Johannes Brahms
DATES
Born 1833 in Hamburg, Germany
Died 1897 in Vienna, Austria
NATIONALITY
German
STYLE/PERIOD
Romantic
FAMOUS WORKS
Brahms wrote a number of major works for orchestra, including two Serenades, four symphonies, two piano concertos (No. 1 in D minor; No. 2 in B-flat major), a Violin Concerto, a Double Concerto for violin and cello, and two companion orchestral overtures, the Academic Festival Overture and the Tragic Overture. 1876, though it had been begun (and a version of the first movement had been announced by Brahms to Clara and to Albert Dietrich) in the early 1860s.
BIOGRAPHY
Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist who wrote symphonies, concerti, chamber music, piano works, and choral compositions.
Widely considered one the 19th century’s greatest composers and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic era, Johannes Brahms was born May 7, 1833, in Hamburg, Germany.
He was the second of Johanna Henrika Christiane Nissen and Johann Jakob Brahms’ three children. Music was introduced to his life at an early age. His father was a double bassist in the Hamburg Philharmonic Society, and the young Brahms began playing piano at the age of seven.
By the time he was a teenager, Brahms was already an accomplished musician, and he used his talent to earn money at local inns, in brothels and along the city’s docks to ease his family’s often tight financial conditions.
In 1853 Brahms was introduced to the renowned German composer and music critic Robert Schumann. The two men quickly grew close, with Schumann seeing in his younger friend great hope for the future of music. He dubbed Brahms a genius and praised the “young eagle” publicly in a famous article. The kind words quickly made the young composer a known entity in the music world.