Brief biography of Johannes Brahms, his life, career and works. His children's cradle song "Brahms' Lullaby" ("Wiegenlied") and Academic Festival Overture remain popular.
Johannes Brahms was a German composer, pianist and conductor of the Romantic period although his music was in the Classical structure. Famous for choral work "A German Requiem," Brahms was one of the greatest masters of orchestral, chamber, piano, choral, vocal music, and songs.
Two of Brahms shorter compositions remain popular: children's song "Brahms' Lullaby" and "Academic Festival Overture." The melody of Brahms' Lullaby remains the same although songwriters have adapted similar lyrics from his original 'Wiegenlied' (Cradle Song'.)
Early Life
Brahms was born on May 7, 1833, in Hamburg, the son of a German orchestral musician. He shares the same birthday as Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, the greatest Russian Romantic composer born seven years later. Initially planned for a career as an orchestral player, Brahms made such progress on the piano that his parents decided to make him a prodigy piano player at 11 years old. He started his musical career playing the piano in restaurants and taverns, and not in brothels as some have suggested.
Friendship with Robert and Clara Schumann
During his concert tour of Germany in 1853, he met the celebrated violinist Joseph Joachim who introduced him to Liszt, Robert Schumann and his brilliant and talented pianist-wife Clara Wieck Schumann. Legend has it that he and the Schumanns became the closest of friends.
Composer and Conductor
From 1863 Brahms made his home in Vienna and devoted his time to composition except for some concert tours on which he played his own works. At Bremen, he conducted the premiere of his most profound choral work, Eine Deutsches Requiem (A German Requiem) in 1868. It was only after 15 years that he completed his Symphony No.1. He normally performed and conducted his works.
Brahms saw himself continuing the classical tradition from where Beethoven left off. Although he wrote large-scale orchestral music with four symphonies and other works like Beethoven, he also loved Hungarian gypsy music and the Viennese waltzes of Strauss. To his contemporaries, he was a strict formalist, as opposed to the romantic sensuality of Richard Wagner.
Brahms' Major Works
- Piano Concerto No. 1 (1859)
- Serenade No. 2 for Orchestra (1860)
- String Quartet No. 2 (1863) (and other chamber music)
- A German Requiem (1868)
- Symphony No. 1
- Symphony No. 2
- Symphony No. 3
- Symphony No. 4
- Violin concerto
- Academic Festival Overture, Op.80 (1880)
- Tragic Overtures, Op.81 (1880)
- Vocal music - lieder (songs)
- Sonatas
- Other piano music
In 1896, he suffered from cancer of the liver and died on April 3 the following year.
Perhaps it is the balance that Johannes Brahms bridged between Classical and Romantic forms that has made him a significant figure of the 19th-century music. Detractors and some critics may disagree, Brahms has been dubbed the third of the three B's - JS Bach, Beethoven, Brahms.
Related Links
Johannes Brahms Society of Hamburg
Sources:
The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Edited by Stanley Sadie (2000)
The Oxford Companion to Music, Edited by Alison Latham (2002)
Great Composers by Golden Press (1989)
