{"product_id":"0707541701990-brahms-sonatas-for-violin-and-piano","title":"Brahms: Sonatas for Violin \u0026 Piano","description":"\u003cmeta content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\" http-equiv=\"Content-Type\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003ePRODUKTBESCHREIBUNGEN \u003cbr\u003e The seminal and traumatic experience of Brahms's life-the slow and tragic death of his mentor and teacher, Robert Schumann (1810-1856)-left a permanent mark on him and his music, and contributed to his lifelong bachelor status. It also stoked a growing desire to lead, more and more, the life of a lone scholar (without interest in seeking a university post), relying on a tiny and shrinking group of friends for their reaction to and constructive criticism of his music. This was unusual, considering his enormous success as a composer and performer. The center of Brahms's little circle and his towering musical inspiration was Robert Schumann, but after Schumann died it was largely limited to Robert's wife, famous-pianist Clara Schumann (1819-1896), and violinist and composer Joseph Joachim (1831-1907). When Joachim gave up composing later in life, Brahms felt that Joachim was no longer helpful, leaving him only Clara. Brahms, a native of Hamburg, came to the Schumanns in Düsseldorf at age twenty with a letter of recommendation from Joachim. Just as Schumann had launched Chopin's and Berlioz's careers with rave reviews in a newspaper for new music (Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, cofounded by Schumann himself), he helped start Brahms's career by writing in a review that Brahms was \"destined to give ideal expression to the times.\" Brahms may have been originally attracted to the Schumanns because they seemed more in line with his lower-class ancestry and the opposite of Franz Liszt (for whom he also auditioned) and Richard Wagner, with whom he was uncomfortable because of their perceived pretensions to royalty. Soon Brahms became not only Robert Schumann's favorite pupil, but also babysitter and member of the family. It was a complete surprise when, only one year later, Schumann (suffering from late-stage syphilis and not from any mental illness, as was once thought) threw himself off a bridge and was committed to an asylum. Clara's feeling for what Robert then went through for the next two years is shown when, twenty-five years later, she wrote of her son Felix dying in an insane asylum, describing it as the experience of being buried alive. In the asylum, Robert Schumann continued to compose, to write letters to Clara, and to take long walks with Brahms, during which they discussed all manner of profound musical topics, as before. About eight months before his death in 1856, Robert Schumann appeared to be in remission, and hope grew that he would return home. It was not to be. Brahms's personality from the beginning was that of a scholarly introvert, whose sometimes unexpectedly brusque manner often made him seem unsociable. An example of Brahms's dry and hardly ingratiating wit is an anecdote about him trying out one of his cello and piano sonatas with a young cellist. Brahms kept playing louder and louder, until the cellist stopped to complain that he couldn't hear himself. \"Lucky you,\" Brahms replied. Paradoxically, despite Brahms's inability to make easy conversation, his chamber music is dominated by brilliant conversation, especially in these three violin and piano sonatas, as the themes are passed back and forth between the instruments, each speaker-sometimes waiting until the other is done, sometimes unable to resist jumping in as an interruption-gaining energy, inspiration, and passion from the other, until the music almost explodes in a whirlwind, or dies in high-drama tragedy. After Robert Schumann's commitment, Clara decided-in order to support her family-to restart her piano performing career; it had been put on hold while she'd had one child after another during the Schumanns' ten-year marriage. Brahms at the age of twenty enjoyed filling in as a father figure to the children and organizer of the household. Such intimate involvement in the household and proximity to Clara gave him opportunity to fall in love with Clara, although she was fourteen years his senior. They hid all evidence of their attachment in public, and it can only be guessed at from the few surviving letters. A few days before Robert's end, Brahms finally brought Clara to the asylum, to reunite Robert and Clara after the long, two-year separation. Brahms wrote: \"Surely I will never again experience anything as moving as the reunion of Robert and Clara. At first he lay for a long time with eyes closed, and she knelt before him, more calmly than one would believe possible. But after a while he recognized her, and also on the next day. Of course he had been unable to speak for some time already. One could understand (or perhaps imagine one did) only disconnected words. Even that must have made her happy. He often refused the wine that was offered him, but from her finger he sometimes sucked it up eagerly, at such length and so passionately that one knew with certainty that he recognized the finger.\" Their friend Joachim arrived just four hours before Schumann died. The young Brahms's growing love for Clara (and possibly a sense of guilt) can be seen in the salutations of the few surviving letters (mostly from Brahms to Clara) from the time of her separation from Robert: Dear Frau Schumann; Honoured Lady! Esteemed Lady; Most revered lady; Dearest Friend; (When Brahms wrote to Robert Schumann in the asylum at this time, he began the letter with \"Most beloved friend\") Dear Frau Schumann (this came a few days after his letter to Robert Schumann) Dearest friend; Deeply loved friend; Ever lovely, lofty lady; My most beloved friend; On the evening a full moon was promised for us, Beloved frau Clara; My dear Clara; My beloved Clara-I wish I could write to you as tenderly as I love you, and give as much kindness and goodness as I wish for you. You are so infinitely dear to me that I can't begin to tell you. I constantly want to call you darling and all kinds of other things, without becoming tired of adoring you. If this goes on, I will eventually have to keep you under glass, or save money to have you gilded. After Schumann's death Brahms withdrew from Clara, hurting her feelings; it is likely that he understood that she wanted no more children. She had been pregnant almost every year of her ten-year marriage to Robert. However, her children later related their opinion that if Brahms had ever proposed, she would have accepted. Their friendship continued on a more mother-and-son basis (Joachim himself, in a letter to Liszt, said that Robert Schumann had loved Brahms like a son), with frequent squabbles, which they always managed to patch up. Clara promoted Brahms's piano works in performances all over Europe just as she had once promoted Robert's. She also performed the violin sonatas with Joachim. Brahms's ease of working with independent voices in his violin and piano sonatas comes from his extensive scholarly studies. He became editor of a many composer anthologies at a time when Germany was turning them out at a great pace. In fact, this makes Brahms a modern composer, in that he had to deal with what would be the main influence on composition in the twentieth century-music history. As composers began to attain college music degrees, they became afflicted with college libraries containing the complete works of all the major composers. Nothing so overwhelming ever hindered Mozart or Beethoven, who knew mostly music of their contemporaries plus a few works by Bach. Brahms gathered a personal library of scholarly collections normally found only in the reference sections of major libraries: - the Bach Gesellschaft (complete works of Bach, filling several bookcases), whose society Robert Schumann had been an original founder of; - the complete works of Handel, Chopin, Mendelssohn, and Schumann (for which Brahms and Clara were themselves the editors); - many first editions of J.S. Bach, C.P. E. Bach, Scarlatti, Gluck; - most works by Mozart, Beethoven, Haydn, and Schubert; - numerous scores and autographs by contemporaries such as Dvoràk, Joachim, Bruch, Liszt, Wagner, Berlioz, and Strauss\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Rarewaves","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":41016153014369,"sku":"0707541701990","price":8.65,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0092\/7504\/8033\/files\/orig_1171508_879341_jpg.jpg?v=1724073875","url":"https:\/\/www.rarewaves.com\/products\/0707541701990-brahms-sonatas-for-violin-and-piano","provider":"Rarewaves.com","version":"1.0","type":"link"}