Johannes Brahms Biography

From the very outset of his career as a young and penniless musician in his native Hamburg,
Brahms was passionately fond of Zigeuner (gypsy) music, and his enthusiasm was particularly
encouraged by two fellow musicians, the Hungarian violinists Eduard Reményi and Joseph
Joachim.

Brahms completed a total of twenty-one Hungarian Dances, which he arranged or composed

from existing material, using the piano duet medium. The earliest of these pieces dates from
1853, the year he first met Reményi, while the others were written over a period of several years
subsequently.

While the listener is unlikely to want to listen to the entire sequence in one sitting, Brahms's
mastery is such that the approach he brings is constantly imaginative. For example, Nos. 11
(track 11: 0.00) and 12 (track 12: 0.00) are both D minor pieces, yet they could hardly be more
different, their tempi being Andante and Presto, respectively.

These opportunities are imaginatively delivered by the Duo Crommelynck (Patrick Crommelynck
and Taeko Kuwata) who, the otherwise well detailed booklet informs us, died tragically in 1994.
An accident would seem the likely cause, but we are not told. Their playing is exemplary, at once
clear in texture and unanimous in ensemble, with a good feel for tempo and rubato. These
strengths are emphasised by a sensitive recorded balance, and the twenty-year-old recording is
particularly pleasing in this remastering.

Like Beethoven before him, Brahms was drawn to Vienna, where he spent the final part of his
career. The marvellous set of Waltzes he composed in the mid-1860s came at the very time he
was making this move, and they form a sensitive creative response to the waltz idiom which
attracted so many composers. These are miniatures rather than substantial individual pieces
collected in suite form: the entire sequence of sixteen waltzes is less than seventeen minutes in
duration. As such, it is possible to perform the whole sequence or a selection, although this CD
makes the latter option difficult, since there is only one track containing all sixteen: track 22,
following the Hungarian Dances.

The opening of the sequence (track 22: 0.00) gives a fair indication of the musical style and the
players' winning approach. Coupling these dance pieces together is a sensible option for any
collector, and the performances are rewarding too.

Terry Barfoot
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)

German composer, one of the major composers of the 19th century, whose works combine the best of
the classical and romantic schools. Brahms was born in Hamburg on May 7, 1833. After studying the
violin and cello with his father, a double bass player in the city theater, Brahms mastered the piano and
began to compose under the guidance of the German music teacher Eduard Marxsen, whose
conservative tastes left a lasting imprint on him. In 1853 Brahms went on a concert tour as accompanist
to the Hungarian violinist Eduard Reményi.

In the course of the tour he met the Hungariin violinist Joseph Joachim, who introduced him in turn to
the German composer Robert Schumann. Schumann was so impressed by Brahms's unpublished
compositions that he wrote a wildly enthusiastic magazine article about him. Brahms cherished a deep
affection for both Schumann and his wife Clara, a famous pianist. The friendship and encouragement he
received from them gave impetus to his work. Many biographers contend that Brahms was deeply in
love with Clara, but he did not propose to her after Schumann's death in 1856, and he never married.
Early Works

In 1857 Brahms secured appointment as conductor at the court theater in Detmold, where he remained
until 1859; for several years thereafter he traveled in Germany and Switzerland. His first major work to
be publicly presented was the Piano Concerto no. 1 in D Minor, which he performed in Leipzig in 1859.
The composition was not well received, however, because it lacked the showiness and the virtuoso
passages then in vogue. The composer went to Vienna in 1863 and became director of the Singakademie
(Choral Academy) but left the post a year later. In 1868 Brahms won fame throughout Europe following
the performance of his German Requiem, in which he departed from Catholic tradition by using a
German rather than a Latin text. In fact, he chose the text from different Bible passages himself. The
piece, cast in seven divisions, expresses his sorrow at the death of his mother and of Schumann. Brahms
settled in Vienna in 1871, accepting the directorship of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde (Society of
Friends of Music). In 1874 he resigned his position to devote himself to composing.

Major Works

Until 1873 Brahms had written chiefly for the piano, the instrument he knew best, and for chorus and
orchestra. In that year, however, he produced the Variations on a Theme by Haydn, scored for full
orchestra. Demonstrating Brahms's increasing mastery of large orchestral form, the Variations presaged
his major works, which are among the finest expressions in all music literature. His masterpieces
include the grandiloquent Symphony no. 1 in C Minor (1876); the gentler, more mellifluous Symphony
no. 2 in D Major (1877); the Academic Festival Overture (1880), incorporating German student songs;
the somber Tragic Overture (1881); the poetic Symphony no. 3 in F Major (1883); and the Symphony no.
4 in E Minor (1885), with its brilliant and emotionally overwhelming finale.

All these works display a tightly knit structure, stemming from the Viennese classical tradition. Unlike
his contemporaries, Brahms shunned exploitation of new harmonic effects and new tone colors for their
own sake. He concerned himself rather with creating music of inherent unity, utilizing new or unusual
effects only to enhance internal structural nuances. Thus, his best works contain no extraneous
passages; each theme, each figure, each modulation is implicit in all that has preceded it.

The classicism of Brahms was a unique phenomenon in its day, entirely at odds with the trends in
contemporary music as represented especially by the German composer Richard Wagner. Although
Brahms revived a tradition to which no important composer since Ludwig van Beethoven or Franz
Schubert had adhered, he was not wholly isolated from his own milieu, and the fiery emotional range of
the romantic spirit permeates his music.

Unfortunately, little is known of Brahms's methods of work. A merciless self-critic, he burned all that he
wrote before the age of 19 as well as some sketches of later masterpieces. It is known that he
frequently reworked pieces over a period of 10 to 20 years, and before achieving the final form he
often transcribed them for several different combinations of instruments.

Brahms wrote in every medium except opera. His numerous other important works include
Schicksalslied (Song of Destiny, 1871), a musical setting of a poem by the German poet Friedrich
Hölderlin, scored for chorus and orchestra; the Violin Concerto in D Major (1878), a classic in the violin
repertoire; 3 string quartets; 5 trios; a clarinet quintet; numerous other chamber works for various
combinations of instruments; and more than 150 songs. Brahms died of liver cancer on April 3, 1897, in
Vienna.