Johannes Brahms was a German composer, pianist, and conductor of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg into a Lutheran family, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna. His reputation and status as a composer are such that he is sometimes grouped with Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven as one of the "Three Bs" of music, a comment originally made by the nineteenth-century conductor Hans von Bülow.
Brahms composed for symphony orchestra, chamber ensembles, piano, organ, and voice and chorus. A virtuoso pianist, he premiered many of his own works. He worked with some of the leading performers of his time, including the pianist Clara Schumann and the violinist Joseph Joachim . Many of his works have become staples of the modern concert repertoire. An uncompromising perfectionist, Brahms destroyed some of his works and left others unpublished.
Brahms has been considered, by his contemporaries and by later writers, as both a traditionalist and an innovator. His music is firmly rooted in the structures and compositional techniques of the Classical masters. While many contemporaries found his music too academic, his contribution and craftsmanship have been admired by subsequent figures as diverse as Arnold Schoenberg and Edward Elgar. The diligent, highly constructed nature of Brahms's works was a starting point and an inspiration for a generation of composers. Embedded within his meticulous structures, however, are deeply romantic motifs. Wikipedia
“If there is anyone here whom I have not insulted, I beg his pardon.”
As quoted (prefaced by the qualification, "There is a story that one evening, on leaving, Brahms said...") in One Hundred Songs by Ten Masters: Volume II https://books.google.com/books?id=irUQAAAAYAAJ&pg=PR12 (1917), edited by Henry T. Finck, p. XII <br class="br">Attributed <br class="br">Variant: If there is any one here tonight whom I have not offended, I apologize!
Discussion of the Chaconne in Bach's Partita for Violin #2. Litzman, Berthold (editor). "Letters of Clara Schumann and Johannes Brahms, 1853–1896". Hyperion Press, 1979, p. 16.
Letter to Clara Schumann (31 May 1856) as quoted in Letters of Clara Schumann and Johannes Brahms, 1853-1896 (1971), edited by Berthold Litzmann
Letter to Clara Schumann (12 February 1856) as quoted in Johannes Brahms : A Biography (1997) by Jan Swafford, p. 153
“High on the mountain, deep in the valley, I greet you a thousandfold.”
Notes on a postcard to Clara Schumann (12 September 1868)
Letter to Clara Schumann (15 October 1868), as quoted in Johannes Brahms : A Biography (1997) by Jan Swafford, p. 340
