Johannes Brahms: A Biography (Hardcover)

'I am become something of a cult in Hamburg,' Johannes Brahms wrote to his friend Joachim, the violinist, in 1859. Success was some consolation for the desperation of his love for Clara Schumann, virtuoso pianist and wife of his mentor, Robert. In 1854 he had written that his love 'left like an endless unbearable suspension'. Clara was 35, Johannes 21, and their loyalty to the mentally ill Robert - who considered Brahms to be 'the saviour of German music' - prevented any declaration of love. Early photographs show an extremely handsome young man, unrecognizable as the bearded patriarch of later years, the famous composer. Swafford, a fellow composer, writes knowledgeably of Brahms's magisterial music, his fear of a loss of creative talent, his relationship with other composers including the jealous Wagner, and sympathetically of an ultimately lonely man who 'had many friend but no intimates'. (Kirkus UK)

A definitive work about one of the 19th century's most influential classical music composers. Books coming out in anniversary years too often don't live up to the subject they celebrate. Such is most definitely not the case in Swafford's biography of Brahms, published on the 100th anniversary of his death. This is an exceptionally well written chronicle of this musical master, an extraordinary work, guaranteed to inform and entertain classical music aficionados and tyros alike. That Swafford (Charles Ives: A Life in Music, 1996) had no easy task is clear. Where some leave long paper trails, Brahms, hoping to let his music rather than his personal life be the legacy on which later generations judged him, destroyed countless personal documents, letters, and music scores he deemed unworthy or compromising. But where Brahms was exceptionally careful - he even signed his name "J. Br" to thwart hungry autograph seekers - those around him were not, notably Clara Schumann. A brilliant professional pianist, Frau Schumann, who was married to composer Robert Schumann, was the love of Brahms's life. In their decades-long relationship, they exchanged hundreds of letters, many of which still exist despite Brahms's attempts to get them returned. The letters are simultaneously touching revelations of their relationship - likely never consummated - and perceptive journals of an exciting musical era. Swafford uses the correspondence and other research to paint an exhaustive picture of that era and of Brahms himself. What emerges is a stimulating view of a living paradox, a misogynist who used women as his muse, a generous spirit whose barbed tongue often alienated his best friends. In between, Swafford cleverly uses some 64 musical examples to illustrate Brahms's many musical developments. For readers of Swafford's biography, Brahms's Lullaby will never sound the same. (Kirkus Reviews)

Written in the style of a true Victorian melodrama: sex, suicide, madness, betrayal and triumph, Jan Swafford's biography not only reveals Brahms as a man of appalling and brilliant contradictions, but opens a window on an era of cultural absoluteness, an era when music mattered to everyone.