Talk:Johannes Brahms/Archive1

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Contents 1 Attempt at clarification 2 Picture of Brahms's piano 3 Needed corrections 4 Classical composer? 5 Chabrol 6 Sailors; was Brahms gay? 7 Remenyi, Liszt, ... 8 Cancer

[edit] Attempt at clarification

Can you please discuss about the placement of these two sentences instead of doing an edit war and move it back-and-forth? andy 15:02, 13 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Lir's version makes no sense. Just read his first paragraph. --Wik 15:06, Nov 13, 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Picture of Brahms's piano

I'm hoping there won't be any more edit wars about the picture of Brahms's piano (thanks, Camembert, for your patient participation). But since the image has now been removed twice, I'd like to give some justification for it.

Musicologists (and many classical music lovers) care a lot about the instruments that composers wrote for, because it makes a difference to understanding the music. For example, this is why much effort has gone into learning how to build (and perform on) the harpsichords of Bach and Scarlatti's day, as well as the pianos of Mozart and Beethoven's day.

While to my knowledge, almost everybody at the moment seems to be content to play Brahms's piano music on a regular Steinway grand, the fact is that his own piano did not sound like a Steinway, particularly earlier on in his career. It therefore would be reasonable to find out if there are benefits to performing Brahms on a piano of the type he actually wrote the music for. The museum that shows the image is in fact sponsoring efforts of this kind.

It's true that showing a picture of Brahms's piano is merely giving a nod to these considerations. But it's a first step, and it's only a matter of time before we can add to the Wikipedia some comparative sound files of performances of the same works by Brahms on "authentic" vs. modern pianos. This would be of real help, I think, to people interested in the authentic instrument question as it concerns Brahms's music. Cheers, Opus33 00:39, 6 Mar 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Needed corrections

The sections dealing with Brahms' early life are faulty, claiming that he grew up in a slum and had to help pay the family bills by playing in brothels... Does anyone have an account other than Swafford? +sj+ 23:47, 2004 Apr 12 (UTC)

I don't think it says he grew up in a slum, does it? If the bit about him playing in brothels is incorrect, then you should probably change it, but it may be worth saying "contrary to some sources, Brahms did not play the piano in brothels...", since it's quite a widely mentioned "fact". --Camembert

I checked the New Grove on this. It looks like Brahms's family wasn't all that well off, though they were not outright impoverished. Brahms did perform child labor (hardly unusual at the time), but the evidence now suggests it was in locations appropriate for a child. New text tries to reflect this. Opus33 04:21, 13 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Thanks Sj for pointing this out, and Opus33 for putting it right :) --Camembert

The Oxford Companion to Music says: "Brahms was born to a respectable family of limited means. His father, Johann Jakob, earned a living as a freelance musician playing the flute, violin, cello, horn, and double bass, as needed. Arriving as a young man in Hamburg from Schleswig-Holstein, Johann Jakob saved enough money within a few years to apply for Hamburg citizenship and soon afterwards moved to a better part of the town. There he married his landlady, Christiana Nissen, a seamstess 17 years his elder, intelligent and steady. Within five years there were three children, the second of whom was Johannes, born in Hamburg's old district of narrow streets, the Gängeviertel. The family remained there for only six more months, moving away before it gained its later unsavoury reputation, but the address of Brahms's birth has led to a long-standing misconception that his early life was lived in poverty." So basically, by this, he was not poor, nor was the Gängeviertel a slum when he lived there (for a grand total of six months, at that) as the main article suggests. The Oxford Companion goes on: "In fact, Brahms spent his formative years away from the Gängeviertel and far from the infamous docks of the Elbe, in a small house on the Dammtorwall, the northern perimeter of Hamburg in the Inner Alster." ...yadda yadda... "Many biographies of Brahms mention poverty and the consequent necessity for him to earn money playing in brothels and unsavory 'Lokals'. Although money was always an issue for the Brahms family, there is no good evidence for these stories, and much to challenge them. Recent searches of historical records disclose the picture of a family at the lower end of the middle class, labouring - succeeding - to make ends meet."

[edit] Classical composer?

I took off the Category entry saying that Brahms was a Classical composer. After all, he was born in 1833, a generation after the first (ca. 1810) generation of Romantics. And I've never seen any published writing on music that called Brahms a Classical composer. Rather, he is described as a Romantic composer who venerated the Classical composers and was greatly influenced by them.

Also, these terms are rather conventional (how could they ever be objective?), so we should provide the conventional story. Probably a student who reads the Wikipedia as a source for a term paper (does this happen? Oh Lord...) and said that Brahms was a Classical composer would have points taken off by his teacher. Cheers, Opus33 16:28, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Okay, but the reason why I added the category was because "Classical composers" is meant to refer to any composer who wrote in the traditional forms, AKA classical music. "Classical era composers" is what you were mistaken for. These composers lived and wrote music specifically during this era. This category I transposed all Classical era composers to this from "Classical composers". Any questions? Marcus2 14:38, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Hi Marcus2, In principle your point is valid, but we ought to think from the reader's point of view. The ambiguity of the word "classical" is a pervasive problem in trying to write clearly about classical music, and it's useful to be always on the watch against trouble that could result from the ambiguity. In this particular case, if the reader sees the sequence "Romantic composers, Classical composers", (s)he will be likely to fall into the trap of reading "Classical" in its narrow sense--just as I did.

Now, my understanding is that if you list a subcategory like "Romantic composers", this will cause the entry to be percolated up to the larger category. So if we take away the "Classical composers" category, Brahms wouldn't be lost from the Classical composers list. Somewhere there's even a directive from Categories Central that we shouldn't use the supercategory if we're using a subcategory of it.

So, I propose to wait a bit to see if you have a cow about this, and if not, to revert again. Happy editing, Opus33 20:41, 25 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Chabrol

Ogg, thanks for adding the film reference. Can you specify which of the Four Last Songs? Together they run for about 20 minutes, so I doubt it's all of them... Opus33 17:36, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Sailors; was Brahms gay?

I'm tentatively reverting this passage:

This story may have been fuelled by the fact that Hamburg was a busy seaport with its sailors form all over the world and the need for them to satisfy their need for companionship may have resulted in an influx of prostitutes and the subsequent mushrooming of brothels in the poor quarter of the city. His homosexuality was often hinted at as a result of his decision not to marry with tales of his early childhood playing the piano at the brothels cited as a possible reason but these remained unsubstantiated.

for two reasons.

The first part of it seems to be more about Hamburg than about Brahms. Can't the reader just assume that any large 19th century European city had a red-light district? The long discussion interrupts the narrative of Brahm's childhood quite a bit.

The second part assumes that Brahms was gay, but I don't think this is necessarily the mainstream scholarly opinion. If the article is going to go into the question of whether Brahms was gay (fine with me if anyone wants to do it), it should cite biographies that treat this question with care.

Respectfully, Opus33 16:14, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Remenyi, Liszt, ...

Has this already been hashed out? Alan Walker (Liszt:The Weimar Years, ISBN 0801497213) presents a case that the usual account (Brahms sleeping through Liszt playing through the b minor sonata, not suggested by the tone of what's in the article here) is basically accurate and in fact originates with Remenyi. Schissel 00:45, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Hi Schissel, No, I don't think it's been hashed out. If you've got the facts from a good source, by all means put them in.

However, my feeling is that, in its present location, the anecdote interrupts the narrative rather badly. Can we perhaps relocate it somewhere else, e.g. as a anecdote about what Brahms was like as a person? Opus33 02:59, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Of course! The account as given by Walker (pp 229-30 of the 1993 paperback edition of his book) can be summarized about so -- Brahms arrives with Remenyi in Weimar (June 1853,) bringing his recently completed, unpublished e-flat scherzo. Liszt plays this for the assembled company, which surprises Brahms (but not the others, who know Liszt's sight-reading abilities.)

Liszt then takes out his own - also recently-finished - b-minor sonata, a work of which Liszt was known to be particularly fond (finished February 2, 1853 according to the manuscript; this may have been of the first version, the one with the loud ending?- though not otherwise, I think, much different,) begins to play.

"At a particularly expressive moment, Liszt cast a glance at his listeners, only to observe Brahms dozing in his chair." There's more to the tale, of course, and also many back-and-forth footnotes (characteristically for Walker.) It is true according to Walker apparently that Reményi left earlier than Brahms - 'did not wish to be associated with the hostility' -- the beginnings or near beginnings of the War of the Romantics... (*blink* red-linked?)

He sources the story to Edouard Reményi, Musician, Litterateur, and Man: An Appreciation, with Sketches of His Life and Artistic Career by Friends and Contemporaries - compiled by G.D. Kelly and G.P. Upton, published by Chicago, 1966- and past that, to an interview given by the violinist to the New York Herald in January 1879. Until I read that interview I'll be just that bit more uncertain about this account myself, really!

Need to try to organize that hash of a set of paragiraffes *ow*... Schissel 13:05, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Oh my, look at that red link! Doing anything today?  :-) It would certainly be a great anecdote to add to an article on the War of the Romantics (I'm wondering if it was also called something else? that whole controversy between Brahms, Schumann, Mendelssohn et al. vs Liszt, Wagner, Berlioz with Hanslick as a prominent propagandist I don't recall ever having a universally accepted name--but what a fun and necessary article to write!) Actually I wonder if Brahms was dozing not because he was bored, but because he was exhausted from the horrific journey. I've done that myself ... Antandrus 15:51, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

To my mind the War of the Romantics was in some way/some part/partially/lots of (necessary!) hedge-words -- a conflict between classicizing tendencies and 'progressive' tendencies. (That we can see the mingling, the Progressive Brahms* and the Classic Liszt, is all the luckier for us?) Walker considers exhaustion, responds that Brahms seemed awake enough when his scherzo was played. (Walker recounts Liszt playing Brahms' scherzo because of described nervousness on Brahms' part rather than exhaustion.) But: of course exhaustion doesn't set in immediately, so... and round-and-round one goes? To paraphrase a bit from the footnotes, Geiringer and others have dismissed Reményi's account while Mason (a Liszt pupil who kept an account of his years there- published in 1901) accepted it.

Both Mason and (Karl) Klindworth maintain that Brahms and Reményi left Weimar the next day; however, they stayed (Walker claims- I am not sure of his source here!) for three weeks, but did then part company from each other. (After which Brahms met Schumann.)

As to Liszt being offended by Brahms' behavior-

Liszt got up and left the room without explanation after playing the sonata (apparently disturbed?)

Brahms was (perhaps among the few? Walker tries to make a case throughout his book for Liszt's separation of genius from personality, and willingness to conduct/perform people he'd since gotten on bad terms with, but I don't think he always provides the best evidence on this; for instance, he does mention orchestral performances of Ferdinand Hiller's music but they don't seem to precede the (worst of?) that break) composers who Liszt, whether in conducting, transcribing, playing - did not touch.

Need to reread e.g. Calum McDonald's Brahms but I think Brahms returned the favor!

* I like Schoenberg's essay on this but don't think it goes nearly far enough. Not anywhere nearly. :) Schissel 16:35, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Hrm!.... It then becomes a forwards-backwards - yes, but he said.. - argument, and apparently one in which Brahms wasn't very interested either. More interesting is the Manifesto that Brahms signed - and may have written/co-written - that leaked in the pages of the Berliner Musik-Zeitung Echo and eventually into the Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik (see pp 349-50 of the same Walker, for instance- document figures prominently in that War of the Romantics which I agree deserves an article) -- being printed after only gaining four signatures of the many requested/canvassed manifesto --

the manifesto, which basically lamented (what its authors saw as) the increasing tendency of the magazine (the very same Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik into which it was leaked, a still-existing music magazine whose concert/music reviewers had some clout for some while- perhaps still?) to favor the music of Liszt's New German School* as against more traditional composition (in ways reminiscent of Liszt's description of Schumann's piano quintet as 'Leipzigerisch' alluded to in Piano Quintet (Schumann) -- this occasion also described in Walker, btw...)

* Matter for a section of an article on the War of the Romantics if not for an article of its own. A number of its members have articles already, of course (e.g. Felix Draeseke, Julius Reubke, Joachim Raff (more debatable than some others, biographically and musically!) Schissel 20:57, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

A commonly used term was Music of the Future (which, alas, is also red-linked) to describe Liszt and the music he was championing. I wonder what other subtopics under the musical Romantic Era we could dig up, that are also missing articles? Music drama, for one (actually opera itself is woefully underfed). I realize this is all getting off-topic of Brahms, but we never did find ourselves a general Classical Music Café at which to chat about these things. Antandrus 22:10, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

(And Liszt isn't mentioned in Weimar - <Leslie Nielsen>Yet</Leslie Nielsen>...) And while the Manifesto does relate to Brahms at least vaguely, since he never claimed his signature was forged :) (I don't know how strong the evidence is that he wrote the thing, I guess it wouldn't surprise me, badbadPOVbad!) it would also belong in the other article too. (A.t. Walker Music of the Future was the initial name for Liszt et al- deriving either from Wagner or Caroline v. S-Wittgenstein? maybe someone else?, replaced later by New German School -announced at a meeting of a society (this is another aspect; the Society of Murls as a concept, and the more physical, with actual meetings, society the Tonkunstler-Versammlung (Congress of Musical Artists) whose first meeting in Leipzig featured a speech by Franz Brendel, editor of the Neue Zeitschrift, in which he suggested the new name (June 1859) (pp 511-3, Walker)... as they belatedly realized that, well, if they were writing the music of the Future, that meant everyone else was writing the music of the past, which was not an attitude to win friends and influence people, was it.

The points at issue were not just structural (people who composed in classical structures- internal to movements and external to them; Liszt wrote sonata forms sometimes, but once (that same sonata in b) it was a sonata form whose sections corresponded to the movements of a sonata, as in Schoenberg's first chamber symphony; Brahms' approach different though my own opinion- I think very POV even the parts I can present facts for, alas :) - is that, like Mozart in his own way, what Alfred Einstein called a revolutionary conservative... (actually, I wonder if something about Brahms' treatment of rhythms, etc., some aspects of his mature forms, could be written for this article. Brahms was a favorite of one of my college teachers, indeed my first of four classes with him was a student-initiated seminar on Brahms' chamber music which I remember happily... (I took way too many music courses for a math major.)

(Need to check it, but- referring now to another section of the article- besides Mozart (one of whose choral works, Venite Populi, Brahms had a hand in editing in an a capella version, according again to Alfred Einstein, who attributes Brahms' interest to its use of the double-choir technique (Gabrieli, etc?)) and Haydn Brahms also spoke well of Viotti and had an edition of some sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti, which I mention because it wasn't? common currency among composers of the time.) Schissel 22:53, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Inserting a clarification a half-month later, Brahms prepared an edition, someone (Muller) prepared an a cappella arrangement... Schissel 04:27, Nov 29, 2004 (UTC)

Maybe it is known under another name. But what... "war of the romantics" -- 19 google hits. (19? 19?) Schissel 00:17, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

That's the same reaction I had when I got the same 19. I simply don't remember a "name" for it, equivalent to, say, the "War of the Buffoons." Certainly War of the Romantics would be a great title for its article though; it's short and accurate. Antandrus 00:19, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

And catchy (and I don't even like wars) ;). The title may have to stay until and unless something else is thought of, would be my thought.

(btw, is the site http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com or somesuch a mirror of Wikipedia?)

Other fellows who figure in this of course are Eduard Hanslick and Richard Pohl (speaking of mirrors; a sort of Weimar-based critic) Schissel 00:45, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Oh yes indeed, Richard Pohl was an editor of the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, writing under the alias of "Hoplit", and was the main opposition to Hanslick and his gang. I could put up a quickie article on him (dinner first, LOL). Oh, btw, yes, freedictionary is a Wikipedia knockoff. They download the entire database ever couple weeks or so. It's permitted by the GFDL license. Antandrus 00:50, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Whoops - I just noticed the small print at the bottom of the relevant articles. Now things begin to make sense. (And if there weren't reason already to make absolutely, positively sure of your sources before, he'd chuckle if it weren't in fact such a serious matter.)

I can start on a War of the Romantics stub but my information is limited (i.e. if I were to say responsible authorities agree that ... I'd be speaking well beyond clue.) Of course, that's what libraries are for, and there are good ones within walking/bus distance. Schissel 01:05, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

For example, now that I see that I don't have my copy of Style and Idea here as I thought I did, it's off to the library for sure and soon, too (since I quote some... random Schoenberg essay (ow.), and I know it's in that volume.) Schissel 03:28, 15 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Cancer

We seem to be going back and forth on the melancholy subject of whether Brahms's fatal cancer was of the liver or of the pancreas. The most recent edit before mine cited the German Wikipedia as its source for it being the pancreas. But the German Wikipedia doesn't say where it's getting its information from. Checking the New Grove, I found that they say liver.

I would say that until someone here takes the time to delve into the musicological or medical journals, we'd be safest saying that scholars disagree, and that's what I have put in for now. Opus33 16:25, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)