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Chapter 15: Johannes Brahms
(1833-1897, died at age 63)
Brahms was born in Hamburg, Germany, and learned to play the piano well from an early age. He was familiar with playing in taverns and arranging music as a pianist who helped support his family since he was young. His father was a string player in a theater orchestra. He was the middle child of three siblings, with an older sister and a younger brother. At the age of 17, he met the excellent violinist Eduard Remenyi, and on their first concert tour together, he met Remenyi's friend, the great violinist Joseph Joachim, and they became close friends. Joachim continued to be a good adviser to Brahms' creative endeavors, and showed him an unchanging friendship throughout his life. The two also visited Weimar, where they got to know Liszt, who was at the height of his popularity at the time, but the music of Liszt and Brahms was so different that the new music of Liszt and Wagner and the neoclassical music that Brahms aimed for were incompatible throughout their lives.
Joachim introduced Brahms to the Schumanns, who lived in Düsseldorf, where Schumann sensed the extraordinary talent of Brahms and introduced Brahms in various publications. Thus, Brahms was on the path to success, but he faced the tragic death of his mentor Schumann, and Brahms maintained a lifelong friendship with Schumann's grieving wife Clara and their children. After serving as conductor at the Wiener Singakademie and the Wiener Musikverein, he settled in Vienna in 1878. He was one of the greatest German composers of the 19th century, and was one of the "Three Great German B's (Bach, Beethoven, Brahms)," a phrase left behind by the first great conductor in history, Hans von Bülow.
He drew a line at the new music of Liszt and Wagner. Although Brahms did not compose operas or program music, he composed symphonies, orchestral works, and, to my surprise, an astonishing number of choral pieces.
"From my personal experience, I lived in the Hamburg branch office of my company in Germany (then West Germany) for one year from 1963 (as an overseas trainee) when I was single, two years after I started working for the company. Then from 1973 to 1977 (as a staff member of the branch sales and information gathering of the market) I stayed in Hamburg with my family. At that time, I think that any Japanese person with even a slight interest in classical music knew that Brahms was born in Hamburg, and similarly, it was known that Mendelssohn was born in Hamburg, but the house where Brahms was born and raised was hardly known, and the city still had a large scar and damage from the World War II, thus there were no remains of Brahms' birthplace for tourists to visit."
The following is a short summary of my impressions of Brahms' music from the performance I listened this time.
Symphony No. 1: The historic concert in Tokyo (1975) by conductor Karl Böhm (age 80) with the Vienna Philharmonic remains moving no matter how many times I listen to it. In all of Brahms' symphonies, the process in which a beautiful melody gradually emerges from a murky sound is expressed very naturally and well, which resonates with the listener. This is especially evident in Symphony No. 1. Another performance, conducted by Kyohei Sorita, took place in the rain in the front garden of the Great Buddha Hall of Todaiji Temple in Nara Prefecture. Even under these adverse conditions, Sorita's passion for music as a pianist was clearly apparent.
Symphony No. 3: Brahms completed Symphony No. 1 after many years of hard work, when he was 43 years old and had gained a relatively large amount of life experience. I believe that his subsequent Symphonies No. 3 and 4 became masterpieces that represent the German Romanticism after Beethoven's death. The third movement of Symphony No. 3 is heavy and melancholic, while the fourth movement is full of power and a familiar and beautiful melody. Some conductors say that the reason Symphony No. 3 is performed less often than other symphonies is because the final movement ends too quietly.
Symphony No. 4: The first theme played by the violin at the beginning of the first movement captures the listener's heart. Although it was composed shortly after Symphony No. 3 was composed, it is a masterpiece that is permeated with a particularly lonely sadness and allows the listener to freely imagine the composer's feelings.
Piano Concerto No. 1: Although it is a large piece, it is unfinished as a piano concerto, and one can certainly see why it is said to be a piano piece that accompanies a symphony that is mainly performed by the orchestra. But finally in the fourth movement, a beautiful, familiar melody appears that is elegant as a piano concerto. It is a strange feeling that when listening to A. Rubinstein's piano performance (BBC Symphony), this piece sounds more like a rare masterpiece than when performed by other pianists.
Piano Concerto No. 2: Though said to be a symphony accompanied by piano, it was composed 20 years after the First. It is said to have been inspired by a trip to Italy, and is a masterpiece with a strong German flavor, with a grandioso piano melody, string players in orchestra play an important role in the performance.
Piano Quintet: A masterpiece composed when Brahms was 31 years old, full of lyricism and passion, with a piano that has a sense of weight and grandeur in competition with a string quartet.
Violin Concerto: A masterpiece composed in 1878 when Brahms was 45 years old, with a pastoral lyricism seeping out of the piece, perhaps because he began composing in the Austrian countryside. It is said that he sought advice on the solo parts from his friend violinist Joachim*.
*We must not forget the achievements of Joseph Joachim (1831-1907), who left his name in posterity as the violinist who premiered Brahms' Violin Concerto.
Violin Sonatas: No. 1: So called "Rain Song" was composed at the age of 46, the period when he was at the height of his creative prowess, and is a masterpiece that blends the Southern European sense of freedom and passion he gained from a trip to Italy with Brahms' distinctive Northern European lyricism. Violin Sonata No. 2 and No. 3 also feature beautiful and gentle melodies. The performance by Friedrich Schelling (Vn) / A. Rubinstein (Pf) is particularly full of emotion.
German Requiem (7 songs): Based on Martin Luther's German translation of the Bible, different from typical mass music, German Requiem is focusing on the sorrow of the survivors rather than the dead. It is said that the inspiration for the composition was a memorial to Schumann. The fourth song has a beautiful melody, the fifth song has a chorus following a high-pitched soprano solo, and the sixth song has a chorus following a baritone solo. It is the equivalent of the traditional Requiem's "Die Irae", and builds up with powerful melodies. Of the performances I heard this time, the Tokyo performance conducted by Herbert Blomstedt/Gewandhausorchester Leipzig / Wiener Philharmoniker was particularly impressive.
Clarinet Quintet in B minor, Op. 115: Just when he felt that his creative powers had dried up and he had decided to give up composing, he met the excellent clarinetist Richard Mühlfeld, and his desire to compose was stimulated again. This work was completed in 1891, and is the most resigned and lyricism of his works. It is considered a masterpiece of a clarinet quintet, on a par with Mozart's.
String Sextet No. 1, Op. 18: This work was written when he was 27 years old (1860). The rich, orchestral sound of the bass fills the air with the yearning lyricism that is characteristic of Brahms, and the melody, which exudes a pastoral, sentimental sweetness, is sometimes used in film music.
For your reference, the following table lists the works of composers that I listened to again when writing this collection of thoughts.
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