A New York Times Notable Book
"This brilliant and magisterial book is a very good bet
to...become the definitive study of Johannes Brahms."--The Plain
Dealer
Judicious, compassionate, and full of insight into Brahms's human
complexity as well as his music, Johannes Brahms is an
indispensable biography.
Proclaimed the new messiah of Romanticism by Robert Schumann when
he was only twenty, Johannes Brahms dedicated himself to a long and
extraordinarily productive career. In this book, Jan Swafford sets
out to reveal the little-known Brahms, the boy who grew up in
mercantile Hamburg and played piano in beer halls among prostitutes
and drunken sailors, the fiercely self-protective man who thwarted
future biographers by burning papers, scores and notebooks late in
his life. Making unprecedented use of the remaining archival
material, Swafford offers richly expanded perspectives on Brahms's
youth, on his difficult romantic life--particularly his
longstanding relationship with Clara Schumann--and on his
professional rivalry with Lizst and Wagner.
"[Johannes Brahms] will no doubt stand as the definitive work on
Brahms, one of the monumental biographies in the entire musical
library."--London Weekly Standard
"It is a measure of the accomplishment of Jan Swafford's
biography that Brahms's sadness becomes palpable.... [Swafford]
manages to construct a full-bodied human being."--The New York
Times Book Review
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