BRAHMS, brains, JOHANNES ( 1S33-97 ) An eminent German composer of music, distin guished from his contemporary, Wagner, by his adherence to established forms. which caused the anti-Wagner party to make him their champion. lle was born in Hamburg, Slay 7, 1833. 1Iis father, a double-bass player. was his first teacher, but he derived his principal instruction from Edward Marxsen, of -Mona. llis dolma as a pianist was made in Hamburg, at the age of 14, when lie played a set of variations of his own. In 1853 he made a concert tour with Ilem6nyi, the violinist, during which lie was 'discovered' by Schumann, N•I10 ill 1.1IP New' Zeitschrift ffir Musik published his famous Nene Bahnen, an eloquent welcome to the ,young Inns ieian.
An anecdote, delightfully Brahmsian, tells how Bralbus was brought to Splunnann's notice. In Giittingen the pitch of the piano was a half-tone low. Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata for violin and piano was on the programme. Without the notes before him, Brahms played the piano part in a key half a tone higher than the original. This unusual feat was witnessed by Joachim, who persuaded the young musician to abandon the tour, and gave him a letter to Schumann, whom Brahms forthwith visited. and to whom he showed a number of his manuscript compositions. The result was cue Bahnen.
"Many new and remarkable geniuses have made their appearance," writes Schumann. "I thought to follow with interest the pathways of these elect. There would. there must, after such prom ise, suddenly appear one who should titter the highest ideal expression of the times, who should claim the mastership by no gradual development, but burst upon us fully equipped, as 'Alinerva prang from the head of Jupiter. And lie has come, this cholten youth over whose cradle graces and heroes seem to have kept watch. Ilis name is Johannes. Brahms." Of all the great composers, Brahms led the most uneventful life. At a period more or less strenuous. when Wagner was establishing a cult in support of his theories, Brahms withdrew almost wholly within his creative art, so that there is no other composer whose life is so fully the tale of his work. It is doubtful whether lie personally sympathized with those who set him up as a leader of the anti-Wagner cohorts. Cer tainly he went his own way quietly enough. He is known to have been a close student of Wag ner's scores. The few important extraneous facts of his life are briefly summed up: In 83-I he became conductor for the Prince of Lippe-Det mold. From 1858 to he was in Hamburg and Switzerland, pursuing further musical stud ies. in 18;62 lie was in Vienna, where, in 1863 6-1, he conducted the Simmkademie. He lived in
various places, including Baden-Baden, until 1869, when he again went to Vienna. From 1871 to 1874 he was conductor of the Gesell schaft der Musikfreunde. Afterwards he lived near Heidelberg until IS7S, when he permanently settled in Vienna. To an offer of the degree of Mus. Doc. from Cambridge University in 1S77, he paid no attention; but in 1SS1 he accepted a Ph.D. from Breslau.
Brahms's service to art consists in his having created, within established forms, music original, modern, and beautiful. Yet lie is by no means fully appreciated. One reason for this is that lie never, so to speak, led up to himself. The public expect a composer to be `early.' middle,' and 'late.' His 'early,' or more or less imitative, period prepares them for the assertion of his distinctive personality, after he has outgrown the influence of his predecessors. His contem porary fame usually rests upon his `middle' period.
Brahms was 'late' from the start. Moreover, his appearances as a virtuoso, through which lie might have brought the public to a better under standing of his works, became fewer, and finally were abandoned almost wholly as he devoted himself more and more to composition. The work which established his reputation in Ger many was his Gcrmun Requiem, first given in its entirety in the cathedral at Bremen in April, :16s. Brahms had conducted vocal societies, and thus had acquired facility in handling choral masses; and he had already composed a num ber of secular and sacred choruses—among them a Funeral Hymn, which seems in a measure to prelude the This latter is one of the must important choral works of modern times. It is a 'German' requiem in so far that Brahms, both in form and in spirit, made a radical departure from the requiem of the Latin Church, selecting and arranging the text from the German Bible, and choosing such verses as made it a song of hope rather than of grief; and as the text, though taken from different por tions of the Bible, is pervaded by a certain unity of spirit, so this unity is preserved in the music. It is in seven divisions, all of which seem, how ever, to have sprung from the single idea of hope in a divine future; the impression of unity be ing enhanced by a repetition, toward the finale of the work, of the principal theme of the first chorus. Besides such technical triumphs as the pedal-point fugue in D in the third chorus, and the climacteric double fugue at the end of the sixth, the work abounds in tender and benign Passages, of which, perhaps. the most exquisite is that message of peace. "Yea, I will comfort you," for soprano solo and chorus, in the fifth division.