designated heir to Beethoven (I)

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At birth, we all get a bond. When the circumstances of life allow us to develop the gifts we cherish, the burden of the inheritance received can become very heavy. Johannes Brahms (Hamburg, 1833 – Vienna, 1897) was the son of a musician and child prodigy who learned to play the flute, horn and violin at the age of five. A year later, he took piano lessons at home with a private tutor and at the age of ten he was already playing publicly in the taverns of his birthplace. Obsessed with Beethoven, he failed to finish his First Symphony until he was 43 years old, after twenty years of heavy compositional work.

In the next concert program of the Regional Auditorium, Brahms will be one of the protagonists as we will listen to his four symphonies. Brahms’s work is so necessary to man that we must try to understand it in all its dimensions. A great defender of pure traditional music, he was against writing program music and opera. This late romantic composer was clearly in tune with Beethoven because of his permanent inner conflict, with Schubert because of his interest in popular themes and with Schumann because of the lyricism of his melodies.

An event that marks an adolescent Brahms is the arrival in Hamburg of the Hungarian refugees fleeing the revolution of 1848, whose popular music is very appealing to the composer. In addition, at the age of twenty, Bramhs tours as pianist-accompanist for the virtuoso Hungarian violinist Eduard Reményi and has the opportunity to visit Joseph Joachim in Hanover, Liszt in Weimar and Schumann in Düsseldorf. This will be important in the future because it supported Joachim’s position against the new tendencies of the Liszt school (neudeutsch), which eventually led to rivalry and enmity from other important musicians, including Richard Wagner.

In 1862 she visited Vienna with the aim of drinking the same wine that Beethoven tasted and returning home where she had previously founded a women’s choir. A year later, while celebrating his 30th birthday with his family, he is told that the desired position of conductor of the Hamburg Philharmonic concerts will go to a friend of his. This great disappointment coincides with the proposal to conduct the choir of the Vienna Singakademie and he decides to go to the city of music, knowing that he would never leave it.

Vienna receives him with great expectations after listening to his excellent compositions. Without a doubt, the inhabitants recognize a great musician who quickly adapts to the customs of the city. But his rude behavior in society, his careless way of dressing and his disrespectful character make him self-centered for others without his noticing.

(to be continued).

Source: La Verdad

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