Johannes Brahms

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)

Johannes Brahms was born in Germany in 1833. He grew up in a musical family and learned to play the cello, horn, and piano. By the time he was a teenager, Brahms was already an accomplished musician, and he used perform at local pubs to earn money to help his family. Brahms also loved books and read everything he could find including novels, poetry, and folk tales.

When Brahms was 20 years old, he met the famous musician, Robert Schumann. The two became good friends and remained close throughout their lives. Schumann praised Brahms as being a musical genius and helped him to become well known throughout Europe.

Throughout his life, Brahms worked as a conductor, music teacher, and a composer. He composed a lot of music in his lifetime, including music for singers, choirs, orchestras, solo instruments, and the piano. Brahms was very self-critical of his work and often destroyed any composition he thought was not really good. He thought that people were expecting him to be the “next Beethoven,” and famously spent many years on his first symphony before he allowed it to be performed.

When Brahms was about 30 years old, he moved to Vienna, Austria where he lived and worked as a musician until the end of his life in 1897. He became quite popular in his lifetime, and is now thought of as one of the main composers of the Romantic era. Because of his fame, Brahms earned a lot of money throughout his life. His wealth, however, was rivaled by his generosity, as Brahms often gave money to friends and young musical students.

Hungarian Dance #5

Brahms wrote a set of pieces called Hungarian Dances. The dances are very fast, energetic pieces that imitate some folk music elements from Hungary. He originally wrote them to be played by the piano, but they have become so popular, that many other musicians have created their own arrangements.