Brahms: Four-hand Piano Music, Vol. 15

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Johannes Brahms (1833-1897): Four Hand Piano Music, Vol. 15Symphonies Nos. 3 and 4Johannes Brahms was born in Hamburg in 1833, the sonof a double-bass player and his much older wife, aseamstress. His childhood was spent in relative poverty,and his early studies in music, as a pianist rather than asa string-player, developed his talent to such an extentthat there was talk of touring as a prodigy at the age ofeleven. It was Eduard Marxsen who gave him agrounding in the technical basis of composition, whilethe boy was able to use his talents by teaching and byplaying the piano in summer inns, rather than in thedockside taverns of popular legend, a romantic ideawhich he himself seems later to have encouraged.In 1851 Brahms met the emigre Hungarian violinistRemenyi, who introduced him to Hungarian dancemusic that had a later influence on his work. Two yearslater he set out in his company on his first concert tour,their journey taking them, on the recommendation of theHungarian violinist Joachim, to Weimar, where FranzLiszt held court and might have been expected to showparticular favour to a fellow-countryman. Remenyiprofited from the visit, but Brahms, with a lack of tactthat 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 fruitfulone.In 1850 Schumann had taken up the offer from theprevious incumbent, Ferdinand Hiller, of the position ofmunicipal director of music in D??sseldorf, the firstofficial appointment of his career and the last. Now inthe music of Brahms he detected a promise of greatnessand published his views in the journal he had onceedited, the Neue Zeitschrift f??r Musik, declaring Brahmsthe long-awaited successor to Beethoven. In thefollowing year Schumann, who had long suffered fromintermittent periods of intense depression, attemptedsuicide. His final years, until his death in 1856, were tobe spent in an asylum, while Brahms rallied to thesupport of Schumann's wife, the gifted pianist ClaraSchumann, and her young family, remaining a firmfriend until her death in 1896, shortly before his own inthe following year.Brahms had always hoped that sooner or later hewould be able to return in triumph to a position ofdistinction in the musical life of Hamburg. Thisambition was never fulfilled. Instead he settled inVienna, intermittently from 1863 and definitively in1869, establishing himself there and seeming to many tofulfil Schumann's early prophecy. In him his supporters,including, above all, the distinguished critic and writerEduard Hanslick, saw a true successor to Beethoven anda champion of music untrammelled by extra-musicalassociations, of pure music, as opposed to the Music ofthe Future promoted by Wagner and Liszt, a path towhich Joachim and Brahms both later publiclyexpressed their opposition.The first of Brahms's symphonies was slow ingestation. Overawed by the example of Beethoven andthe manifold expectations of his friends, andunrespon