Composer of the Week: Brahms

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Composer of the Week

Music: Classical

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An informative guide to composers' lives and their music.

An informative and accessible guide to composers' lives and their music.

Composer of the Week: Johannes Brahms (1833-1897): Flying the Nest

Flying the Nest

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)

BBC Radio 3 - Composer of the Week, Johannes Brahms (1833-1897), Flying the Nest

Kate Molleson looks at Brahms’s love-hate relationship with his home city of Hamburg.

Kate Molleson explores the life and relationships of Johannes Brahms through the keyhole of the places he called home. Today, his love-hate feeling towards his home city of Hamburg.

Kate Molleson looks at Brahms’ love-hate relationship with his home city of Hamburg.

Johannes Brahms, the bearded and magisterial Romantic composer, could certainly do grandeur when required. But really, he was more interested in what music meant in ordinary life - how it can whisper, joke and console. He was a man who tried to find a place to belong all his life, wrote for the people closest to him, and that fondness is writ large in his music. All this week, Kate Molleson focuses on Brahms at home, revealing the subtle sides of this sometimes brawny composer – the tender heart behind the famous beard - through the music he wrote for himself and his friends to play. 

Today, we begin in Brahms’ birthplace, Hamburg, where he had a cramped and chaotic upbringing. Despite not being able to afford an instrument at home, he was sent out as a child to play piano in bars and brothels. But just beyond the confines of the city centre, headspace and opportunities await.

Liebeslieder Waltzes, Op 52a No 1  
Wyneke Jordans, piano 
Leo van Doeselaar, piano 

Ballade in G minor, Op 118 No 2 
Paul Lewis, piano 

Sandmännchen  WoO 31, No 4 (Children’s Folk Songs)  
Anna Lucia Richter, mezzo 
Ammiel Bushakevitz, piano

Scherzo in E flat minor, Op 4 
Gerhard Oppitz, piano 

An die Nachtigall, Op 46 No 4 
Simon Keenlyside, tenor 
Malcolm Martineau, piano

Vier Gesänge für Frauenchor, Op 17 
RIAS Kammerchor 
Stefan Jezierski, Manfred Klier, horns 
Marie-Pierre Langlamet, harp 
Marcus Creed, conductor

Piano Quartet No 1 in G minor Op 25 (3rd mvt – Andante] 
Martha Argerich, piano 
Gidon Kremer, violin 
Yuri Bashmet, viola 
Mischa Maisky, cello


Produced by Amelia Parker for BBC Audio Wales and West

Composer of the Week: Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Kate Molleson focuses on the music Brahms wrote for himself and his friends to play.

Kate Molleson focuses on Brahms at home, revealing the subtle sides of this sometimes brawny composer through the music he wrote for himself and his friends to play.

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