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BRAHMS ABOUT HIMSELF
The following is a short portrait of the composer based on his writings and quotations translated for the information of choir directors interested in participating in the "Brahms Vienna International Choir Competition" June 25 and 26, 2007.
Youth In his later life the composer says about his childhood: "And I endured it quite well (the childhood in Hamburg ). Yes, I would say that I would not want to miss at no price this time of my life of meagerness, becaue I am convinced it was good for me and necessary for my development".
Education
"I put all my money in books. Books are my highest delight. I have read a lot, already as a child. I was reading as much as I could and rose without guidance from the worst to the best. An unknown number of "Ritterromane" (novels about noble knights) I have devoured until I found "Die Räuber" (The Robbers, a play by Friedrich von Schiller + 1781) of which I did not realize that a great poet wrote the drama. I was longing for more of Schiller and even better writers."
The Art of Composition
"Believe me, not one of my few respectable songs just came up in its final form. I was toiling with it enormously (Da habe ich mich kurios geplagt)."
About his early compositions:
"The boxes with the old manuscrits remained long in Hamburg. When I was there, two or three years ago, that rubbish was all burnt".
But he also writes 1876 to his friend, the famous surgeon Billroth: "… I would not say, the little composing I do is vain effort and work, no it is continuous annoyance, as nothing better comes – but you do not know how beautiful and heart warming it is, when one can enjoy sympathy like yours. In such a moment one thinks, that is the best of composing …"
Robert Schumann (1810 – 1856)
The "Neue Zeitschrift für Musik” published in October 1853 a sensational article about Brahms, which made the young man suddenly known in the public. It was written by Robert Schumann and Brahms thanked him with the following words: "Venerated Master! You made me so infinitely happy, that I cannot attempt to thank you with words. May God give, that soon my works will render the prove how much your love and goodness elevated me and inspired me. The public praise, which you gave me, will raise the expectations of the audiences in what I present, that I do not know, how I can possibly meet them. Most all I feel obliged to greatest caution in regards the choice of works to be published."
A life long frienship with Johannes Brahms can nicely be shonw with the following letter: "My beloved Clara, I wish I could write you so tenderly, as I love you and do so much in love and goodness, as I wish for you. You are infinitely dear to me, that I cannot say it. Continuously I want to call you darling and whatever possible, without becoming satisfied to flatter you. When things continue like this, I will have to put you under glass or I have to save to put you in gold". Brahms died one year after Clara.
Marriage
Brahms said to a friend: "When I had the desire to marry, I could not offer anything to a woman, as it would be proper. When I really wanted to marry, my compositions were booed in the concert halls or accepted in icy coldness. I could well bear with it, because I knew of the value of these compositions and how things would turn out to be better… But when, in such a time I would have had to face a woman, her eyes looking in fear into my eyes and I would have to tell her "again it was nothing". That situation I could not have faced."
Love and Music
Not long after this unhappy relationship Brahms writes, apparently happily: "I am in love with music, I love music, only think of music and only of other things, when embelished by music. I write love songs again, but not to A-Z, but to music."
In 1864/65 he writes the famous G major string sextet with the "A-g-a-t-h-e" motive in the first movement and writes to a friend: "Here I came loose of my last love." Brahms was 32. But earlier the Agathe motive is found in his "Zwölf Lieder und Romanzen für Frauenchöre", op 44 (Twelve songs and romances for women choirs) with this text:
And you walk to the cemetary There you find a new grave They buried under tears a beautiful heart And if you asked why it died No tombstone has an answer Yet quitly murmors the wind: It loved too much.
Vienna
Brahms loved the very typical Vienna folk music already when he first came to Vienna and very much liked the "Prater" a wooded recreation area with inns and entertainment. The choirs participating in the "Brahms Vienna International Choir Competition" may have dinner there. Choirs considering to come should take Brahm’s words as advise, which he wrote in reply to an invitation to become "Chormeister der Wiener Singakademie": "It is a special decision to give up one’s freedom for the first time. However what comes from Vienna, sounds to the musician especially beautiful. And to go there lures all the more". Brahms lived 35 years in Vienna after he "was lured" to Vienna...
To a friend he wrote (sometimes between 1864 and 1867 while travelling about a performance of one of his works: "I will be there in my thoughts, as in my thoughts I am very often in Vienna".
"Passion does not belong to mankind as something natural. They are always exceptions and excesses. With whom they exceed the normal, has to consider himself as sick and needs to care with medicine for his life and health. Quiet in joy and quiet in pain and sorrow is the beautiful and truly human. Passion must soon be overcome or one has to banish them." (Letters)
Money and Musikverein
Brahms after all was well to do in his later years and could afford a little prank by donating generously 6.000 guilders to the famous "Musikverein" with the "Golden Hall" and the "Silver Hall", which later became the "Brahms Saal" (you will see both halls and conduct in the Brahms Saal). He wrote the following letter to the Musikverein in 1896, the year before he died. He was and Honorary Member of the Musiverein:
Johannes Brahms (1833 – 1897) and Johann Strauss, the Younger ( 1825 – 1899)
"Unfortunately not by me." Brahms wrote about the walz "Blue Danube" in the autograph fan of Strauss’s stepdaughter Alice under the first bars of the walz written in this fan by Johann Strauss. Brahms liked to listen to Strauss and his band in earlier years in Baden-Baden and it is said that both composers liked to play cards together.
Jonannes Brahms (1833 – 1897) and Arnold Schoenberg (1874 - 1951)
Schoenberg wrote in "Nationale Musik" 1931: "From Brahms I learned:
Mozart, especially: “Ungradtaktigkeit”, extension and shortening of phrases. 2. Plastic of formation: To not save, do not be stingy, when clearness demands greater space, complete each formation 3. Systematic of each movement (Satzbild) 4. Economy, yet richness ."
Death
Brahms died in Vienna on April 3rd 1897. Six horses with black trappings drew his body from the house where he lived in a nicely appointed appartment to the Lutheran Church in Dorotheergasse in the center of the city. It was a spectacular procession as the city honored Brahms, who deserves the title honorary Viennese. He is burried in the honorary section of the Central Cemetary, where Beethoven is buried and Brahm’s admired friend Johann Strauss, Schubert – and Schoenberg among others.
His last public appearance was at the beloved Musikverein, where Hans Richter conducted his fourth symphony. The audience was in extasy, when however the conductor pointed to the box where the deadly sick Brahms was seated, a storm rose, a jubilation without end, as all knew as Brahms himself, it was the end.
His music lives on and will be celebrated in 2007, that is 110 years after his death and will live on beyond.
The "Brahms Vienna Inernational Choir Competition" is a noble effort to honor Brahms and reach into the debth and beauty of his music. Be part of it!
Brahms and Mahler took a walk along a little river. Brahms expressed pessimism about the future of music. Mahler touched him on the right arm and pointed at the river. "Look here comes the "last wave"". Brahms grumbled and replied, "Das ist ja recht schön. (Allright), but maybe what is important is whether this wave pours into the ocean or into a swamp."
For further information on Brahms please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Brahms | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Clara Schuman (1819 – 1896) 
In the summer of 1858 Brahms became engagend to Agathe von Siebold and soon breaks the engagement and writes Agathe: "I love you! I must see you again! But I cannot wear handcuffs. Write me, whether I should come again to embrace you, to kiss you, to say that I love you…" 
Philosphy of Life 
