LOVED this vid Boogieman & thank you for posting it! Welcome to the Canteen! *Hugs*
Brahms started sketching a cello sonata, a quintet for strings and a symphony. The symphony was to go through another twelve years gestation before it was ready. Even the quintet had another two years to go before Jo could get a real handle on it.
There is an old saying that one of the most stressful things that can happen to a person is to see a friend promoted. In this case, the wily old conductor in Hamburg decided not to die on the podium, and Jo’s good buddy Julius Stockhausen got the gig. Brahms was floored, and he never lost his anger at his hometown. Now it was time for a change. At the age of 29, Brahms moved to Vienna. It was to be a marriage made in heaven.
No one ever plotted a musical career more shrewdly than Brahms. He had amazing gifts, and he made sure everybody knew it! There were more venues for music in Vienna than in any other city in the German speaking world, and Brahms knew which field he had to conquer first. He began by playing a piano recital where the first half consisted of Beethoven, Bach and Schumann, and the second half of his own material.
Wagner himself was in the audience. While Brahms despised the cult around Richard Wagner, he absolutely respected the operas of that composer. Wagner had totally reformed the art of German opera, and Brahms appreciated that. While Wagner was openly contemptuous of Brahms and his music, Jo had a quiet respect for Wagner and never badmouthed him, attending all his operas with enthusiasm.
Jo got himself a new best friend: Karl Tausig, one of the better pianists and arrangers in town. They would spend hours playing four-handed duets, smoking and telling the latest dirty jokes.
Every composer worth his salt wrote variations on Paganini’s 24th Caprice. Rachmaninov, Rochberg, Lutoslawski, and Brahms all took cracks at it. Brahms wrote them up as two complete books of etudes for Tausig. Clara thought they were a bit too much like Franz Liszt, but they were too juicy for her to ignore. She took them up with gusto. This is another intense session that you might want to bookmark for later.
You’re very welcome and *hugs* back at ya!