(1833-1897) German composer.
The music of Brahms.
(1833-1897) German composer, pianist, and conductor. Considered one of the greatest composers of symphonic music and of songs, his works include four symphonies, lieder (songs), concertos for piano and for violin, chamber music, sonatas, and the choral Ein Deutsches Requiem/A German Requiem 1868. He performed and conducted his own works.
In 1853 the violinist Joachim introduced him to Liszt and Schumann, who encouraged his work. From 1868 Brahms made his home in Vienna. Although his music belongs to a reflective strain of Romanticism, similar to Wordsworth in poetry, Brahms saw himself as continuing the classical tradition from the point to which Beethoven had brought it. To his contemporaries, he was a strict formalist, in opposition to the romantic sensuality of Wagner. His influence on Mahler and Schoenberg was profound.