Johannes Brahms (without beard)
c. 1870

Johannes Brahms was born the middle of three children in Hamburg in 1833, which at the time was a "Free Imperial City" in the German Confederation. His father was a musician and played bass, horn, and piano. His mother was a seamstress. The family's financial situation was initially poor but gradually improved throughout Brahms' childhood.

At a young age, Brahms learned to play the violin, cello, and piano, and began composing, giving his first concert at age 10. He composed his first piano concerto at age 12. However, Brahms was a perfectionist and destroyed most of the music he wrote before the age of 18.

In his 20s, he met a Hungarian violinist named Ede Reményi, from whom he learned the style of Hungarian folk music that would become influential in his compositional style. He became friends with another Hungarian violinist, Johannes Joachim, who introduced him to Franz Liszt in 1853. Liszt sight-read one of Brahms’ compositions, and Brahms took a nap during one of Liszt’s. The two were not fond of each other after this point. That same year, however, he met Robert and Clara Schumann, who become close friends and among his biggest proponents.

These friendships and rivalries soon became the battle lines of a philosophical schism among composers, sometimes called the “War of the Romantics.” On the conservative side were the members of the Leipzig Conservatoire, pronents of “absolute music,” or music for its own sake, including Brahms, Robert and Clara Schumann, and Felix Mendelssohn. On the avant-garde side were the “New German School,” supporters of “program music,” primarily Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner.

Johannes Brahms (with beard)
C. Brasch, Berlin (biography), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

When Robert Schumann tried to kill himself in 1854, Brahms became the primary supporter of Clara, although he eschewed any romantic relationship with her. He became engaged to a woman named Agathe von Siebold in 1859, but she broke it off. He man have fallen in love with Robert and Clara's daughter, but never proposed. Brahms remained single his whole life.

From 1866 - 1869, Brahms composed “A German Requiem,” with text in German rather than Latin. In 1869, he wrote the “Hungarian Dances,” which turned out to be his most successful and popular compositions. His first symphony, premiered in 1876, was sometimes referred to as "Beethoven's Tenth," due to its structural and stylistic similarities to Beethoven.

Brahms was a German patriot and composed the “Triumphlied” in 1871 when Prussia defeated France.

Later in life, Brahms grew a beard and became close friends with another relatively conservative composer, Johann Strauss, Jr. Brahms was diagnosed with cancer in 1896, passing away in Vienna the following year.