1833 and... Brahms

This week's talk in our '1833' series focused on the composer Johannes Brahms, and was given by Ms Cohen.

Brahms was not Beethoven, although critics called his 1st symphony Beethoven’s 10th because of its unusual classicism. He was not the man who wrote the ‘Blue Danube’ waltz either, although when asked for an autograph later in his life, he wrote the opening bars of the Blue Danube on a napkin and wrote beside it ‘I am Brahms, the man who unfortunately did not write this music.’

Here is a picture of Brahms- it’s hard to imagine him as a baby or even a young man because this image is almost like a cartoon.

He was born in Hamburg in 1833 - the son of a Double Bass player, and he had a good musical education. He was an excellent pianist. Aged 20, he went on tour with Hungarian Jewish Violinist called Reneyi (You may remember Merchistonian violinist Alex Targowski, who played much Hungarian gypsy music, and the Hungarian dances by Brahms).

On this tour he was noticed by the great composers Joahim & Lizt who were impressed and certainly promoted him. They were part of the New German movement encouraging - as Mozart had done- the German language to be used in opera, and the folk tales to be used as themes for songs etc.

Romantic music was the style of the time, and to varying degrees composers used stories and wrote music to tell the story (for instance, Grieg's Peer Gynt, or Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf). It was called 'Programme Music'. Brahms never took this on board, and preferred writing in a way which reminded the composer Schumann of Beethoven.

Clara Schumann, Robert's widow, exchanged letters with Brahms through hard times after her husband's death, and they continued to be very close for the rest of their lives although she remained alone and continued to play on the concert circuit as Mrs Schumann and he remained in rented accomodation all his life. He was not an easy man to get on with: he used to get up at 5 a.m. and drink very storing coffee, which he would not let anyone else make, and smoke strong cigars - no wonder he lived alone! He lived in Vienna for the last 35 years of his life.

His 'Academic Overture' was written for the University of Breslau, which had awarded him an honorary degree in 1880. Brahms wrote a piece around the boisterous drinking songs sung by the students.

His music was not revolutionary, but it remains to this day loved and much performed. His output includes: 4 symphonies, many songs, chamber music, concertos and Hungarian Dances

He died the year after Clara in 1897.

Previous story in this series - 1833 & Charles Babbage