| Uniform title | Johannes Brahms, "frei aber einsam". English |
| Contents |
"Frei aber einsam" : solitude as the price of freedom. Brahms's reticence ; An "ambivalent" personality? ; Youth in Hamburg ; Characterizations of the young Brahms (Clara Schumann, Albert Dietrich, Joseph Joachim) ; A single by choice ; Focus on creative work ; Relation to women and attitude toward marriage ; Fear also of professional commitment ; Preference for freelance work ; Brahms's and Joachim's maxim -- Polarities. Janus-headedness in modern art and intellectual history ; Brahms between mirth and melancholy ; His music as a reflection of his personality ; Moods of his music: from mesto to giocoso ; Character of the "young Kreisler" ; The Variations for piano op. 9 ; Capricci and intermezzi ; Simultaneous composition of works for a diametrically opposite character ; The Academic Festival Overture op. 80 and the Tragic Overture op. 81 ; Predilection for paired works of identical instrumentation ; Contrariness of the two piano concertos and the two cello sonatas -- A "prickly" character. Seemingly contradictory character traits ; Modesty and self-confidence ; Health, energy and strength ; Introversion ; Reluctance to expose feelings ; Sensibility and emotionality ; Disharmonies in relationships with friends ; Brahms as enfant terrible ; Humaneness and readiness to help -- Tone ciphers: the history of the FAE anagram. Encryption of extra-musical contents through tonal letters ; Joachim's maxim "free but solitary" and the Gisela anagram ; Joachim's Three Pieces for Violin and Piano op. 5 ; The FAE sonata ; Ingenious uses of the motto ; Was the String Quartet in A minor op. 51, no. 2 originally intended for Joachim? ; The Double Concerto op. 102 as an "act of reconciliation" ; The supposed alteration of the motto "Frei aber einsam" to "Frei aber froh" ("Free but glad") -- Relations: biographical backgrounds in Brahms's music. Profound personal experiences as triggering impulses in the creative process ; Robert and Clara Schumann and the first Piano Concerto op. 15 ; A Wertheresque experience and the Piano Quartet op. 60 ; Julie Schumann and the Alto rhapsody op. 53 ; Anselm Feuerbach and Nänie ("Dirge") op. 82 ; The relationship with the mother: the German Requiem op. 45 and the Horn Trio op. 40 ; Agathe von Siebold and the second String Sextet op. 36 ; The Agathe anagram in the choral piece for women Und gehst du über den Friedhof ("When you cross the churchyard") op. 44, no. 10 ; The relationship with Clara Schumann ; The Piano Variations op. 9 ; The "presence" of Clara and Robert Schumann in works by Brahms ; The Vier Ernsten Ges̃nge ("Four Serious Songs") as an "offering for the dead" -- Between the fronts. Restoration and revolution ; Opposition between conservatives and progressives ; Brahms as "Anti-Pope" ; The idea of progress ; Brahms's retrospective attitude ; Veneration for the art of the past and rejection of the avant-garde ; Attitude toward form ; Idea and execution ; Autonomy and heteronomy of music ; Brahms and program music -- The principle of hope. Brahms's views of psychic health ; Plea for moderation in life and art ; Expression as an aesthetic category ; Richard Wagner, Franz Liszt and Anton Bruckner as "expressive musicians" ; Brahms's, Hanslick's and Feuerbach's dislike of exaggeration ; Hope as elixir of life ; Minor and major in Brahms's compositional work ; Dramaturgy in the Alto Rhapsody, the finale of the First Symphony and the lied Auf den Kirchhofe ("In the churchyard") op. 104, no. 4 ; Brahms and the idea of fate ; The Schicksalslied ("Song of fate") op. 54 ; Love as a positive utopia in the opus 121 -- The second Beethoven?. Brahms as "heir" of Beethoven: the eulogistic apeṙus of Joseph Hellmesberger, Eduard Hanslick and Hans von Bulow ; Wagner's polemic against Brahms ; Brahms's relation to Beethoven as a mixture of admiration and distance ; Beethovenesque models in Brahms: the scherzos of the Serenades op. 11 and op. 16, the first movement of the first Piano Concerto op. 15, Rinaldo op. 50 and the finale of the String Quintet op. 88 ; Beethovenesque techniques in Brahms: motivic-thematic work, the obbligato accompagnement and aspects of the technique of variation ; Questions of tonal idiom: the expressive words of Beethoven and Brahms -- The relation to Schumann. Basics ; The relevance of the "poetic" in Schumann and Brahms ; Parallels in the conception of music ; Brahms's minor piano works in relation to Schumann ; Schumannesque models and techniques in Brahms ; Schumann's Kreisleriana (Phantasien fur das Pianoforte) and Brahms's Fantasien fur das Pianoforte op. 116 -- Poetic elements in the piano music. Schumann's ideal of poetic music ; Brahms's dedication to poetic creation ; Poetic elements in the Piano Sonatas op. 1, op. 2, and op. 5 ; The Ballade in D minor op. 10, no. 1 and the lied Verrat ("Betrayal") op. 105, no. 5 ; The Intermezzo in E-flat major op. 116, no. 4 as a nocturne ; The Intermezzo in E-flat major op. 117, no. 1 as a lullaby ; The Romance in F major op. 118, no. 5 ; The Intermezzo in E-flat minor op. 118, no. 1 as a Dies Irae paraphrase ; The Intermezzo in B minor op. 119, no. 1 as an invention on the dissonance ; Op. 116 and op. 117 as "monologues" -- |
| Contents |
Violin sonatas from songs. Secret dedications to Clara Schumann and Hermine Spies. Semanticizing of instrumental music through quotations and echoes of songs ; The compositions Regenlied ("Rain song") and Nachklang ("Reverberation") op. 59, nos. 3 and 4, and the Sonata in G Major op. 78 ; Biographical background: illness of Felix Schumann ; The reception of the "Rain song sonata" ; The lieder Komm Bald ("Come soon") op. 97, no. 5 and Wie Melodien zieht es ("Like melodies it passes") op. 105, no. 1 and the Sonata in A Major op. 100 ; The relation to Hermine Spies -- Tradition and innovation in the First Symphony. Genesis ; Parallels to Beethoven's Fifth and Ninth Symphonies and to the trumpet signal of the Leonore Overtures ; Relations to Schumann's Manfred music ; The Andante sostenuto and the Andante con moto of Schubert's "Unfinished" Symphony ; Allusions to Florestan's cries of joy in Fidelio in the finale -- Semantic elements in the Fourth Symphony. Aspects of compositional technique ; Presumption of covert programmatic backdrops ; Genesis of the symphony ; The choice of an E minor key ; Characteristics of the initial two movements ; The Allegro grazioso as a bright sound image ; The finale as a movement of variations ; The use of trombones ; Analogies to the third of the Four Serious Songs op. 121 ; Inexorability of death as fundamental idea ; Tschaikowsky [Tchaikovsky] on Brahms -- Morality, consolation and hope as semantic fields in A German Requiem. Selection and combination of the biblical texts ; The theme of consolation for the bereaved ; The idea of hope and the conception of the resurrection as transformation ; The work dedicated to humanity as a whole ; The musical treatment of the text's antitheses -- "Even the beauteous must die": Nanie. Interpretation of Schiller's poem and its theme of the morality of the beautiful ; Nanie as a memorial composition for Anselm Feuerbach ; Brahms's relation to Feuerbach and his interest in Feuerbach's paintings ; Feuerbach's artistic creed, his affinity with classical antiquity, combined with the desire to create new things ; The settings by Hermann Goetz and Brahms compared ; The dedication to Henriette Feuerbach as Brahms's personal commentary on Schiller's poem -- Four Serious Songs. Genesis ; Thoughts on the problem of death ; Cyclical construction: transition from the pessimism of the first three songs to the credo of the redeeming power of love in the last ; The composition shaped by the texts' dominant ideas and images ; The sketch sheet ; Brahms's interpretation of the Pauline sermon on love -- Brahms and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. The sound culture of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra as a stimulating tonal ideal ; History of the orchestra ; Its conservatism ; Performances of the Serenades, the Haydn Variations, as well as the Symphonies in Vienna ; Basis of Brahms's success in Vienna -- Hanslick's image of Brahms. Hanslick no uncritical admirer of Brahms ; His musico-aesthetic system and his judgment of Brahms ; Brahms works that appealed to him and those he viewed sceptically ; Hanslick admired Brahms's "musical logic" but charged him with lack of "sensuousness" and melodic inventiveness ; His preference for "cheerful" music ; Complaints about the pessimistic, tragic, resigned tenor of many of Brahms's compositions ; Critique of the technical complexity of Brahms's music ; Recurrent changes of mind ; Billroth on Hanslick ; Brahms felt misunderstood as a composer by Hanslick ; Hanslick's doctrine of Brahms as prototypical composer of "absolute" music -- A Janus head: Changes in Brahms's image. Brahms as Romantic and as Classicist, as conservative and as progressive ; Two-fold character of his art ; Conservative and progressive elements ; The Brahms image of the Schönberg school ; The Max Reger-Hugo Riemann controversy ; Construction and expression in Brahms -- "Toxic" or "divine" dissonances? Forward-looking elements in Brahms. Abundance of dissonances and polyphonic textures as progressive moments in Brahms ; Noticeable preference for dissonances ; Reactions of Clara Schumann, Hanslick and Billroth to the severer tonalities of Brahms's music ; Examples of Brahmsian use of dissonances: the Piano Quartet op. 25, the lied Es hing der Reif ("The hoarfrost hung") op. 106, no. 3, the Intermezzo in E major op. 116, no. 6 and Four Serious Songs op. 121, no. 2 -- Why Brahms is so universally beloved. Brahms's own assessment of his position in music history ; Fame and rise in society ; The "most German" composer ; Breadth of his music's international impact ; Influence of Vienna ; Predilection for the genre of the folk song ; Popular modes and high art ; The vanitas theme in the German Requiem and the Four Serious Songs ; Friedrich Nietzsche on Brahms ; Adolf Schubring's review of the German Requiem -- Biographical dates -- Persons in Brahms's circle of friends and acquaintances. |
| Abstract |
Johannes Brahms was until now widely regarded as the archetype of the "absolute musician". Based on new research, the study shows how close autobiographic and poetic elements are in fact linked to his oeuvre. Like Robert Schumann, Brahms subscribed to an aesthetic of "poetic" music. In many of his compositions he got his inspiration from personal experiences, poems or images, as is shown by hitherto unpublished documents, letters, and diary entries, as well as from close analyses of individual works. Brahms's personality, too, is seen in a new way. He adopted Joseph Joachim's motto "Frei, aber einsam", "Free but alone". The tonal code F-A-E, the musical symbol of this, recurs frequently in his works. Not least, the English version of the book, originally published in German in 1997, includes four additional chapters that investigate novel aspects by dealing in detail with the First Symphony, the German Requiem, Nänie and the Four Serious Songs. The American Brahms Society stressed the importance of the study for all those who want to come to know the unknown Brahms. |
| Bibliography note | Includes bibliographical references (pages 230-242) and indexes. |
| LCCN | 2010022953 |
| ISBN | 9783631612606 (hd. bk.) |
| ISBN | 3631612605 (hd. bk.) |
