Johannes Brahms: A Biography

by Jan Swafford

Book Overview

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...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0679745823
• ISBN13: 9780679745822
• Release Date: December 1999
• Publisher: Vintage
• Length: 752 Pages
• Weight: 1.57 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.5" x 5.2" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

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.

Swafford's Brahms

I read Jan Swafford's monumental 1997 biography of Johannes Brahms (1833 --1897) after reading his biography of the American composer Charles Ives and after reading the 1991 biography of Brahms by Malcolm MacDonald. Swafford has written an outstanding biography of Brahms and a through, perceptive consideration of his music. But greater than either of these accomplishments, his book brings Brahms and late ninetheenth century Vienna to life. Swafford has given a great deal of thought to Brahms, and his book helped me think about the nature of creative gifts, about the relationship between love and calling, and about many matters that are much broader than either biography or music. Swafford gives a great deal of attention to two formative experiences of young Brahms: 1. his childhood of poverty in Hamburg where he played as a pre-adolescent in dives frequented by prostitutes and sailors (this account has been questioned by some writers) and 2. Robert Schumann's article about Brahms at the age of 20, heralding the young man as the heir to Beethoven and predicting a brilliant future for him. Swafford's book emphasizes Brahms's difficulties throghout life in forming a lasting, sexual relationship with a woman other than prostitutes. Brahms exhibited to sort of behavior towards women frequently described in terms of "The Virgin and the Whore." Brahms could only be physically intimate with women he did not respect. Thus, Brahms ultimately rejected the romantic opportunities that came his way in the persons of Clara Schumann and Agathe von Siebold, among other women. He withdrew into a protective shell when friendships with women threatened to become romantic. Yet women were the greatest source of inspiration to Brahms as a composer. He poured into his music what he denied himself as a man. A crusty figure, Brahms was difficult to know intimately, particularly by women. The article by Robert Schumann made Brahms famous from the age of twenty before he had done much. Great things were expected of Brahms, but Schumann's praise burdened the fledgling composer with the fear that he would disappoint Schumann's hopes in him. Brahms worked slowly and became an astonishing musical craftsman; but he felt he had to justify Schumann's confidence as well as meet the standards of the great composers of the past, especially Beethoven. There is a wealth of discussion in this book of Brahms' relationships with both Clara and Robert Schumann, their daughter Julie, the violinist Joachim, the critic Hanslick, Liszt, Wagner, Bruckner, Mahler, and many others. The book is set in the last years of liberal Vienna, and Swafford poignantly draws the relationship between Brahms's music and the rise of irrationality, anti-semitism, and violence that would soon plague the Twentieth Century. I found Swafford's discussions of Brahms music highly insightful. It is less detailed, perhaps, than Malcolm MacMacDonald's study which discusses virtually every work of Brahms

A great portrait of a MAN, not a COMPOSER

As I noted in the title of this review, this book is a great portrait of the man who was Brahms. The fact that he was a great composer is almost seconary. He had a fascinating life, with a great deal of personal intrigue, and a great unrequited love story spanning most of his adult life with Clara Schumann. As a musician, I appreciated the clear and understandable way that Swafford writes about the music of Brahms. His musical analysis is of sufficient depth for the me, and is not "dumbed down" material for the reader who is not musically trained. The best reason to purchase this book is the great and interesting man (and composer) who is examined. I highly recommend this book.

The Wisdom Of Solomon

If you have ever read Maynard Solomon's biographies of Mozart and Beethoven, and enjoyed them, you will definitely like Swafford's biography of Brahm's. The styles have a lot in common. Both authors write mostly with the lay reader in mind, so even someone like me who doesn't have any background in music can still enjoy the books. Both authors are interested in psychological reasons for behavior and, in my opinion, make convincing arguments concerning certain personality traits of these great musicians. However, both authors are also aware that some of the people that read these books are knowledgeable about music, so there are brief sections that get into technical analysis of the music. Solomon did this by including short chapters scattered throughout his book, devoted solely to musical analysis. Swafford chose to incorporate his musical analysis within the general flow of the book, a few paragraphs at a time. As a lay reader, I liked Swafford's approach better. Since I pretty much didn't understand the technical aspects, it was less boring to have this stuff just a little bit at a time! Swafford's book has two great strengths, besides the fact that he writes beautifully. He goes into detail concerning Brahms relationship with Clara Schumann, a friendship which lasted for approximately 40 years. The second strength is that piece by piece he builds up a picture of Brahms the man so that by the end of the book you will feel that you knew Brahms. The picture is well-rounded, too. Brahms could be rude and arrogant but he also could be sensitive and humble and generous. He also had a tremendous sense of humor. He was very witty, both in his conversation and in his correspondence. He was also a great practical joker. Swafford relates a story about the time Brahms went to lunch with a friend, who happened to be a Beethoven scholar. Brahms, before the lunch, had taken a popular song of the day and written it out in musical notation, but he did this imitating Beethoven's handwriting. He made arrangements for the fellow that waited on them in the restaurant to wrap up the scholar's takeout lunch in the "Beethoven" score. Brahms was quite amused when he saw the expression on his friend's face as he unwrapped his lunch and without saying a word, carefully folded up the score and just put it in his pocket. He probably thought he had made a great discovery until he got the score home and actually got to read the music! This was easily one of the best books I read last year and I have no hesitation in recommending it to anyone who loves good biography, even if you don't know anything about music!

Arguably the best Brahms biography yet

For most of us, Geiringer is "the" Brahms biography and, admittedly, it is still unsurpassed. However, Swafford has done a superb job of giving us Brahms' life with the smooth narrative of a novel. Each page and chapter flows gracefully into the next as a Brahms adagio between an allegro and a scherzo. Some reviewers have cited too much detail. It only lets us know our subject all that much better. And, for that, so much the better. If Swafford has a failing, it is a lack of musical analyses of the music but, let me add, that, while he quotes few musical passages, his discussion of the major works will win Brahms new admirers. The rest of us can return to our scores. And I think Swafford is right. He appeals to a broad, rather than a select, audience but please don't misunderstand that to mean he is of little interest to the musicians. Far from it! His discussions of the gestation and creation (something not easy for Brahms) of the major works reads like a detective novel. I congratulate Swafford on a splendid biography, the only modern one that can stand alongside Geiringer, and recommend it to all music lovers.