Johannes Brahms was a German composer, pianist, and conductor of the mid-Romantic period, born in Hamburg and based in Vienna from the 1860s onward. A noted perfectionist who destroyed many early works he judged unworthy, he cultivated a close, lifelong friendship with Clara Schumann following Robert Schumann’s mental collapse. His output spans four symphonies, two piano concertos, a violin concerto, chamber music (string quartets, quintets, piano trios), the choral masterpiece A German Requiem, and hundreds of songs and folk-song arrangements. He died in Vienna in 1897 after being diagnosed with cancer the previous year.

Regarded as one of the supreme architects of absolute music, Brahms extended the Classical forms of Beethoven while infusing them with Romantic depth, and his symphonies remain among the most frequently performed in the repertoire, second only to Beethoven’s. His music bridged conservative and progressive camps, later earning admiration from modernists such as Schoenberg, who praised him as ‘Brahms the Progressive.’

Compare recordings piece by piece — 56 works of Johannes Brahms with more than one performance on the site →

Sources:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Brahms