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Composer of the Month - July, 2005

Johannes Brahms, 1833-1897
by Daryl Lee

Born in 1833 to a double-bassist for the Hamburg opera, Johannes Brahms began his music studies at the age of seven, beginning with piano and adding theory and composition beginning at thirteen. While on a concert tour, he met Franz Liszt and Joseph Joachim, who then introduced him to Robert Schumann, starting a relationship that would last him the rest of his life.  Schumann saw promise in Brahms, to the extent of touting him as "the next Beethoven." Schumann died three years later, but Brahms' friendship with Schumann's wife Clara lasted until Clara's death 40 years later in 1896. Schumann's confidence in Brahms became manifest in Brahms' perfectionism—Brahms kept a bust of Beethoven in his studio as a reminder, and is known to have destroyed his drafts of pieces that did not meet his own expectations.

His full-time composing career began with his move to Vienna in 1862. He was soon appointed director of the Vienna Singakademie, with a concentration on a capella music, both historical and modern. With the publication of the German Requiem in 1868, his reputation was firmly established, giving him the confidence to try a variety of genres (he never published an opera). His First Symphony was published in 1876, although, due to his Beethoven-inspired perfectionism, it was probably not the first he actually wrote.

Without doubt, Brahms is most famous in the choral music world for his German Requiem.  Written from a Lutheran theological perspective, this Requiem is about the living, rather than the dead. As a whole, it rises from the first movement to a peak in the centerpiece, movement four, and then descends to the final movement. The central movement, How Lovely Is Thy Dwelling Place, follows a similar pattern. The Michael O'Neal Summer Singers include this dramatic movement in its concert on August 29, 2005.

Brahms was a major influence in the last half of the nineteenth century in the revival of "absolute music," music that exists for its own sake, as compared with "program music," whose purpose is to accompany and support the telling of a story.  His mastery of his craft is apparent in how people respond to his compositions: the first response is to be thrilled with the music itself, and only later to begin to admire the skill and technique of the composer.

In 1890 Brahms tried to retire.  He drew up a will and began systematically destroying his unpublished manuscripts. But the creative fires were still alive and demanded an outlet.  In the period 1891-1894 he composed several masterful instrumental works inspired by the contemporary violinist Richard Mühlfeld.  But soon his health caught up with him, and he died from cancer in 1897. Although there is nothing to suggest that Brahms' relationship with Clara Schumann was anything other than strong friendship, it is worth noting that Brahms never married, and his own life came to an end just a few months after hers, even though she was 14 years his elder.

For further reading on Johannes Brahms:
- http://www.island-of-freedom.com/BRAHMS.HTM
- http://www.johannesbrahms.org/JBbio.htm
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Brahms
- http://www.bbc.co.uk/cgi-perl/music/muze/index.pl ?site=music&action=biography&artist_id=43524

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