Product Description

A New York Times Notable Book

"This brilliant and magisterial book is a very good bet to...become the definitive study of Johannes Brahms."--The Plain Dealer

Judicious, compassionate, and full of insight into Brahms's human complexity as well as his music, Johannes Brahms is an indispensable biography.

Proclaimed the new messiah of Romanticism by Robert Schumann when he was only twenty, Johannes Brahms dedicated himself to a long and extraordinarily productive career.  In this book, Jan Swafford sets out to reveal the little-known Brahms, the boy who grew up in mercantile Hamburg and played piano in beer halls among prostitutes and drunken sailors, the fiercely self-protective man who thwarted future biographers by burning papers, scores and notebooks late in his life.  Making unprecedented use of the remaining archival material, Swafford offers richly expanded perspectives on Brahms's youth, on his difficult romantic life--particularly his longstanding relationship with Clara Schumann--and on his professional rivalry with Lizst and Wagner.  

"[Johannes Brahms] will no doubt stand as the definitive work on Brahms, one of the monumental biographies in the entire musical library."--London Weekly Standard

"It is a measure of the accomplishment of Jan Swafford's biography that Brahms's sadness becomes palpable.... [Swafford] manages to construct a full-bodied human being."--The New York Times Book Review

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #247106 in Books
• Published on: 1999-12-07
• Released on: 1999-12-07
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 752 pages

Amazon.com
The brilliant biographer of a quintessentially American, prototypically modern musician (Charles Ives) proves just as masterful in probing the life and art of a 19th-century German composer. Writing with passionate clarity that perfectly matches the genius of Brahms (1833-97), Jan Swafford traces the emotional wellsprings of this secretive man's music without trivializing art into mere autobiography. A composer himself, Swafford understands and lucidly conveys Brahms's unique position in musical history: beloved by many, emulated by few, the triumphant yet melancholy heir of a tradition coming to an end in his lifetime.

The New York Times Book Review, Edward Rothstein
It is a measure of the accomplishment of Jan Swafford's biography of Brahms that ... sadness becomes palpable. Though Johannes Brahms: A Biography would have been still more of an accomplishment if its author had been as ruthless in pruning as Brahms was, it manages ... to construct a full-bodied human being in the midst of it ambling meticulousness. Swafford retains the genre's requisite wonder ... tempered with a skeptical imagination....

From Kirkus Reviews
A definitive work about one of the 19th century's most influential classical music composers. Books coming out in anniversary years too often don't live up to the subject they celebrate. Such is most definitely not the case in Swafford's biography of Brahms, published on the 100th anniversary of his death. This is an exceptionally well written chronicle of this musical master, an extraordinary work, guaranteed to inform and entertain classical music aficionados and tyros alike. That Swafford (Charles Ives: A Life in Music, 1996) had no easy task is clear. Where some leave long paper trails, Brahms, hoping to let his music rather than his personal life be the legacy on which later generations judged him, destroyed countless personal documents, letters, and music scores he deemed unworthy or compromising. But where Brahms was exceptionally careful--he even signed his name ``J. Br'' to thwart hungry autograph seekers--those around him were not, notably Clara Schumann. A brilliant professional pianist, Frau Schumann, who was married to composer Robert Schumann, was the love of Brahms's life. In their decades-long relationship, they exchanged hundreds of letters, many of which still exist despite Brahms's attempts to get them returned. The letters are simultaneously touching revelations of their relationship--likely never consummated--and perceptive journals of an exciting musical era. Swafford uses the correspondence and other research to paint an exhaustive picture of that era and of Brahms himself. What emerges is a stimulating view of a living paradox, a misogynist who used women as his muse, a generous spirit whose barbed tongue often alienated his best friends. In between, Swafford cleverly uses some 64 musical examples to illustrate Brahms's many musical developments. For readers of Swafford's biography, Brahms's Lullaby will never sound the same. (16 pages of illustrations, not seen) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Customer Reviews

... was it a real love??....

I wonder how Brahms would have compensated for the defeat to his friend's wife - Clara Schumann. Although lively attention to details was a notable characteristic of the German woman lover, pianist and composer, her indifference to the sentiments of her husband - the German composer Robert Schumann - was so shallow as to miscalculate Robert's perturbation with her lover's apathy.
How could Brahms, having degenerated to low stage, get over the perfidy of such relationship with the woman who was fourteen years his senior (and who also raised seven children)? Such polyandrous practice was not customary in Germany and both lovers must have become impetuous when they, again, met with indecision of purpose.
Was it bigamy? Or sheer adultery? Did it really matter to Brahms who, at least, cared for Clara's husband and his friend's illness? Was Clara prematurely getting old marking her life by irrational thoughts? Or was it the agnostic Brahms believing in nothing?
Brahms gave us medley of music; conscious of the shadow of the dead Robert, Ein Deutsches Requiem {1867/8} is one that represented heavenly masterpiece as if to seek pardon in humble supplications like the sinner who renounces lifelong bad habits when in extremity of pain.

A richly rewarding read
What a wonderful biography. Brahms' dealings with Clara Schumann, Joachim, and other friends is studied in fascinating detail through meetings and letters -- an intimate portrait of personal relations, desires and fears, quiet joys and resentments, etc., all as absorbing as a Henry James novel.

Meanwhile, Brahms' incomparable music is a life of its own, and we are treated to the master's views of it, as well as those of contemporaries and the author. The author's assessments seem to me almost unerringly valid. (Take, for example, his lofty praise of Gesang der Parzen, an underheard choral masterwork, or his concession that the Double Concerto, a concert standard, is on a less than inspired level.)

Add to this the author's occasional shift of focus to the Austro-German culture in which Brahms lived, in retrospect an even more remarkable time and place, where music was valued to a rare degree, and where ideas and events -- artistic, philosophical, political -- were poised to take momentous turns. Fascinating, even haunting, stuff, and all the more appropriate for discussion as these were issues about which Brahms had much concern in his later years.

Great story about a great composer
This is a great story about a great composer. The book tells his life story, and highlights many of his great works. Within this biography, the book also mentions the interactions, disagreements and perspectives of the different composers of the late 19th century - Liszt, Wagner, Schumann, Bruckner, Mahler and of course Brahms. From that perspective, it is not only a biographry of Brahms but in some ways a history of classical music in that period. In my opinion, Brahms was the best composer of the group, and this book highlights why he was. It focuses on many of his great compositions, even providing the major musical notes for key parts of a composition. For example, in what is arguably his best work, the 4th symphony, this book spends four pages on the last movement of this symphony, a very powerful cantata and chaconne that Brahms brought to the symphony. This form, according to the book, derives from the Baroque period and Bach has a great similar work with the violin. Brahms took it a step further and using the whole capabilities of the symphony orchestra, weaves this concept into a very powerful piece of music. Since reading these four pages, I've developed a greater interest in this movement and in the 4th symphony in total. It is a beautiful powerful work and this book provides a beautiful perspective of this work. The same is true for all of the book. It has given me a better perspective of Brahms and classical music. For this reason, I highly recommend this book.