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BRAHMS
Johannes Brahms
• 7 May 1833 – 3 April 1897
• Was a German composer and pianist, and one of
the leading musicians of the Romantic period.
• The Three Bs: Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig van
Beethoven AND Johannes Brahms.
• Brahms was considered by many to be the
"successor" to Beethoven
Johannes Brahms
• His father, who gave him his first music lessons,
was a double bassist.
• Music was introduced to his life at an early age.
Brahms began playing piano at the age of seven.
• When he was a teenager: Brahms was already an
accomplished musician, and he used his talent to
earn money.
Brahms’s Personality
• Brahms is often considered both traditionalist
and an innovator.
• Descriptions the Brahms’s personality were
contradictory: He was called gruff, generous,
withholding, unpleasant, secretive, shy, mean,
serious, boorish, and immature.
• Like Beethoven, Brahms was fond of nature and
often went walking in the woods around Vienna.
Brahms’s Compositions
• Brahms wrote a number of major works for orchestra,
including four symphonies, two piano concertos, a
Violin Concerto, a Double Concerto for violin and cello,
and the large choral work A German Requiem (Ein
deutsches Requiem).
• Brahms was also a prolific composer in the theme and
variation form, having notably composed the
Variations and Fugue on a theme by Händel, Paganini
Variations, and Variations on a Theme by Joseph
Haydn, along with other lesser known sets of
variations.
Brahms’s Compositions
• Brahms also wrote a great deal of work for small
forces. His many works of chamber music form
part of the core of this repertoire, as does his
solo piano music. Brahms is also considered to be
among the greatest of composers of lieder, of
which he wrote about 200.
• Brahms never wrote an opera, nor did he ever
write in the characteristic 19th century form of
the tone poem.
Influences
• Like most of the Romantic composers, Brahms
venerated Beethoven, and his works contain
what seem to be outright imitations of
Beethoven's work, including the Ninth Symphony
and the Hammerklavier sonata. Brahms also
loved the earlier Classical composers Mozart and
Haydn.
• He collected first editions and autographs of their
works, and also edited performing editions.
TRIBUTES:
Later that year, the British composer Hubert Parry, who considered
Brahms the greatest artist of the time, wrote an orchestral Elegy
for Brahms. This was never played in Parry's lifetime, receiving its
first performance at a memorial concert for Parry himself in 1918.