Historical Figures

Johannes Brahms - Hamburg's moody composer

German Requiem, Hungarian Dances and four symphonies:the works of Johannes Brahms are world famous. The composer, pianist and conductor was born in Hamburg in 1833. He died in Vienna on April 3, 1897.

by Levke Heed

Even today, many children fall asleep blissfully to his song "Guten Abend, Gute Nacht". The NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, the Radio Philharmonic and the NDR Choir perform his works regularly. And the motif from the fourth movement of his first symphony sounds every evening at 7.30 p.m. in the Hamburg Journal of NDR television as the title melody.

The works of the composer Johannes Brahms are almost ubiquitous to this day, and not just in northern Germany. The German Requiem, the Hungarian Dances or his four symphonies - the compositions by Brahms are part of the standard repertoire of all the world's great symphony orchestras. In February 2008, the Berlin Philharmonic, conducted by Sir Simon Rattle, received a Grammy, the so-called music Oscar, along with other classical music stars for the album "Brahms:Ein Deutsches Requiem".

First appearance at the age of 15

The great German composer was born on May 7th, 1833 in the poor district of Hamburg. Even Brahm's father, who had come to the Hanseatic city from Heide in Holstein, worked as a professional musician. Johannes Brahms received piano lessons at the age of seven and performed in front of a Hamburg audience for the first time at the age of 15.

Schumann paves the way for Johannes Brahms' music career

Brahms was close friends with the musicians Robert and Clara Schumann.

On his first concert tour at the age of 20 he met the Schumanns in Düsseldorf. The encounter was decisive for his life. In the same year it was Robert Schumann who paved the way for Brahms to become a respected musician. In an article in the "Neue Magazin für Musik" Schumann raved about Brahms and called him a called man. Brahms had a very close relationship with Clara Schumann. When Robert Schumann died, he stood by her and looked after the couple's seven children. Through joint concert tours and an intensive exchange of letters, Clara Schumann and Johannes Brahms always stayed in touch. Brahms never married.

Johannes Brahms:Praise as obligation

The composer Johannes Brahms in the 1960s.

Throughout his life, the melancholy and solitary Brahms suffered from his exaggerated form of self-criticism. He felt the early public praise as an agonizing obligation to demand something almost superhuman from himself. He often seemed withdrawn, alienated friends for no reason and was sensitive to any criticism of his work. In 1857 Brahms received his first permanent position as choir director and piano teacher at the court of Prince Leopold von Lippe-Detmold. His wish to take over the direction of the Philharmonic Concerts in Hamburg was not fulfilled. In 1862 the Philharmonic Society decided against the inexperienced Brahms and instead for Julius Stockhausen. A decision that resulted in Johannes Brahms feeling offended towards his hometown for life. The late recognition that he was to receive in 1889 with the honorary citizenship of Hamburg could not change anything.

Creative phase in Vienna

In Vienna - here a photograph from September 1894 - Brahms wrote all his orchestral works.

Brahms traveled to Vienna for the first time in 1862 and just one year later became director of the Singakademie. Already in 1864 he gave up the post again. In 1872 he once again assumed the position of artistic director of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde and director of the Wiener Singverein. But the artist did not like the administrative duties of a manager, and so he gave up this position as well.

Even though Brahms spent the second phase of his life in Vienna, he was attached to his hometown Hamburg all his life:"I get longing when I think about Hamburg correctly and in a certain way I always feel particularly happy when I'm there and run on the well-known ones ramparts and in the streets," he wrote in one of his many letters.

The Vienna period was nevertheless the most creative phase for the Romantic composer. All of his orchestral works were written here. With the exception of opera, Johannes Brahms' work encompasses almost all musical genres:symphonies, choral compositions, chamber music works, songs and piano music. Highly regarded and admired as a pianist, conductor and composer, Brahms died on April 3, 1897 in the Danube metropolis and was buried in the Vienna Central Cemetery next to the graves of Beethoven and Schubert.