Parents of Johannes Brahms, German composer and pianist, Johannes Brahms was born on May 7, 1833 in Hamburg, German Confederation.

Brahms trained under Cossel’s mentor, the pianist and composer Eduard Marxsen (1806-1887), from 1845 to 1848.

Marxsen was close friends with Beethoven and Schubert, loved the music of Mozart and Haydn and was a big fan of JS Bach.

Marxsen explained the heritage of these composers to Brahms and ensured that his own works were rooted in this lineage.

In Hamburg, in 1847, Brahms played a fantasy by Sigismond Thalberg for the first time before the general public as a solo pianist. His first full piano performance, which took place in 1848, included a Bach fugue in addition to pieces by Marxsen and other contemporary virtuosos like Jacob Rosenhain.

A waltz fantasy of his own invention and Beethoven’s Waldstein Sonata were included in a second presentation in April 1849 which received positive press.

Brahms is known to have written pieces for male vocal choir, chamber music and piano at this time.

The Hamburg company Cranz published piano arrangements and fantasies in 1849 under the pseudonym “GW Marks”. Brahms’s two pieces from 1851 are his Scherzo op. 4 and the song Heimkehr Op. 7 No.

Brahms, however, was later adamant about eradicating all of his early works; indeed, as late as 1880 he wrote to his friend Elise Giesemann asking her to bring him his choral music manuscripts so that they could be burned.

The Brahms family was relatively wealthy and Hamburg had a very strict law against bad music in brothels or admitting minors. Many modern scholars dismiss persistent claims that the poor adolescent Brahms performed in bars and brothels because they are only anecdotal in nature.

Career of Johannes Brahms

The German composer, pianist and conductor Brahms lived in the middle of the Romantic era. He was Lutheran by birth and lived much of his professional life in Vienna.

19th-century conductor Hans von Bülow originally considered him one of the “Three Bs” of music, alongside Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven.

Brahms wrote music for choir, piano, organ, voice, chamber ensembles, symphony orchestra and other instruments.

He created many of his own pieces as a talented pianist. He collaborated with notable musicians of the era, such as violinist Joseph Joachim and pianist Clara Schumann (all three were close friends).

Many of his compositions are now commonplace in the contemporary concert repertoire.

His contemporaries and later commentators considered Brahms a traditionalist and an innovator.

His creative methods and musical structure are influenced by classical masters. These constructions contain strongly romantic elements.

While some of his contemporaries thought his music was unduly erudite, later artists as diverse as Arnold Schoenberg and Edward Elgar appreciated his contribution and talent.

Brahms’ complex compositional style served as a model and source of inspiration for an entire generation of composers.

Brahms mainly used German and Austrian pianos. He played on a piano built by Baumgarten & Heins of Hamburg throughout his formative years.

Later, in 1864, he wrote to Clara Schumann expressing his interest in stringed instruments. In 1873 he received a string piano, op model. 6713, which he kept at home until his death.

Clara received a letter from him saying: “There I always know exactly what I write and why I write in one way or another. » Brahms also owned a Conrad Graf piano, which Clara Schumann later gave him and which he kept until 1873. The piano was a wedding gift from the Schumanns.

Brahms used a Bösendorfer several times for his public performances in the 1880s. He performed in Bonn in 1880 on a Steinweg follower and in 1883 on a Blüthner.

Additionally, Brahms played a Bechstein in several of his concerts, including those in Würzburg, Cologne and Amsterdam in 1881.

Who are the parents of Johannes Brahms?

Brahms was born to Johann Jakob Brahms and Johanna Henrika Christiane Nissen. He shares the same parents with his brother Fritz Friedrich and his sister Elizabeth.