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Johannes Brahms Johannes Brahms 7 May 1833 – 3 April 1897) was a German composer, pianist, and
conductor of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg into a Lutheran family, Brahms spent much of his
professional life in Vienna. His reputation and status as a composer are such that he is sometimes
grouped with Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven as one of the "Three Bs" of music, a
comment originally made by the nineteenthcentury conductor Hans von Bülow. Brahms composed for
symphony orchestra, chamber ensembles, piano, organ, and voice and chorus. A virtuoso pianist, he
premiered many of his own works. He worked with some of the leading performers of his time, including
the pianist Clara Schumann and the violinist Joseph Joachim (the three were close friends). Many of his
works have become staples of the modern concert repertoire. An uncompromising perfectionist,
Brahms destroyed some of his works and left others unpublished. Brahms has been considered, by his
contemporaries and by later writers, as both a traditionalist and an innovator. His music is firmly rooted
in the structures and compositional techniques of the Classical masters. While many contemporaries
found his music too academic, his contribution and craftsmanship have been admired by subsequent
figures as diverse as Arnold Schoenberg and Edward Elgar. The diligent, highly constructed nature of
Brahms's works was a starting point and an inspiration for a generation of composers. Embedded within
his meticulous structures, however, are deeply romantic motifs.
Brahms's father, Johann Jakob Brahms (1806–72), was from the town of Heide in Holstein. The family
name was also sometimes spelt 'Brahmst' or 'Brams', and derives from 'Bram', the German word for the
shrub broom. [1] Against the family's will, Johann Jakob pursued a career in music, arriving in Hamburg
in 1826, where he found work as a jobbing musician and a string and wind player. In 1830, he married
Johanna Henrika Christiane Nissen (1789–1865), a seamstress 17 years older than he was. In the same
year he was appointed as a horn player in the Hamburg militia. [2] Eventually he became a double-bass
player in the Stadttheater Hamburg and the Hamburg Philharmonic Society. As Johann Jakob prospered,
the family moved over the years to ever better accommodation in Hamburg.[3] Johannes Brahms was
born in 1833; his sister Elisabeth (Elise) had been born in 1831 and a younger brother Fritz Friedrich
(Fritz) was born in 1835.[4] Fritz also became a pianist; overshadowed by his brother, he emigrated to
Caracas in 1867, and later returned to Hamburg as a teacher. [5] Johann Jakob gave his son his first
musical training; Johannes also learnt to play the violin and the basics of playing the cello. From 1840 he
studied piano with Otto Friedrich Willibald Cossel (1813–1865). Cossel complained in 1842 that Brahms
"could be such a good player, but he will not stop his never-ending composing." At the age of 10,
Brahms made his debut as a performer in a private concert including Beethoven's quintet for piano and
winds Op. 16 and a piano quartet by Mozart. He also played as a solo work an étude of Henri Herz. By
1845 he had written a piano sonata in G minor. [6] His parents disapproved of his early efforts as a
composer, feeling that he had better career prospects as a performer. [7] From 1845 to 1848 Brahms
studied with Cossel's teacher, the pianist and composer Eduard Marxsen (1806– 1887). Marxsen had
been a personal acquaintance of Beethoven and Schubert, admired the works of Mozart and Haydn, and
was a devotee of the music of J. S. Bach. Marxsen conveyed to Brahms the tradition of these composers
and ensured that Brahms's own compositions were grounded in that tradition.[8] In 1847 Brahms made
his first public appearance as a solo pianist in Hamburg, playing a fantasy by Sigismund Thalberg. His first
full piano recital, in 1848, included a fugue by Bach as well as works by Marxsen and contemporary
virtuosi such as Jacob Rosenhain. A second recital in April 1849 included Beethoven's Waldstein sonata
and a waltz fantasia of his own composition, and garnered favourable newspaper reviews. [9] Brahms's
compositions at this period are known to have included piano music, chamber music and works for male
voice choir. Under the pseudonym 'G. W. Marks', some piano arrangements and fantasies were
published by the Hamburg firm of Cranz in 1849. The earliest of Brahms's works which he acknowledged
(his Scherzo Op. 4 and the song Heimkehr Op. 7 no. 6) date from 1851. However Brahms was later
assiduous in eliminating all his early works; even as late as 1880 he wrote to his friend Elise Giesemann
to send him his manuscripts of choral music so that they could be destroyed.[10] Life Early years (1833–
1850) Brahms in 1853 Persistent stories of the impoverished adolescent Brahms playing in bars and
brothels have only anecdotal provenance, [11] and many modern scholars dismiss them; the Brahms
family was relatively prosperous, and Hamburg legislation very strictly forbade music in, or the
admittance of minors to, brothels.

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Johannes Brahms Johannes Brahms 7 May 1833 – 3 April 1897) was a German composer, pianist, and

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