Line #18 Music/JohannesBrahms


1	[[quoteright:285:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/johannes_brahms.jpeg]]
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3	->''"Without craftsmanship, inspiration is a mere reed shaken in the wind."''
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5	Johannes Brahms (7 May 1833 – 3 April 1897) was a German composer of the Romantic Era.
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7	Like many other prominent composers, Brahms moved to Vienna and reached the height of his career there. During his time, he was known as a "Classical Romantic", as his music was heavily influenced by the Classical Era, which put emphasis on unity of form and development of short, open-ended motives. It says something about Brahms' talents when he was compared to Music/LudwigVanBeethoven. In his youth, Brahms was the protégé of another famous Romantic composer, Music/RobertSchumann, for a short time and had a strong friendship with Schumann's wife, Clara.
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9	Classical fans probably best know him for his Symphony No. 4 in E minor, a mainstay of the classical repretoire, his Symphony No. 1 in C minor, which is the unofficial theme for his home city of UsefulNotes/{{Hamburg}}, and his Hungarian Dances, especially the fifth. Pop culture fans will instantly recognize [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t894eGoymio his Lullaby]].
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11	He is mentioned as being dead in the song "Decomposing Composers", performed by Creator/MichaelPalin on Creator/MontyPython's ''Audioplay/MontyPythonsContractualObligationAlbum''.
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13	!!Tropes present in Brahms' work:
14	* {{Bookends}}:
15	** ''Ein deutsches Requiem'' starts and ends with the same word, ''selig'' (blessed).
16	** Symphony No. 3 starts and ends on an F major chord.
17	* DownerEnding:
18	** Implied in [[https://youtu.be/QJGoycymiC4 Piano Trio No. 1 in B major,]] which has a warm, ardent and optimistic beginning but a dark and tempestuous conclusion in the parallel [[{{Scales}} key]] of B minor. The young Brahms was still working on the trio when his mentor Music/RobertSchumann attempted suicide and was committed to a mental asylum, and [[https://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/dw.asp?dc=W4176_44331 it is possible]] (though not proven) that these tragic circumstances may have influenced the emotional course of the work. Brahms heavily revised the trio decades later but maintained the bleak minor-key ending; this revised version is the one most commonly heard today.
19	** His Symphony No. 4 in E minor is the only one of his symphonies to end in a minor key, where the pensive restlessness of the first movement is finally resolved not with triumph as it is in the first symphony, but with apocalyptic despair.
20	* MoodWhiplash: For ''Ein deutsches Requiem'', the first movement is slightly melancholy, yet serene and reassuring [[note]]"Blessed are those who morn, for they shall be comforted. Those who sow with sorrow shall reap with joy." [[/note]] The second movement is a reminder that human life is brief before its ultimate end, set to music that starts out ominous and builds into a dark, powerful unison dirge.[[note]]"For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls away."[[/note]] The third doesn't get much better.[[note]]"Lord, make me to know my end, and the measure of my days...You have made my days as a hands-breadth, and my age is nothing before You..."[[/note]]
21	* NoPlotNoProblem: Brahms never composed an opera, a symphonic poem, or any other type of composition that tried to convey a narrative, favouring "absolute music" instead.
22	* {{Romanticism}}: Brahms' music belongs decidedly to the Romantic era, but he represented a more traditionalist "conservative" strain of Romanticism that followed Baroque and Classical composers such as Haydn and Bach, disputing the ideology of more florid composers such as Wagner, Liszt, and Strauss as too undisciplined. In particular, Brahms refused to compose programmatic music that relied on external narratives, writing only "absolute music" such as sonatas, symphonies, and chamber music. The dispute has been called "The War of the Romantics".
23	* ShoutOut: The composer's ''Academic Festival Overture'', written in response to the honorary doctorate he received from the University of Breslau, quotes four songs frequently associated with German student academic life at the time: "Fuchslied," "Wir hatten gebauet ein stattliches Haus," "Der Landesvater," and "Gaudeamus igitur." All were drinking or initiation songs at one point, though the last by then had been co-opted for use at college graduation ceremonies.
24	* StandardSnippet: His Wiegenlied, perhaps better known in the West as "Lullaby and Goodnight," is often used in movies and shows where a character is sleepy or preparing to go to sleep. More often than not, the melody will be played on a music box or glockenspiel.

Context Music / JohannesBrahms