Johannes Brahms (jan 1, 1833 – jan 1, 1897)

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During the 1850s and ‘60s, successful new symphonies were rare. Many new concert halls were built, but the majority of works performed were by past masters such as Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert. The reinvigoration of the symphony was led by Johannes Brahms. Bahms continued the tradition of Mendelssohn and Schuman and became a counterweight to the aesthetic views espoused by the New German School. As his four symphonies, four concertos, and extensive chamber and keyboad music show, Brahms excelled in genres that were neglected by the New Germans. In some pieces, he looked to pre-Classical models, such as Bach.


The Schumanns took the young Brahms into their home and hearts. Robert was already seeing himself as an embattled CLassicist in opposition to the emergent New German School. In view of his earlier distinction as the quintessential Romantic composer and his former championship, as critic, of Berlioz and Liszt, this all seemed ironic. He found himself pitted against trhe New Germans, whose official organ, in added irony, was the Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik, the journal he had himself founded, now edited by Franz Brendel.

As a courtesy to his predecessor, Brendel gave Schumann space in the magazine for what turned out to be his last article: "Neue Bahnen"(New Paths), a brief piece in praise of the practically unknown Brahms. Schumann hailed the twenty-year-old as the musical messiah the artistic world had been awaiting since Beethoven's death:

...it has seemed to me that there would and must suddenly appear some day one man who would be singled out to make articualte in an ideal way teh highest expression of our time, one man who would bring us mastery, not as the result of a gradual development, but as Minerva, springing fully armed from the head of Cronus. And he is come, a young creature over whose cradle graces and heroes stood guard. His name is Johannes Brahms, and he comes from Hamburg, where has been working in silent obscurity, trained in the most difficult theses of his art by an excellent teacher who sends me enthusiastic reports of him, recommended to me recently by a well-known and respected master (Joachim).


It was a dream review: a great critic/composer welcoming a new genius and proclaiming him music's savior. But Schumann's article also created extraordinary expectations, which put severe pressure on the young Brahms. Schumann had based his lavish praise on just a few works. Three early piano sonatas he found were "like disguised symphonies,"which gave hope for greater thigns to come. An actual Brahms symphony, Schumann predicted, would mark the rebirth of Romanticism at its best, an antidote to the programmatic agenda associated with Berlioz and Liszt.




The sense of heritage and obligation that Schumann had thrust on Brahms seems to have delayed his writing a symphony. The same hesitation afflicted an increasing number of composers obsessed with the past and with their place in history. Whereas the first symphonies of many earlier figures had served as learning exercises, Brahms felt obligated to produce a masterpiece on his very first try. After some abortive attempts, exasperated by a sense of failure, he gave up for many years. He even declared to one of his friends that he would never compose a symphony, adding "You don't know what it is like to walk in teh footsteps of a giant." The giant, of course, was Beethoven. But in fact all the musical past was stalking Brahms: composing a traditional symphony rather than a Lisztian programmatic work, which could be measured by other aesthetic criteria, became daunting. So while Brahms's early piano, vocal, and chamber music earned admiration from musicians, critics, and audiences, people wondered when he would turn to what really mattered: symphonies and operas.


On 27 February 1854, four months after having written "New Paths,"Schumann attempted suicide, which led to his confinement in a sanatorium for the remaining two years of his life. Brahms visited him fairly often and actually took his place temporarily at the head of the Schumann hosuehold, helping raise their children. Brahms remained on on intimate terms with Clara to teh end of her long life, less than a year before his own death. (Yes, people gossiped about the relationship between the bachelor composer and the widowed pianist, fourteen years his senior.) His intense personal experiences with the Schumanns and the loyalty it bred bound Brahms to their position in German musical politics. He became the standard bearer of the Mendelssohn/Schumann heritage against the self-proclaimed "Music of the Future"coming from the New Germans. Of course, Brahms was also writing music of and for the future, partly built on innovative uses of the past.

Brahms had begun to sketch a symphony, initially as a Sonata in D Minor for Piano Duet, which he played through with Clara. (Later, they fucked.) By the end of July 1854, three movements weree drafted, the first of them orchestrated as well. He sent the score to Joachim, who later related that it began with a covert (that is, unannounced as a "program") visualization of SChumann's anguished leap into the Rhine. Typically Brahmsian are various allusions to other pieces, most notably two other symphonies in D minor by Beethoven and Schumann. Brahms never finished this symphony, but recycled some of the material in other compositons.

After receiving Schumann's rave review, Brahms was hired to spend part of each year as a teacher, pianist, and choral conductor in the minor princely court of Detmold, a small city in north-central Germany. He was thus one of teh last composers to enjoy, however briefly and part-time, the security of aristocratic patronage. He composed little during these years, but with a small orchestra available to him he turned out two serenades written in a frankly retrospective style. The very name "serenade" was a throwback to outdoor party musci. The serenade No. 1 in D Major, Op. 11, fo ra time even bore the title "Symphony-Serenade." As Brahms put it to a friend who inquired about the change of title, ïf one wants to write symphonies after Beethoven, then they will have to look very different!" So he kept putting off composing a symphony and concentrated on other genres, continuing to write piano music, Lieder, and choral works. Except for the Piano Concerto No. 1 in D Mnor, which made some use of the aborted symphony, most of his orchestral music dates from later in his career


Once he had broken the log-jam, Brahms composed three more symphonies in less than a decade. His Second had

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