Release Date: 02 January 2002
Label: Naxos - Nxc / Naxos Classics
Packaging Type: Jewel Case
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 636943482827
Genres: Classical
Composer/Series: BRAHMS
Description
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)Sonatas for violin and piano Johannes Brahms was born in Hamburg in 1833, the son of adouble-bass player and his much older wife, a seamstress His childhood wasspent in relative poverty, and his early studies in music, for which he showeda natural aptitude, developed his talent to such an extent that there was talkof his touring as a prodigy at the age of eleven. It was Eduard Marxsen whogave him a grounding in the technical basis of composition, while the boyhelped his family by playing the piano to entertain guests in summer innsoutside the city, a more respectable and better rewarded occupation than he waslater to imply. In 1851 Brahms met the emigre Hungarian violinist Remenyi,who introduced him to Hungarian dance music that had a later influence on hiswork. Two years later he set out in his company on his first concert tour.Their journey took them, on the recommendation of the Hungarian violinistJoachim, to Weimar, where Franz Liszt held court and might have been expectedto show particular favour to a fellow-countryman. Remenyi profited from thevisit, but Brahms, with a lack of tact that was later accentuated, failed toimpress the Master. Later in the year, however, he met the Schumanns, through Joachim'sagency. The meeting was a fruitful one. In 1850 Schumann had taken up the offer of the positionof municipal director of music in Dtisseldorf, the first official appointmentof his career and the last.Now in the music of Brahms he detected a promise of greatnessand published his views in the journal he had once edited, the Neue Zeitschrijtfur Musik, declaring Brahms the long-awaited successor to Beethoven. In thefollowing year Schumann, who had long suffered from intermittent periods ofintense depression, attempted suicide. His final years, until his death in 1856,were to be spent in au asylum, while Brahms rallied to the support ofSchumann's wife, the gifted pianist Clara Schumann, and her young family, remaininga firm friend until her death in 1896, shortly before his own in the followingyear. Brahms had always hoped that sooner or later he would beable to return in triumph to a position of distinction in the musical life of Hamburg.This ambition was never fulfilled. Instead he settled in Vienna, intermittentlyfrom 1863 and definitively in 1869, establishing himself there and seeming tomany to fulfil Schumann's early prophecy. In him his supporters, including,above all, the distinguished critic and writer Eduard Hanslick, saw a truesuccessor to Beethoven and a champion of music untrammeled by extra-musicalassociations, of "pure" music, as opposed to the "Music of theFuture" promoted by Wagner and Liszt, a path to which Joachim and Brahmsboth later publicly expressed their opposition. Brahms made a significant contribution to chamber musicrepertoire. His first attempts were made in the early 1850s and are now lost,but in 1853 he wrote a movement for the composite violin sonata by Schumann an
Tracklisting
Dariia Lytvishko
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra; Marin Alsop
Alice Di Piazza; Basel Sinfonietta; NDR Bigband; Titus Engel
Anna Alas i Jove; Miquel Villalba
David Childs; Black Dyke Band; Nicholas Childs
Yang/Schwabe/Dt So/Wit
Wolf Harden
Wolf Harden
