Brahms: Four-hand Piano Music, Vol. 5

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Johannes Brahms (1833 - 1897)A German Requiem, Op. 45 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 showed anatural aptitude, developed his talent to such an extent that there was talk oftouring as a prodigy at the age of eleven. It was Eduard Marxsen who gave him agrounding in the technical basis of composition, while the boy helped hisfamily by playing the piano in dockside taverns. In 1853 Brahms set out with the Hungarian-born violinist Remenyion his first concert tour. Their journey took them, on the advice of the young Hungarianvirtuoso Joachim, to Weimar to visit Liszt. More importantly, however, Brahmswas able through Joachim to meet Schumann in Dusseldorf. The meeting was afruitful one, leading Schumann to hail him publicly as the successor toBeethoven. In the years of Schumann's illness and after his death in 1856, Brahmswas to establish a mutually supportive relationship with Schumann's wife Clara,one of the greatest pianists of the time. 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, internlittentlyfrom 1863 and definitively in 1869. To many he seemed to fulfil Schumann'searly prophecy as the perceived champion of music untrammelled by extra-musicalassociations, as opposed to the Music of the Future promoted by Wagner andLiszt, to which Joachim and Brahms both later publicly expressed theiropposition. Brahms had a varied connection with choral singing. Inshort autumn seasons at the court of Oetmold he had conducted a choir in 1857, 1858and 1859. In the last of these years he had established in Hamburg a women'schoir, the Hamburg Frauenchor, formed by enthusiastic members of the Akaderniechoir directed by his friend Karl Gradener In addition to the regular Mondaymorning meetings of the larger Frauenchor, Brahms also involved himself with a smallergroup, who held evening meetings, His first appointment in Vienna, in 1863, wasas conductor of the Singakademie, reviving the fortunes of the choir in a repertoirethat ranged from unfashionable music of the Renaissance to that of Beethovenand Schumann and compositions by Brahms himself. He was offered a three-yearextension of his agreement with the Singakademie, but resigned in 1864.Nevertheless, in 1872 he took up the position of director of the Gesellschaft derMusikfreunde, working with the most distinguished of the large choirs in Vienna.For three seasons he was able to offer a varied and innovative choral andorchestral repertoire, including some of his own major choral compositions,most notably his masterpiece, A German Requiem. The immediate cause of the composition of the Requiemwas the death in January 1865 of Brahms's mother at the age of 76. By Apri