Free PDF Johannes Brahms: A Biography, by Jan Swafford
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Johannes Brahms: A Biography, by Jan Swafford
Free PDF Johannes Brahms: A Biography, by Jan Swafford
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Review
"A mighty attempt to integrate [Brahms's] puzzling persona ... with the human reality [of] Brahms's music.... Absorbing".-- THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER
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York Times Notable Book"This brilliant and magisterial book is a very good bet to...become the definitive study of Johannes Brahms."--The Plain DealerJudicious, 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 l
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Product details
Paperback: 752 pages
Publisher: Vintage (December 7, 1999)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 9780679745822
ISBN-13: 978-0679745822
ASIN: 0679745823
Product Dimensions:
5.2 x 1.5 x 8 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review:
4.7 out of 5 stars
86 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
#72,614 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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; but there is ample material here to form a basis for an exploration and appreciation of Brahms's music. Brahms' romanticism and his musical formalism and learning are well-explored and tied in with a consideration of his major works. Swafford's most thorough musical discussions are of the four symphonies, and he tends to move quicker over Brahms's songs. (This was also the case in Swafford's book on Ives.)I felt I got to know Brahms, in spite of himself, in this book. Brahms devoted himself wholeheartedly to his art, and in the process lost a great deal of the value of human love and human sexual closeness. It was and remains a difficult exchange. More than encouraging the reader to get to know and love Brahms's music, Swafford's biography will help the reader think about and try to compassionately understand people.
Comprehensive, insightful, thorough: this biography blew my mind. In college, I read every biography of Brahms in the library and still never learned-- or appreciated-- what drove Brahms the man or the composer. I knew he came from a squalid background (Schumann is said to have remarked on it; Swafford doesn't include the quote) but I had no idea just how poor to the point of child abuse the Brahms family was. Nor did I know his political views or his associations, other than with Josef Joachim and of course the Schumanns. I took off one star for some trivial flaws: in various places the German was not translated or translated more than once or after appearing for the first time in the text; the Red Hedgehog is called in different spots Zum der roten Igel and also Rote Igel. The index would be more useful if Brahms' works had in addition to key and opus number a separate cross-listing by the common name. For example, Symphony #1 is listed as the symphony in C minor (No. 1), Op. 68, instead of Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 68 (how my CD and LP show the title). In fact, a separate opus index of Brahms' published works would be eminently useful (hint for next edition). Another gripe is the discussion of the 2nd Symphony. Yes, each movement is an inversion of the main theme, but the main theme itself is a variation of Brahms' famous Wiegenlied. In fact, when I was in college music groups, musicians called Brahms' 2nd the lullabye symphony. How does that not get discussed?In summation, I was very moved by the book; I am still thinking about it and the life of Brahms, and of course his music. I am glad I bought it. I recommend it despite the mostly small flaws. I will be referring to it again and again; I'll figure out how to use the index to my advantage. Our symphony will be doing Brahms' First Symphony during this season and I'll be right there, listening to a most beloved piece.
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