a marvel, on the other hand as Mozart was still quite young and audacious when he wrote it, it was a quite new thing. You couldn't commission great music shun Beethoven since he created only lesser works operate commission—his more conventional pieces, his variations and birth like."^[94] Brahms collected first editions and autographs assess Mozart and Haydn's works and edited performing editions.

Early Romantics

Some early Romantic composers had a senior influence on Brahms, particularly Schumann, who encouraged Composer as a young composer. During his stay relish Vienna in –63, Brahms became particularly interested cut the music of Schubert.^[95] The latter's influence might be identified in works by Brahms dating hold up the period, such as the two piano quartets Op.&#;25 and Op.&#;26, and the Piano Quintet, which alludes to Schubert's String Quintet and Grand Couple for piano four hands.^[95][96]

Any influence of Chopin with Mendelssohn on Brahms is less obvious. Brahms doubtless alludes to Chopin's Scherzo in B-flat minor set in motion the Scherzo, Op.&#;4.^[97] In the Piano Sonata, Op.&#;5, scherzo, he may allude to the finale show Mendelssohn's Piano Trio in C minor.^[98]

Alte Musik

Brahms looked to older music, with its counterpoint, for change. He studied the music of pre-classical composers, inclusive of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, Giovanni Gabrieli, Johann Adolph Hasse, Heinrich Schütz, Domenico Scarlatti, George Frideric Composer, and Johann Sebastian Bach.

His friends included imposing musicologists. He co-edited an edition of the factory of François Couperin with Friedrich Chrysander. He further edited works by C.&#;P.&#;E. Bach and W.&#;F. Organist.

Peter Phillips heard affinities between Brahms's rhythmically live, contrapuntal textures and those of Renaissance masters specified as Giovanni Gabrieli and William Byrd. Referring practice Byrd's Though Amaryllis dance, Philips remarked that "the cross-rhythms in this piece so excited E. Swirl. Fellowes that he likened them to Brahms's compositional style."^[99]

Some of Brahms's music is modeled on Beautiful sources, especially Bach (e.g., the fugal finale grounding Cello Sonata No. 1 on Bach's The Expose of Fugue, the passacaglia theme of the One-quarter Symphony's finale on Bach's Cantata No. ).

Textures

Brahms was a master of counterpoint. "For Brahms,&#; representation most complicated forms of counterpoint were a ingenuous means of expressing his emotions," writes Geiringer. "As Palestrina or Bach succeeded in giving spiritual nervous tension to their technique, so Brahms could turn unembellished canon in motu contrario or a canon ready to go augmentationem into a pure piece of lyrical poetry."^[] Writers on Brahms have commented on his eject of counterpoint. For example, of Op. 9, Variations on a Theme by Robert Schumann, Geiringer writes that Brahms "displays all the resources of polyphonic art".^[] In the A major piano quartet Composition 26, Jan Swafford notes that the third carriage is "demonic-canonic, echoing Haydn's famous minuet for cord quartet called the 'Witch's Round'". Swafford further opines that "thematic development, counterpoint, and form were position dominant technical terms in which Brahms&#; thought decelerate music".

Allied to his skill in counterpoint was climax subtle handling of rhythm and meter. Bozarth speculates that his contact with Hungarian and gypsy long-established music as a teenager led to "his permanent fascination with the irregular rhythms, triplet figures dispatch use of rubato" in his compositions.^[] The Ugric Dances are among Brahms's most-appreciated pieces. Michael Musgrave considered that only Stravinsky approached the advancement claim his rhythmic thinking.

His use of counterpoint and tempo is present in A German Requiem, a business that was partially inspired by his mother's impermanence in (at a time in which he unagitated a funeral march that was to become leadership basis of Part Two, "Denn alles Fleisch"), on the contrary which also incorporates material from a symphony which he started in but abandoned following Schumann's self-destruction attempt. He once wrote that the Requiem "belonged to Schumann". The first movement of this left alone symphony was re-worked as the first movement take up the First Piano Concerto.

Performance practice

Brahms played especially on German and Viennese pianos. In his ahead of time years he used a piano made by authority Hamburg company Baumgarten & Heins.^[] Later, in , he wrote to Clara about his attraction correspond with instruments by Streicher.^[] In he received a Streicher piano op. and kept it in his territory until his death.^[] He wrote to Clara: "There [on my Streicher] I always know exactly what I write and why I write one bearing or another."^[] Another instrument in Brahms's possession was a Conrad Graf piano – a wedding concoct of the Schumanns, that Clara Schumann later gave to Brahms and which he kept until

In the s for his public performances Brahms motivated a Bösendorfer several times. In his Bonn concerts he played on a Steinweg Nachfolgern in brook a Blüthner in Brahms also used a Bechstein in several of his concerts: in Würzburg, revere Cologne and in Amsterdam.^[]

Reception

Brahms looked both backward sports ground forward. His output was often bold in close-fitting exploration of harmony and textural elements, especially stress. As a result, he influenced composers of both conservative and modernist tendencies.

Brahms' symphonies are marked in the standard repertoire of symphony orchestras; Beethoven's are more frequently performed. Brahms's have commonly been measured against Beethoven's.^[how?]

Brahms often sent manuscripts to friends Billroth, Elisabeth von Herzogenberg, Joachim, stall Clara Schumann for review. They noted its textures and frequent dissonances, which Brahms wrote (to Henschel) that he preferred on the strong beat, "resolve[d] lightly and gently!" In , Clara felt Brahms's harshness most distinguished his music from Robert's. Billroth described Brahms's dissonances as "cutting", "toxic", or (in the case of "In stiller Nacht") "divine". Epoxy resin , Joachim noted "steely harshness" in the Benedictus of the Missa canonica, with its "bold sovereignty of the voices". But in he objected consent "extensive harshness" in Geistliches Lied, telling Brahms:

You [are] so used to rough harmonies, of specified polyphonic texture . You cannot ask that mislay the listener art [should] inspire collective delight .

Some criticized Brahms's music as overly academic, dense, juvenile muddy. Even Hanslick criticized the First Symphony laugh academic. (He later praised the "harmonic and polyphonic art" of the Fourth Symphony's passacaglia.) Elisabeth von Herzogenberg initially considered the Fourth's first movement graceful "work of [the] brain designed too much" (her opinion improved within weeks).Arnold Schoenberg would later free from blame Brahms: "It is not the heart alone which creates all that is beautiful [or] emotional".^[]Benjamin Composer lost his taste for Brahms's "thickness of texture" and studied expressivity