BRAHMS, JOHANNES (b. Hamburg, Germany, 1833; d. Vienna, Austria, April 3, 1897)
The saviour of all that was good in German music against the rising tide of modernism? Or a composer who thought small and wrote big; the creator of the worst of Victorian sentiment?
Hans Von B├╝low, the great German conductor of the late nineteenth century elevated Brahms to the trinity of ΓÇÿThe Three BsΓÇÖ along with Bach and Beethoven.
Benjamin Britten, arguably the finest English composer of opera of the twentieth century, is said to have played a Brahms work once every year to remind himself of how truly terrible a composer the German was.
Whichever view one takes, it is certain that Brahms represents the culmination of several traditions: formalism, introspection and lyricism, and the impact of folksong. As such he is gift to singers.
The popularity of his work makes his Lieder, vocal duets and part songs staples of the recital and concert halls.
In addition to these small vocal works, he composed successful large choral works, most of which were produced in the 1860s and early 1870s. These include the German Requiem, the cantata Rinaldo, the Alto Rhapsody and Triumphlied. This last was BrahmsΓÇÖs infamous gloat over the French defeat in the war of 1871.
Brahms was solidly middle class and his vast output of symphonies, concertos, chamber music, choral works, songs and piano music was deliberately aimed at people like him. That may not be the formula to earn the praise of his critics. But he could not have found a surer way to immediate and long lasting popular success.
