Brahms: Four-hand Piano Music, Vol. 3

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Cat No: 8553654

Release Date: 01 January 2000

Label: Naxos / Naxos Classics

Packaging Type: Jewel Case

No of Units: 1

Barcode: 730099465427

Genres: Classical

Composer/Series: BRAHMS

Description
Johannes Brahms (1833 -1897) Sonata in F minor, Op.34b Variations on a Theme by Joseph Haydn,Op.56bJohannes Brahms was born in Hamburg in1833, the son of a double-bass player and his much older wife, a seamstress,His childhood was spent in relative poverty, and his early studies in music, asa pianist rather than as a string-player, developed his talent to such anextent that there was talk of touring as a prodigy at the age of eleven. It wasEduard Marxsen who gave him a grounding in the technical basis of composition,while the boy helped his family by playing the piano in dockside taverns.In 1851 Brahms met the emigre Hungarianviolinist Remenyi, who introduced him to Hungarian dance music that had a laterinfluence on his work Two years later he set out in his company on his firstconcert tour, their journey taking them, on the recommendation of the Hungarianviolinist Joachim, to Weimar, where Franz Liszt held court and might have beenexpected to show particular favour to a fellow-countryman. Remenyi profitedfrom the visit, but Brahms, with a lack of tact that was later accentuated,failed to impress the Master. Later in the year, however, he met the Schumanns,through Joachim's agency. The meeting was a fruitful one.In 1850 Schumann had taken up the offerfrom the previous incumbent, Ferdinand Hiller, of the position of municipaldirector of music in D??sseldorf, the first official appointment of his careerand the last. Now in the music of Brahms he detected a promise of greatness andpublished his views in the journal he had once edited, the Neue Zeitschriftf??r 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 in1856, were to be spent in an asylum, while Brahms rallied to the support ofSchumann's wife, the gifted pianist Clara Schumann, and her young family,remaining a firm friend until her death in 1896, shortly before his own in thefollowing year.Brahms had always hoped that sooner orlater he would be able to return in triumph to a position of distinction in themusical life of Hamburg. This ambition was never fulfilled. Instead he settledin Vienna, intermittently from 1863 and definitively. In 1869, establishinghimself there and seeming to many to fulfil Schumann's early prophecy. In himhis supporters, including, above all, the distinguished critic and writerEduard Hanslick, saw a true successor to Beethoven and a champion of musicuntrammelled by extra-musical associations, of pure music, as opposed to theMusic of the Future promoted by Wagner and Liszt, a path to which Joachim andBrahms both later publicly expressed their opposition.As a composer Brahms was at firstdiffident, casting and recasting what he wrote and discarding much, well awareof the challenge that Beethoven had left to posterity and of the growingexpectations of those who followed Schumann in their expression of confi
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