WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.859 I want to start today by looking at a specific 00:00:02.859 --> 00:00:05.099 object. You've probably seen it. It's a bust, 00:00:05.299 --> 00:00:08.300 you know, small statue. And it sits on the piano 00:00:08.300 --> 00:00:12.240 in, like, almost every music conservatory or 00:00:12.240 --> 00:00:14.740 dusty practice room in the world. Oh, okay. I 00:00:14.740 --> 00:00:16.219 think I know where you're going with this. It's 00:00:16.219 --> 00:00:18.879 an old man. He's got this massive bushy gray 00:00:18.879 --> 00:00:22.579 beard that covers half his chest. He looks heavy. 00:00:23.059 --> 00:00:25.320 He looks serious. He looks like he's judging 00:00:25.320 --> 00:00:28.010 you for missing that F -sharp. Exactly. He is 00:00:28.010 --> 00:00:29.670 judging you. I know exactly who you're talking 00:00:29.670 --> 00:00:32.350 about. That is the quintessential image of Johannes 00:00:32.350 --> 00:00:35.109 Brahms, the old bear. Right, the old bear. And 00:00:35.109 --> 00:00:38.729 that image, it carries so much baggage, doesn't 00:00:38.729 --> 00:00:40.869 it? When we see that beard, we think of the establishment. 00:00:41.409 --> 00:00:43.570 Absolutely. The conservative. We think of the 00:00:43.570 --> 00:00:46.850 guy who just stood still while the rest of the 00:00:46.850 --> 00:00:49.640 19th century was getting, you know. completely 00:00:49.640 --> 00:00:52.799 wild and experimental. He's always framed as 00:00:52.799 --> 00:00:55.299 the great conservative, the keeper of the flame 00:00:55.299 --> 00:00:57.799 who refused to change. But I've been reading 00:00:57.799 --> 00:01:00.340 through the materials we have for today, the 00:01:00.340 --> 00:01:02.840 letters, the biographies, the analysis of his 00:01:02.840 --> 00:01:05.959 actual impact. And I don't know, I feel like 00:01:05.959 --> 00:01:08.120 we've been sold a bit of a lie. Or at least a 00:01:08.120 --> 00:01:10.280 very, very incomplete half -truth. Yes. It's 00:01:10.280 --> 00:01:13.340 definitely a disguise. Brahms is one of the most 00:01:13.340 --> 00:01:16.159 misunderstood figures in music history because 00:01:16.159 --> 00:01:19.599 that image of the old conservative hides a man 00:01:19.599 --> 00:01:22.359 who was just full of these intense contradictions. 00:01:22.379 --> 00:01:25.340 In what way? Well, if you dig into the sources, 00:01:25.400 --> 00:01:28.459 you don't find a statue. You find a young, incredibly 00:01:28.459 --> 00:01:32.540 handsome virtuoso who apparently turned heads 00:01:32.540 --> 00:01:35.420 everywhere he went. You find a guy involved in 00:01:35.420 --> 00:01:38.760 a bitter, toxic public feud that makes modern 00:01:38.760 --> 00:01:41.519 Twitter beefs look. Tame. Completely tame. And 00:01:41.519 --> 00:01:43.599 a prankster. The sources mention that. A huge 00:01:43.599 --> 00:01:45.659 practical joker. But more importantly, and this 00:01:45.659 --> 00:01:48.019 is the real kicker, beneath the surface of his 00:01:48.019 --> 00:01:51.019 traditional music, there was a mind so mathematically 00:01:51.019 --> 00:01:53.689 complex and forward thinking. that the people 00:01:53.689 --> 00:01:55.969 who eventually broke music in the 20th century? 00:01:56.150 --> 00:01:58.329 Modernists. The modernists, like Schoenberg. 00:01:58.510 --> 00:02:00.930 They claimed him as their hero. That's the part 00:02:00.930 --> 00:02:03.769 that really hooked me. How does the guy who supposedly 00:02:03.769 --> 00:02:06.730 hated progress become the godfather of the avant 00:02:06.730 --> 00:02:10.009 -garde? It doesn't compute. Right. So, let's 00:02:10.009 --> 00:02:12.330 unpack this. For this deep dive, we need to figure 00:02:12.330 --> 00:02:15.129 out who Johannes Brahms actually was, beyond 00:02:15.129 --> 00:02:18.150 the beard. We need to talk about the war of the 00:02:18.150 --> 00:02:20.389 romantics. Oh, yeah. His weirdly heartbreaking 00:02:20.389 --> 00:02:23.189 love life with the Schumanns. And why on earth 00:02:23.189 --> 00:02:25.870 it took him 15 years to write one symphony. And 00:02:25.870 --> 00:02:27.669 we have to talk about the destruction. This is 00:02:27.669 --> 00:02:30.110 a man who burned more music than most people 00:02:30.110 --> 00:02:32.370 write in a lifetime. Which is terrifying to think 00:02:32.370 --> 00:02:35.250 about. What we lost. Okay. But let's go back 00:02:35.250 --> 00:02:37.729 to the start. Let's erase the image of the old 00:02:37.729 --> 00:02:40.870 man in Vienna and go to Hamburg, 1833. Yeah. 00:02:40.930 --> 00:02:43.229 What kind of world does a young Brahms wake up 00:02:43.229 --> 00:02:46.580 in? He wakes up in a world of music. But it wasn't 00:02:46.580 --> 00:02:49.300 exactly a glamorous one. Not at first. He was 00:02:49.300 --> 00:02:52.800 born into a family where music was a trade, you 00:02:52.800 --> 00:02:55.060 know, a craft, not just a high art. A working 00:02:55.060 --> 00:02:57.719 class thing. Very much. His father, Johann Jakob 00:02:57.719 --> 00:02:59.520 Brahms, is actually a fascinating character. 00:02:59.860 --> 00:03:02.240 He ran away from his own family in a small town 00:03:02.240 --> 00:03:05.919 called Hyde to become a musician. He defied his 00:03:05.919 --> 00:03:09.500 parents, walked into Hamburg at age 19, and started 00:03:09.500 --> 00:03:11.840 scraping by playing the double bass. So there's 00:03:11.840 --> 00:03:14.139 a streak of rebellion in the DNA already. The 00:03:14.139 --> 00:03:16.280 father fights for the right to play music. Exactly. 00:03:16.539 --> 00:03:18.960 Johann Jakob was a working musician. He played 00:03:18.960 --> 00:03:20.939 in militia bands. He played in dance halls. He 00:03:20.939 --> 00:03:24.180 did whatever he had to. And he saw his son, Johannes, 00:03:24.479 --> 00:03:27.879 as a way to secure the family's fortune. He recognized 00:03:27.879 --> 00:03:31.120 that talent very, very early. Now, this brings 00:03:31.120 --> 00:03:33.800 up a story I've heard a thousand times. It's 00:03:33.800 --> 00:03:36.719 the sort of Oliver Twist version of Brahms. The 00:03:36.719 --> 00:03:39.620 myth. The myth. The story goes that the family 00:03:39.620 --> 00:03:42.360 was destitute, living in the slums, and that 00:03:42.360 --> 00:03:45.479 a preteen Johannes was forced to play piano in 00:03:45.479 --> 00:03:48.360 Hamburg's seediest waterfront brothels and bars 00:03:48.360 --> 00:03:50.960 late into the night just to put food on the table. 00:03:51.060 --> 00:03:53.300 It's gritty. It's dark. It's very dark. And it 00:03:53.300 --> 00:03:55.520 supposedly explains why he was so socially awkward 00:03:55.520 --> 00:03:58.060 later in life. But the notes here suggest that 00:03:58.060 --> 00:04:01.639 might be. Well, total fiction. Yeah, modern scholars 00:04:01.639 --> 00:04:03.639 have really taken a sledgehammer to that myth. 00:04:03.780 --> 00:04:06.319 It's a compelling narrative, the tortured artist 00:04:06.319 --> 00:04:09.280 rising from the gutter. But the facts just don't 00:04:09.280 --> 00:04:12.520 line up. The Brahms family wasn't rich, not by 00:04:12.520 --> 00:04:15.000 any stretch, but they were solid middle class. 00:04:15.379 --> 00:04:18.980 So not starving artists. Not at all. His father 00:04:18.980 --> 00:04:21.100 was a member of the Hamburg militia and eventually 00:04:21.100 --> 00:04:23.839 got a stable job as a horn player in the Hamburg 00:04:23.839 --> 00:04:26.920 Philharmonic. They owned their own home. They 00:04:26.920 --> 00:04:29.139 weren't starving. But wait, if they weren't starving, 00:04:29.300 --> 00:04:33.199 where did the brothel story even come from? And 00:04:33.199 --> 00:04:35.759 more importantly, if they had money, why would 00:04:35.759 --> 00:04:37.939 anyone send a 10 -year -old kid to play in a 00:04:37.939 --> 00:04:40.540 dive bar? That's the key question, isn't it? 00:04:40.600 --> 00:04:42.639 Hamburg at the time actually had incredibly strict 00:04:42.639 --> 00:04:45.300 laws about minors entering those kinds of establishments. 00:04:45.439 --> 00:04:47.819 They were called animere locale, sort of dance 00:04:47.819 --> 00:04:50.379 halls with sailors. If his father had sent him 00:04:50.379 --> 00:04:52.060 there, he would have risked his own position 00:04:52.060 --> 00:04:54.240 in the militia, his whole livelihood. So it's 00:04:54.240 --> 00:04:57.199 not just immoral, it's illegal and stupid. Exactly. 00:04:57.259 --> 00:05:00.339 It's likely that the story was an anecdotal exaggeration. 00:05:00.399 --> 00:05:03.339 Maybe Brahms later in life joked about playing 00:05:03.339 --> 00:05:05.360 in some low class joints, you know, for sailors. 00:05:05.420 --> 00:05:09.300 And over time, his biographer spun it into brothels. 00:05:09.300 --> 00:05:12.300 To add drama. It just adds drama to his origin 00:05:12.300 --> 00:05:14.620 story. It does sound better for the movie version 00:05:14.620 --> 00:05:16.860 of his life, I guess. From the brothel to the 00:05:16.860 --> 00:05:19.199 concert hall. Yeah, right. So the reality was 00:05:19.199 --> 00:05:22.300 more academic. And much more structured. He was 00:05:22.300 --> 00:05:24.420 receiving elite training from a very young age. 00:05:24.600 --> 00:05:27.560 He studied with a man named Otto Kossel, who 00:05:27.560 --> 00:05:30.420 realized the kid was a genius. And then Kossel 00:05:30.420 --> 00:05:33.399 passed him on to his own teacher, Edward Markson. 00:05:33.959 --> 00:05:36.420 And you cannot understand Brahms without understanding 00:05:36.420 --> 00:05:39.120 Markson. Why? Was he just a particularly good 00:05:39.120 --> 00:05:41.500 teacher? He was more than that. He was a connection 00:05:41.500 --> 00:05:44.420 to the entire timeline of German music. Markson 00:05:44.420 --> 00:05:46.550 was a personal acquaintance of Schubert. He knew 00:05:46.550 --> 00:05:49.170 the world of Beethoven. And he was absolutely 00:05:49.170 --> 00:05:51.709 obsessed with the music of Johann Sebastian Bach. 00:05:51.829 --> 00:05:54.230 The old master. Yes. So he didn't just teach 00:05:54.230 --> 00:05:56.670 Brahms how to move his fingers. He indoctrinated 00:05:56.670 --> 00:05:58.930 him into the holy trinity of the Germanic tradition. 00:05:59.269 --> 00:06:02.230 Bach, Mozart, Beethoven. So by the time he's 00:06:02.230 --> 00:06:04.449 10 years old, he's not playing drinking songs 00:06:04.449 --> 00:06:06.829 in a bar. He's being groomed as the heir to the 00:06:06.829 --> 00:06:09.589 throne. Precisely. At his public debut at age 00:06:09.589 --> 00:06:12.430 10, he plays Beethoven's Quintet for Piano and 00:06:12.430 --> 00:06:15.949 Winds and a Mozart Quartet. He's a child prodigy, 00:06:15.949 --> 00:06:18.750 but he's a serious child prodigy. His parents 00:06:18.750 --> 00:06:20.709 actually wanted him to do more flashy stuff, 00:06:20.870 --> 00:06:23.149 you know, tour as a wunderkind to make money. 00:06:23.329 --> 00:06:25.209 But his teachers put their foot down. They said, 00:06:25.209 --> 00:06:28.069 no, he needs to study, not be a circus act. Okay, 00:06:28.129 --> 00:06:31.329 so you have this foundation of pure, rigorous 00:06:31.329 --> 00:06:34.529 German structure. But Brahms' music isn't just 00:06:34.529 --> 00:06:37.389 dry academic exercises. There's a fire in it. 00:06:37.449 --> 00:06:39.589 There's this rhythmic aggression. Where does 00:06:39.589 --> 00:06:41.800 that come from? That comes from a lucky encounter 00:06:41.800 --> 00:06:45.100 in his teenage years. In 1850, a wave of Hungarian 00:06:45.100 --> 00:06:47.459 refugees passed through Hamburg after the failed 00:06:47.459 --> 00:06:50.800 revolutions of 1848. Among them was this incredible 00:06:50.800 --> 00:06:53.879 flamboyant violinist named Ed Remini. And Remini 00:06:53.879 --> 00:06:57.040 plays the gypsy style music. Yes, the style angois. 00:06:57.339 --> 00:07:00.879 He introduces Brahms to the cartas, these wild 00:07:00.879 --> 00:07:03.459 improvisational folk tunes that speed up and 00:07:03.459 --> 00:07:05.439 slow down that have these off -kilter rhythms. 00:07:05.899 --> 00:07:08.800 For a kid raised on strict Bach counterpoint, 00:07:09.000 --> 00:07:11.240 this was like throwing open a window in a stuffy 00:07:11.240 --> 00:07:14.420 room. It's the secret ingredient. It is. That 00:07:14.420 --> 00:07:17.199 influence never leaves him. It's the reason we 00:07:17.199 --> 00:07:19.800 have the Hungarian dances, which became his huge 00:07:19.800 --> 00:07:21.980 pop hits later on and made him a ton of money. 00:07:22.160 --> 00:07:24.990 But deeper than that... It infected his rhythmic 00:07:24.990 --> 00:07:27.850 DNA, gave his music a swagger and a kind of earthy 00:07:27.850 --> 00:07:29.850 punch that distinguished him from the other academics. 00:07:29.850 --> 00:07:32.230 So we have the ingredients, the discipline of 00:07:32.230 --> 00:07:34.569 Beethoven and the fire of the Hungarians. In 00:07:34.569 --> 00:07:37.970 1853, Brahms is 20. He's handsome. He's blonde. 00:07:38.110 --> 00:07:39.870 He's talented. He goes on tour with Reményi. 00:07:40.129 --> 00:07:42.410 And this leads to the moment that changes everything. 00:07:42.589 --> 00:07:44.350 This fateful doorstep. The fateful doorstep. 00:07:44.470 --> 00:07:46.850 This is the scene. Brahms and Romani are touring 00:07:46.850 --> 00:07:48.970 and they meet Joseph Joachim, who is basically 00:07:48.970 --> 00:07:51.029 the greatest violinist in the world at that time. 00:07:51.089 --> 00:07:54.050 A true superstar. Joachim hears Brahms play, 00:07:54.250 --> 00:07:55.990 takes one look at his compositions and just goes, 00:07:56.050 --> 00:07:58.350 whoa, you need to meet the Schumanns. Robert 00:07:58.350 --> 00:08:00.990 and Clara Schumann. We're talking about the power 00:08:00.990 --> 00:08:03.689 couple of romantic music. The absolute royalty. 00:08:03.810 --> 00:08:06.850 Robert Schumann was a famous composer, but he 00:08:06.850 --> 00:08:09.370 was also the most influential music critic in 00:08:09.370 --> 00:08:12.649 Europe. His journal could make or break a career. 00:08:13.310 --> 00:08:16.470 And Clara. Clara was one of the greatest pianists 00:08:16.470 --> 00:08:18.850 on the planet. A bigger star than Robert in many 00:08:18.850 --> 00:08:22.089 ways. Wow. So Joachim writes a letter of introduction 00:08:22.089 --> 00:08:25.930 and Brahms travels to Dusseldorf to knock on 00:08:25.930 --> 00:08:28.230 their door. I can't even imagine the pressure. 00:08:28.389 --> 00:08:31.290 Walking into the home of your idols, he sits 00:08:31.290 --> 00:08:33.210 down at the piano, plays some of his early sonatas, 00:08:33.269 --> 00:08:36.059 and happens. Robert Schumann is... Thunderstruck. 00:08:36.120 --> 00:08:38.399 He doesn't just like it. He sees it as a revelation. 00:08:38.679 --> 00:08:41.279 He stops him mid -piece, runs out to get Clara 00:08:41.279 --> 00:08:43.899 and says, you have to hear this. No way. They 00:08:43.899 --> 00:08:45.419 basically adopt him on the spot. He stays with 00:08:45.419 --> 00:08:47.679 them for weeks. They treat him like a son. And 00:08:47.679 --> 00:08:49.460 Robert doesn't keep this discovery to himself. 00:08:49.779 --> 00:08:52.379 No. And this is where it gets incredibly complicated. 00:08:52.879 --> 00:08:55.480 Robert hadn't written a critique in years, but 00:08:55.480 --> 00:08:57.559 he sits down and writes an article for his journal, 00:08:57.740 --> 00:09:00.980 The Noisite Shrift for Music, titled, Noyamanen, 00:09:01.080 --> 00:09:05.029 New Paths. New Paths. In this article, he tells 00:09:05.029 --> 00:09:08.190 the entire musical world that this unknown 20 00:09:08.190 --> 00:09:11.529 -year -old kid is the one. The one, like Neo 00:09:11.529 --> 00:09:13.629 in the Matrix. Basically, it's that level of 00:09:13.629 --> 00:09:16.769 hype. He describes Brahms as a young eagle, a 00:09:16.769 --> 00:09:19.629 messiah who is fated to express the ideal spirit 00:09:19.629 --> 00:09:22.929 of the times. The language is, it's over the 00:09:22.929 --> 00:09:25.889 top. He says Brahms sprang forth fully armed 00:09:25.889 --> 00:09:28.090 like Minerva from the head of Zeus. Okay, hold 00:09:28.090 --> 00:09:30.830 on. Put yourself in Brahms' shoes. You are 20. 00:09:31.340 --> 00:09:33.659 You have barely published anything, and suddenly 00:09:33.659 --> 00:09:35.840 the most famous critic in the world tells everyone, 00:09:36.039 --> 00:09:39.600 stop looking, the Savior is here. That sounds 00:09:39.600 --> 00:09:43.080 incredible, but also, wouldn't that just destroy 00:09:43.080 --> 00:09:45.720 you? It almost did. It was a curse in disguise. 00:09:46.440 --> 00:09:48.500 Brahms wrote to Robert afterwards, and you can 00:09:48.500 --> 00:09:50.460 just hear the panic in his voice. He said the 00:09:50.460 --> 00:09:52.899 praise aroused extraordinary expectations that 00:09:52.899 --> 00:09:54.659 he didn't know how to fulfill. It paralyzed him. 00:09:54.889 --> 00:09:57.309 Completely. It triggered this lifelong battle 00:09:57.309 --> 00:09:59.429 with crippling self -doubt and perfectionism. 00:09:59.470 --> 00:10:01.570 He felt like every single note he wrote from 00:10:01.570 --> 00:10:03.830 that day forward had to live up to this impossible 00:10:03.830 --> 00:10:07.870 prophecy. And the situation gets tragic really, 00:10:07.970 --> 00:10:11.149 really fast, doesn't it? Yeah. Because shortly 00:10:11.149 --> 00:10:14.129 after announcing the Messiah, Robert Schumann 00:10:14.129 --> 00:10:17.240 collapses. It's absolutely heartbreaking. Robert 00:10:17.240 --> 00:10:19.980 had battled mental illness for a long time, auditory 00:10:19.980 --> 00:10:22.980 hallucinations, deep depression. We now think 00:10:22.980 --> 00:10:25.259 it was likely tertiary syphilis, but of course 00:10:25.259 --> 00:10:28.659 it wasn't diagnosed as such then. In 1854, just 00:10:28.659 --> 00:10:31.179 a few months after meeting Brahms, Robert throws 00:10:31.179 --> 00:10:34.299 himself into the Rhine River in a suicide attempt. 00:10:34.639 --> 00:10:37.360 Oh, my God. He's rescued by fishermen, but he 00:10:37.360 --> 00:10:40.679 asks to be taken to an asylum. He's institutionalized 00:10:40.679 --> 00:10:43.159 for the rest of his life. He dies there two years 00:10:43.159 --> 00:10:46.659 later. And Brahms, the young eagle. the chosen 00:10:46.659 --> 00:10:49.580 one, suddenly finds himself in a very, very different 00:10:49.580 --> 00:10:52.039 role. He drops everything. He moves into an apartment 00:10:52.039 --> 00:10:54.740 in Dusseldorf to help Clara. She has seven children, 00:10:54.820 --> 00:10:56.600 she's pregnant with their eighth, and her husband 00:10:56.600 --> 00:10:58.460 is locked away where she can't even see him. 00:10:58.580 --> 00:11:02.039 He wasn't even 21 yet. No. And he becomes the 00:11:02.039 --> 00:11:04.860 de facto head of the household. He manages the 00:11:04.860 --> 00:11:07.580 finances, he teaches the kids, and he acts as 00:11:07.580 --> 00:11:09.700 the go -between visiting Robert in the asylum 00:11:09.700 --> 00:11:12.659 because, under the doctor's orders, Clara wasn't 00:11:12.659 --> 00:11:15.379 allowed to see him until the very end. This brings 00:11:15.379 --> 00:11:18.700 us to the elephant in the room. The relationship 00:11:18.700 --> 00:11:22.419 between Brahms and Clara Schumann. I feel like 00:11:22.419 --> 00:11:24.899 this is the most debated, most analyzed romance 00:11:24.899 --> 00:11:27.279 in music history. It really is. They were living 00:11:27.279 --> 00:11:29.179 together, essentially. He was in love with her, 00:11:29.240 --> 00:11:31.159 right? I mean, it seems obvious. Oh, deeply. 00:11:31.460 --> 00:11:34.080 We have the letters. He wrote to her, I wish 00:11:34.080 --> 00:11:36.179 I could write to you as tenderly as I love you 00:11:36.179 --> 00:11:37.980 and do as many good things for you as you would 00:11:37.980 --> 00:11:42.059 like. He calls her my beloved Clara. The passion 00:11:42.059 --> 00:11:44.549 is just pouring off the page. But she was 14 00:11:44.549 --> 00:11:47.149 years older than him, and she was his mentor's 00:11:47.149 --> 00:11:50.629 wife, his hero's wife. It was a tortured situation, 00:11:51.129 --> 00:11:53.450 an impossible triangle. He worshipped Robert. 00:11:53.570 --> 00:11:55.470 He was passionately in love with Clara. He was 00:11:55.470 --> 00:11:57.990 completely torn between loyalty and desire. But 00:11:57.990 --> 00:12:00.429 here is the plot twist that frustrates biographers 00:12:00.429 --> 00:12:05.669 to this day. Robert dies in 1856. Brahms and 00:12:05.669 --> 00:12:08.049 Clara are finally free. There is no legal or 00:12:08.049 --> 00:12:11.940 moral barrier anymore. End. They don't get married. 00:12:12.059 --> 00:12:14.539 They don't. That makes no sense. Yeah. If you 00:12:14.539 --> 00:12:16.440 love her that much and the obstacle is gone, 00:12:16.580 --> 00:12:18.700 why retreat? Did she reject him? Did he get cold 00:12:18.700 --> 00:12:20.580 feet? What happened? All the evidence suggests 00:12:20.580 --> 00:12:23.139 it was Brahms who pulled back. Once the crisis 00:12:23.139 --> 00:12:25.940 was over, the reality of domestic life, of being 00:12:25.940 --> 00:12:28.440 a stepfather to seven children, of being tied 00:12:28.440 --> 00:12:31.279 down, it seemed to terrify him. He valued his 00:12:31.279 --> 00:12:33.879 freedom and his art above everything else. He 00:12:33.879 --> 00:12:36.899 chose his work over love. It seemed so. He wrote 00:12:36.899 --> 00:12:38.720 later in life that he couldn't bear the fetters 00:12:38.720 --> 00:12:41.279 of marriage, so they parted ways, romantically 00:12:41.279 --> 00:12:43.539 speaking, though they remained penmates. They 00:12:43.539 --> 00:12:45.220 wrote to each other constantly until the day 00:12:45.220 --> 00:12:47.600 she died. He sent her every piece of music he 00:12:47.600 --> 00:12:49.600 wrote for her approval before he published it. 00:12:49.759 --> 00:12:52.289 Wow. It's almost like he needed that unrequited 00:12:52.289 --> 00:12:55.309 longing to fuel his music. If he had just settled 00:12:55.309 --> 00:12:57.549 down and been a happy husband, maybe we wouldn't 00:12:57.549 --> 00:12:59.330 have the Brahms we know. I think that's very 00:12:59.330 --> 00:13:01.929 likely true. That tension, that burning restraint 00:13:01.929 --> 00:13:04.929 you feel in his music, that's the signature of 00:13:04.929 --> 00:13:07.090 his sound. And it might have come directly from 00:13:07.090 --> 00:13:10.149 that relationship. So his personal life is a 00:13:10.149 --> 00:13:12.669 complete pressure cooker. Yeah. But his professional 00:13:12.669 --> 00:13:15.610 life is about to become a literal battlefield. 00:13:16.779 --> 00:13:19.700 We need to talk about the war of the romantics. 00:13:19.700 --> 00:13:21.940 The great schism. Yeah. And I want to get the 00:13:21.940 --> 00:13:24.159 context right here because I feel like people 00:13:24.159 --> 00:13:26.950 today. hear classical music and think it's all 00:13:26.950 --> 00:13:29.309 the same stuff. But in the mid 19th century, 00:13:29.409 --> 00:13:32.889 this was a massive, nasty fight. It was a total 00:13:32.889 --> 00:13:35.370 polarization. Think of it like a political divide 00:13:35.370 --> 00:13:37.830 today or maybe like the Beatles versus the Rolling 00:13:37.830 --> 00:13:40.269 Stones debate, but with, you know, way higher 00:13:40.269 --> 00:13:42.490 stakes and philosophical treatises. OK, so who 00:13:42.490 --> 00:13:44.909 are the two sides? On one side, you had the new 00:13:44.909 --> 00:13:47.570 German school led by Franz Liszt and most importantly, 00:13:47.690 --> 00:13:49.889 Richard Wagner. And what was their pitch? Why 00:13:49.889 --> 00:13:52.629 were they the cool ones, the radicals? They argued 00:13:52.629 --> 00:13:55.190 that the old -form symphonies, sonatas, quartets 00:13:55.190 --> 00:13:58.029 were dead, obsolete. They believed Beethoven 00:13:58.029 --> 00:14:00.769 had exhausted them in his Ninth Symphony. The 00:14:00.769 --> 00:14:03.230 future, they claimed, was programmatic music. 00:14:03.720 --> 00:14:06.700 Meaning music that tells a specific story. Exactly. 00:14:06.940 --> 00:14:09.940 Music that paints a picture, music that fuses 00:14:09.940 --> 00:14:13.500 with poetry and drama, lists symphonic poems, 00:14:13.899 --> 00:14:17.120 Wagner's music dramas. They were pushing harmony 00:14:17.120 --> 00:14:19.779 to the breaking point. To the young students, 00:14:19.960 --> 00:14:22.919 this was exciting. It was rebellious. It was 00:14:22.919 --> 00:14:25.559 the future. And on the other side. The traditionalists, 00:14:25.639 --> 00:14:28.659 the conservatives, led, philosophically at least, 00:14:28.679 --> 00:14:31.320 by Brahms, Joseph Joachim, and Clara Schumann. 00:14:31.440 --> 00:14:35.159 They believed in absolute music. Music for music's 00:14:35.159 --> 00:14:37.279 sake. Right. Music that doesn't need a story. 00:14:37.620 --> 00:14:40.220 Music that stands on its own internal logic and 00:14:40.220 --> 00:14:42.139 structure. They believed you could still say 00:14:42.139 --> 00:14:44.679 new and profound things within the forms that 00:14:44.679 --> 00:14:47.379 Beethoven and Mozart had perfected. So it's structure 00:14:47.379 --> 00:14:50.509 versus story. Old forms versus new forms. And 00:14:50.509 --> 00:14:53.049 Brahms, who is usually very private, decides 00:14:53.049 --> 00:14:55.370 to enter this fight publicly. And it is a complete 00:14:55.370 --> 00:14:58.929 disaster, a total PR nightmare. In 1860, Brahms 00:14:58.929 --> 00:15:01.610 and Joachim draft a manifesto. It's a public 00:15:01.610 --> 00:15:03.590 letter attacking the new German school. What 00:15:03.590 --> 00:15:05.789 did it say? It called Liszt's music miserable 00:15:05.789 --> 00:15:08.110 weeds that were growing in the garden of music. 00:15:08.250 --> 00:15:10.789 Miserable weeds. Wow, that's not subtle. Not 00:15:10.789 --> 00:15:13.470 at all. But here's the problem. The manifesto 00:15:13.470 --> 00:15:15.230 was leaked to the press before they had gotten 00:15:15.230 --> 00:15:17.429 enough signatures to make it look like a powerful... 00:15:17.480 --> 00:15:19.740 consensus it ended up with just four names on 00:15:19.740 --> 00:15:22.120 it oh no so it looked petty it looked like a 00:15:22.120 --> 00:15:24.299 few jealous guys yelling at the popular kids 00:15:24.299 --> 00:15:27.649 ouch How did the other side react? They destroyed 00:15:27.649 --> 00:15:30.169 them. They published a parody of the manifesto 00:15:30.169 --> 00:15:32.529 in their own journal, mocking Brahms as this 00:15:32.529 --> 00:15:36.029 backward -looking relic. It totally backfired 00:15:36.029 --> 00:15:38.929 and painted him into a corner as the anti -progress 00:15:38.929 --> 00:15:42.529 guy for years. Brahms was humiliated. Did he 00:15:42.529 --> 00:15:44.330 fight back after that? He learned his lesson. 00:15:44.350 --> 00:15:47.570 He realized, I cannot win a war of words with 00:15:47.570 --> 00:15:50.990 Richard Wagner because Wagner was a master propagandist, 00:15:51.070 --> 00:15:53.409 a genius at manipulating the press. So Brahms 00:15:53.409 --> 00:15:55.710 shut up. He never... published another polemic. 00:15:55.710 --> 00:15:58.250 He just he decided to let his music be his argument. 00:15:58.409 --> 00:16:01.549 But the other side didn't stop. Wagner in particular 00:16:01.549 --> 00:16:05.470 was vicious. Oh unbelievably vicious. Wagner 00:16:05.470 --> 00:16:08.230 called Brahms a street singer in a masquerade. 00:16:08.250 --> 00:16:10.830 He said his music had the stench of the museum. 00:16:11.500 --> 00:16:14.399 There were cartoons in the papers. One famous 00:16:14.399 --> 00:16:17.320 one shows Brahms' champion, the critic Edward 00:16:17.320 --> 00:16:20.299 Henslick, offering incense to a statue of Brahms 00:16:20.299 --> 00:16:22.799 like he's a false god, while Wagner's knights 00:16:22.799 --> 00:16:25.200 attack from the other side. It was a full -on 00:16:25.200 --> 00:16:27.259 culture war. It was tribal. You had to pip aside. 00:16:27.639 --> 00:16:30.340 It's wild to imagine composers having stands 00:16:30.340 --> 00:16:32.519 and haters like that. Yeah. But despite all the 00:16:32.519 --> 00:16:34.860 public insults, Brahms kind of took the high 00:16:34.860 --> 00:16:36.879 road, didn't he? He did, and this is what makes 00:16:36.879 --> 00:16:39.720 him so fascinating. He actually respected Wagner's 00:16:39.720 --> 00:16:42.929 music. helped prepare concerts of Wagner's operas 00:16:42.929 --> 00:16:45.950 in Vienna. He owned Wagner's manuscripts. He 00:16:45.950 --> 00:16:48.330 was somehow able to say, this man is a genius, 00:16:48.370 --> 00:16:50.690 even if his philosophy is wrong, and even if 00:16:50.690 --> 00:16:52.730 he hates me personally. That takes an incredible 00:16:52.730 --> 00:16:55.330 amount of confidence. Yeah. Which is ironic because 00:16:55.330 --> 00:16:56.850 speaking of confidence, let's go back to that 00:16:56.850 --> 00:16:59.450 curse of praise. We talked about how Robert Schumann's 00:16:59.450 --> 00:17:03.070 prophecy paralyzed him. Nowhere is this more 00:17:03.070 --> 00:17:05.670 obvious than in his struggle to write a symphony. 00:17:05.769 --> 00:17:09.309 The 15 -year block. It's legendary. Brahms started 00:17:09.309 --> 00:17:13.250 sketching ideas for a symphony in 1855. He didn't 00:17:13.250 --> 00:17:15.509 finish and premiere his first symphony until 00:17:15.509 --> 00:17:19.849 1876. 15 years! That's longer than the Beatles' 00:17:19.990 --> 00:17:22.230 entire career. Why? What took so long? It was 00:17:22.230 --> 00:17:24.349 the shadow of Beethoven. You have to understand, 00:17:24.509 --> 00:17:26.829 in the 19th century, the symphony was the genre. 00:17:27.069 --> 00:17:29.730 It was the heavyweight championship of composition, 00:17:30.049 --> 00:17:33.170 and Beethoven had set the bar so impossibly high 00:17:33.170 --> 00:17:35.609 with his Ninth Symphony that everyone was terrified 00:17:35.609 --> 00:17:38.559 to follow it. Right. Brahms famously said, you 00:17:38.559 --> 00:17:40.559 have no idea what it is like to hear the footsteps 00:17:40.559 --> 00:17:43.119 of a giant thumping behind you. He felt like 00:17:43.119 --> 00:17:45.180 an imposter, like he couldn't measure up. He 00:17:45.180 --> 00:17:46.880 felt like he's being watched by the ghost of 00:17:46.880 --> 00:17:49.539 Beethoven. He was so terrified of mediocrity 00:17:49.539 --> 00:17:51.559 that he destroyed his own work relentlessly. 00:17:51.660 --> 00:17:54.640 He burned, by his own account, at least 20 string 00:17:54.640 --> 00:17:57.859 quartets. 20. That physically hurts me to hear. 00:17:58.019 --> 00:18:00.599 Yeah. Imagine what was in those pages. That's 00:18:00.599 --> 00:18:03.160 a lifetime's work for another composer. It shows 00:18:03.160 --> 00:18:06.470 his impossibly high standard. If it wasn't perfect, 00:18:06.750 --> 00:18:08.829 if it wasn't worthy of standing next to Beethoven, 00:18:09.210 --> 00:18:12.329 it didn't survive. But when he finally released 00:18:12.329 --> 00:18:16.990 the first symphony in 1876, the dam broke. It 00:18:16.990 --> 00:18:19.210 was a masterpiece. And what was the reception? 00:18:19.490 --> 00:18:22.630 The conductor, Hans von Bülow, immediately called 00:18:22.630 --> 00:18:25.400 it Beethoven's 10th. It was the highest possible 00:18:25.400 --> 00:18:28.220 praise. Which brings up a funny moment. Critics 00:18:28.220 --> 00:18:30.319 immediately pointed out that the big hymn -like 00:18:30.319 --> 00:18:33.099 theme in the finale of Brahms' first sounds a 00:18:33.099 --> 00:18:35.619 lot like the Ode to Joy from Beethoven's 9th. 00:18:35.799 --> 00:18:38.319 It's almost a direct quote. It's very, very similar. 00:18:38.500 --> 00:18:40.740 And Brahms' response is legendary. When someone 00:18:40.740 --> 00:18:43.160 pointed out to him, he just snapped. Any dunce 00:18:43.160 --> 00:18:46.450 can see that. I love that. He's not defensive 00:18:46.450 --> 00:18:47.890 at all. He's like, yeah, I did it on purpose. 00:18:47.990 --> 00:18:50.250 Deal with it. Exactly. He was saying, I am not 00:18:50.250 --> 00:18:52.890 hiding from Beethoven. I am standing on his shoulders. 00:18:53.049 --> 00:18:55.910 I am claiming my inheritance. And once that first 00:18:55.910 --> 00:18:57.950 symphony was out, the psychological block was 00:18:57.950 --> 00:19:00.309 gone. The floodgates opened. And the masterpieces 00:19:00.309 --> 00:19:02.849 just poured out. The second symphony, the violin 00:19:02.849 --> 00:19:05.210 concerto, the fourth symphony, all these huge 00:19:05.210 --> 00:19:07.769 works came out in the next decade. And since 00:19:07.769 --> 00:19:09.549 we're talking it has its output during this time, 00:19:09.710 --> 00:19:12.789 I have to ask about the academic festival overture. 00:19:12.930 --> 00:19:16.089 Because for a guy who was supposedly so serious 00:19:16.089 --> 00:19:19.190 and self -critical, this story is hilarious. 00:19:19.609 --> 00:19:21.589 It gets to the ultimate hold my beer moment in 00:19:21.589 --> 00:19:25.349 classical music. In 1880, the University of Breslau 00:19:25.349 --> 00:19:28.329 offered Brahms an honorary doctorate, a very 00:19:28.329 --> 00:19:30.470 prestigious thing. They expected him to write, 00:19:30.609 --> 00:19:33.569 you know, a dignified musical thank you note. 00:19:33.809 --> 00:19:36.170 Something solemn. Something academic. Right. 00:19:36.640 --> 00:19:39.579 Instead, Brahms wrote the academic festival Overture. 00:19:39.759 --> 00:19:42.619 It starts seriously enough, but then it completely 00:19:42.619 --> 00:19:45.579 devolves into a medley of rowdy student drinking 00:19:45.579 --> 00:19:47.920 songs he remembered from his youth. You're kidding. 00:19:48.200 --> 00:19:51.079 No. The biggest, grandest climax of the piece 00:19:51.079 --> 00:19:54.490 is the song Gedimus Igitor. which is basically 00:19:54.490 --> 00:19:57.089 a song about drinking and enjoying life before 00:19:57.089 --> 00:19:59.329 you turn to dust. So he accepts an honorary degree 00:19:59.329 --> 00:20:02.410 by playing the faculty a medley of keg -san anthems. 00:20:02.509 --> 00:20:05.829 Yes, and he orchestrated it so brilliantly and 00:20:05.829 --> 00:20:08.150 with such joy that they couldn't even be mad. 00:20:08.369 --> 00:20:10.490 It's loud, it's boisterous, and it's basically 00:20:10.490 --> 00:20:13.069 Brahms winking at the establishment while being 00:20:13.069 --> 00:20:15.549 embraced by it. That perfectly leads into the 00:20:15.549 --> 00:20:17.890 next big contradiction. We have the prankster, 00:20:17.990 --> 00:20:20.190 we have the traditionalist. But let's look at 00:20:20.190 --> 00:20:22.650 the title of our deep dive again, The Progressive 00:20:22.650 --> 00:20:25.150 Traditionalist. This is the part that really 00:20:25.150 --> 00:20:28.750 changes how we listen to him. Years after Brahms 00:20:28.750 --> 00:20:32.109 died, Arnold Schoenberg, the boogeyman of modern 00:20:32.109 --> 00:20:34.509 music, the guy who invented atonal music, the 00:20:34.509 --> 00:20:37.170 scariest modernist of them all, he wrote an essay 00:20:37.170 --> 00:20:40.849 called Brahms the Progressive. Why on earth would 00:20:40.849 --> 00:20:43.549 Schoenberg, of all people, care about Brahms? 00:20:43.769 --> 00:20:46.549 This is the crucial reframing of his entire legacy. 00:20:46.849 --> 00:20:49.410 The War of the Romantics was about surface -level 00:20:49.410 --> 00:20:52.049 stuff stories versus forms, program music versus 00:20:52.049 --> 00:20:54.210 absolute music. But Schoenberg looked at the 00:20:54.210 --> 00:20:56.710 engine of Brahms's music. He looked at the internal 00:20:56.710 --> 00:20:59.049 wiring. And he realized that Brahms was doing 00:20:59.049 --> 00:21:01.369 something incredibly advanced called developing 00:21:01.369 --> 00:21:04.250 variation. Okay, developing variation. That sounds 00:21:04.250 --> 00:21:05.970 like a textbook term. Can you break that down 00:21:05.970 --> 00:21:07.990 for us? How is that different from what, say, 00:21:08.069 --> 00:21:11.910 Mozart did? Sure. Think of a pop song or even 00:21:11.910 --> 00:21:15.089 Mozart aria. Usually you have a melody, a tune. 00:21:15.230 --> 00:21:17.690 You play the melody. Then maybe you repeat it. 00:21:17.769 --> 00:21:20.150 Then you go to a chorus. Then you come back to 00:21:20.150 --> 00:21:22.369 the melody. It's sectional. It's like building 00:21:22.369 --> 00:21:24.650 a house with pre -made bricks. Here's a brick. 00:21:24.789 --> 00:21:27.210 Here's another brick. Got it. Verse, chorus, 00:21:27.410 --> 00:21:30.720 verse. very clear blocks right Brahms didn't 00:21:30.720 --> 00:21:33.019 build with bricks he built like a plant grows 00:21:33.019 --> 00:21:36.539 he would start with a tiny musical cell a seed 00:21:36.539 --> 00:21:38.839 maybe just two or three notes a tiny interval 00:21:38.839 --> 00:21:41.640 and everything that follows in the entire piece 00:21:41.640 --> 00:21:44.420 grows organically out of that initial seed so 00:21:44.420 --> 00:21:46.819 it's not repeated it's evolved constantly evolving 00:21:46.819 --> 00:21:49.579 the melody is never just repeated it's continuously 00:21:49.579 --> 00:21:52.180 turning upside down stretching shrinking changing 00:21:52.180 --> 00:21:54.839 its rhythm you can trace every branch back to 00:21:54.839 --> 00:21:57.099 the trunk and the trunk back to the seed but 00:21:57.099 --> 00:21:59.299 they look Totally different on the surface. So 00:21:59.299 --> 00:22:01.859 it's an organic, almost biological approach to 00:22:01.859 --> 00:22:04.960 composing. Exactly. It's incredibly dense. There's 00:22:04.960 --> 00:22:07.799 no filler. Every single note is related to the 00:22:07.799 --> 00:22:11.240 core DNA of the piece. Schoenberg loved this 00:22:11.240 --> 00:22:13.880 because he saw it as the path to the future music 00:22:13.880 --> 00:22:17.519 that was pure structure, total unity, where nothing 00:22:17.519 --> 00:22:20.890 was arbitrary. He saw Brahms not as the end of 00:22:20.890 --> 00:22:23.230 the old way, but the beginning of the new way. 00:22:23.410 --> 00:22:25.309 And it wasn't just the melody and harmony, right? 00:22:25.569 --> 00:22:27.529 I've heard that his rhythm was also way ahead 00:22:27.529 --> 00:22:29.769 of its time. Oh, miles ahead. We mentioned the 00:22:29.769 --> 00:22:33.170 Hungarian influence earlier. Brahms loved a rhythmic 00:22:33.170 --> 00:22:35.589 device called hemiola. Hemiola. I've heard the 00:22:35.589 --> 00:22:37.750 term, but what does it actually feel like when 00:22:37.750 --> 00:22:39.650 you're listening to it? It feels like a stumble 00:22:39.650 --> 00:22:42.269 or like the music is tripping over itself. Imagine 00:22:42.269 --> 00:22:44.250 you're dancing a waltz. It's in three, right? 00:22:44.410 --> 00:22:46.910 One, two, three, one, two, three. It's a steady 00:22:46.910 --> 00:22:50.099 triple meter. okay suddenly bronze will shift 00:22:50.099 --> 00:22:52.519 the accent so it feels like one two one two one 00:22:52.519 --> 00:22:56.940 two He jams a two feel inside a three bar without 00:22:56.940 --> 00:22:59.259 changing the time signature. It creates this 00:22:59.259 --> 00:23:01.640 incredible rhythmic friction like the floor is 00:23:01.640 --> 00:23:04.000 tilting underneath you for a second. It destabilizes 00:23:04.000 --> 00:23:06.240 the beat. Right. And he would layer these things. 00:23:06.319 --> 00:23:08.279 He'd have the violins playing in three while 00:23:08.279 --> 00:23:10.640 the cellos are playing in two. It completely 00:23:10.640 --> 00:23:14.220 blurred the bar lines. Igor Stravinsky, the guy 00:23:14.220 --> 00:23:16.240 who wrote The Rite of Spring and changed rhythm 00:23:16.240 --> 00:23:19.180 forever, pointed to Brahms as a huge influence 00:23:19.180 --> 00:23:22.099 on modern rhythmic thinking. That is mind -blowing. 00:23:22.460 --> 00:23:25.500 The conservative Brahms paved the way for Stravinsky 00:23:25.500 --> 00:23:28.779 and Schoenberg. It really makes the whole war 00:23:28.779 --> 00:23:30.900 of the romantics look silly in hindsight. They 00:23:30.900 --> 00:23:32.700 were fighting about the wrong things. They were. 00:23:32.819 --> 00:23:35.059 They were arguing about the paint color while 00:23:35.059 --> 00:23:37.619 Brahms was redesigning the engine. And there's 00:23:37.619 --> 00:23:41.059 one more layer to his progressiveness, and it 00:23:41.059 --> 00:23:43.059 actually comes from his obsession with the past. 00:23:43.319 --> 00:23:45.980 How does that work? Brahms was a serious music 00:23:45.980 --> 00:23:48.759 historian, a scholar. He collected old manuscripts, 00:23:49.160 --> 00:23:52.180 Renaissance choral music, Baroque motets. He 00:23:52.180 --> 00:23:54.579 edited the works of Couperin and C .P .E. Bach 00:23:54.579 --> 00:23:56.559 for publication. He was a nerd for the old stuff. 00:23:56.740 --> 00:23:59.140 A total nerd. But he didn't just study it. He 00:23:59.140 --> 00:24:01.420 used those ancient techniques to make modern 00:24:01.420 --> 00:24:04.119 sounds. Take the finale of his Fourth Symphony. 00:24:04.359 --> 00:24:06.960 It's one of the greatest, most emotionally devastating 00:24:06.960 --> 00:24:09.460 pieces of music ever written. Yeah. And it's 00:24:09.460 --> 00:24:12.519 a Passacaglia. Which is a Baroque form from Bach's 00:24:12.519 --> 00:24:16.019 time. Yes. It's a set of 30 variations over a 00:24:16.019 --> 00:24:19.039 repeating eight -bar bass line. It was considered 00:24:19.039 --> 00:24:22.799 an archaic dead form. Nobody wrote Passacaglias 00:24:22.799 --> 00:24:24.839 in the 1880s. It was like a modern filmmaker 00:24:24.839 --> 00:24:27.720 deciding to shoot a feature -length silent movie. 00:24:27.940 --> 00:24:30.440 But he made it work. He took that rigid, ancient 00:24:30.440 --> 00:24:32.480 mathematical structure and filled it with the 00:24:32.480 --> 00:24:36.160 most explosive, tragic, romantic emotion imaginable. 00:24:36.480 --> 00:24:38.519 He proved that looking backward was actually 00:24:38.519 --> 00:24:40.819 a way to move forward. That's a powerful idea. 00:24:41.359 --> 00:24:43.089 Innovation isn't always a - about destroying 00:24:43.089 --> 00:24:45.730 the past. Sometimes it's about remixing it. Exactly. 00:24:45.730 --> 00:24:48.109 He was the master of that. I want to shift gears 00:24:48.109 --> 00:24:50.789 to the man himself again. We've established he 00:24:50.789 --> 00:24:53.609 wasn't just a statue. But what was he like to 00:24:53.609 --> 00:24:55.230 hang out with? Because the stories seem to vary 00:24:55.230 --> 00:24:58.630 between sweetest guy ever and absolute jerk. 00:24:58.849 --> 00:25:02.079 He was both. He absolutely cultivated a porcupine 00:25:02.079 --> 00:25:05.259 exterior to protect a very soft interior. He 00:25:05.259 --> 00:25:07.420 was famous for being grumpy and rude at Vienna 00:25:07.420 --> 00:25:10.119 dinner parties. There's a classic story where 00:25:10.119 --> 00:25:11.880 he's leaving a party, stops at the door, turns 00:25:11.880 --> 00:25:13.799 to the whole room and says, if there's anyone 00:25:13.799 --> 00:25:16.579 here I have not insulted, I apologize. That is 00:25:16.579 --> 00:25:18.920 a legendary exit line. I have to use that sometime. 00:25:19.119 --> 00:25:22.200 It is. But that prickly shell was hiding a very 00:25:22.200 --> 00:25:25.230 soft center. He was incredibly generous with 00:25:25.230 --> 00:25:27.750 his money, often anonymously supporting struggling 00:25:27.750 --> 00:25:30.170 musicians and their families. And he was the 00:25:30.170 --> 00:25:32.650 one who discovered Antonin Dujac. How'd that 00:25:32.650 --> 00:25:35.809 happen? Dujac was a total nobody, a poor musician 00:25:35.809 --> 00:25:38.789 from Bohemia entering a state composition contest. 00:25:39.650 --> 00:25:42.569 Brahms was one of the judges. He saw Dujac's 00:25:42.569 --> 00:25:45.609 score, realized the raw talent, and basically 00:25:45.609 --> 00:25:48.890 bullied his own publisher, Simrock, into printing 00:25:48.890 --> 00:25:52.329 Dvořák's music. He launched Dujac's career single 00:25:52.329 --> 00:25:54.660 -handedly. And we have to talk about the autograph 00:25:54.660 --> 00:25:57.019 story. This is my favorite Brahms moment because 00:25:57.019 --> 00:25:59.599 it shows he wasn't a snob. He was friends with 00:25:59.599 --> 00:26:02.359 Johann Strauss II, the waltz king. Yes, the Blue 00:26:02.359 --> 00:26:04.779 Danube guy. You'd think the serious composer 00:26:04.779 --> 00:26:06.980 of symphonies would look down on popular dance 00:26:06.980 --> 00:26:10.359 music, but Brahms adored Strauss's waltzes. He 00:26:10.359 --> 00:26:12.660 openly said he wished he had written them. So 00:26:12.660 --> 00:26:15.039 what's the story with the autograph? So Strauss's 00:26:15.039 --> 00:26:17.559 wife, Adele, approached Brahms at a party and 00:26:17.559 --> 00:26:20.200 asked him to autograph her fan, a common thing 00:26:20.200 --> 00:26:22.710 back then. Usually a composer would scribble 00:26:22.710 --> 00:26:25.430 a few bars of their own famous music. Brahms 00:26:25.430 --> 00:26:27.970 takes the fan, scribbles the opening notes of 00:26:27.970 --> 00:26:30.670 the Blue Danube Walt Strauss' music, and writes 00:26:30.670 --> 00:26:33.349 underneath it. Unfortunately not by Johannes 00:26:33.349 --> 00:26:36.170 Brahms. That is so humble and witty. It shows 00:26:36.170 --> 00:26:38.490 a complete lack of ego that you just don't expect 00:26:38.490 --> 00:26:41.950 from a great man of that era. It shows he recognized 00:26:41.950 --> 00:26:45.029 genius in all its forms, whether it was a Bach 00:26:45.029 --> 00:26:48.599 fugue or a perfect Strauss waltz. Speaking of 00:26:48.599 --> 00:26:51.720 genius and depth, we had to touch on his spiritual 00:26:51.720 --> 00:26:54.180 life. We mentioned the German Requiem earlier. 00:26:55.140 --> 00:26:57.680 Drozhok, who was a devout Catholic, once complained 00:26:57.680 --> 00:27:00.299 about Brahms, saying, such a great man, such 00:27:00.299 --> 00:27:02.420 a great soul, and he believes in nothing. Was 00:27:02.420 --> 00:27:05.039 Brahms an atheist? Atheist is probably too strong 00:27:05.039 --> 00:27:07.619 a word. He was more of a humanist or an agnostic. 00:27:07.640 --> 00:27:09.759 He was baptized Lutheran. He knew the Bible inside 00:27:09.759 --> 00:27:12.460 and out. But he was very skeptical of organized 00:27:12.460 --> 00:27:15.019 religion in his adult life. He didn't go to church. 00:27:15.319 --> 00:27:18.299 And you see this clearly in a German requiem. 00:27:18.440 --> 00:27:22.089 How so? Isn't a requiem a mass for the dead? 00:27:22.269 --> 00:27:25.329 With all the Latin prayers? A traditional Catholic 00:27:25.329 --> 00:27:28.170 requiem is a prayer for the dead, praying that 00:27:28.170 --> 00:27:30.410 their souls get into heaven, avoiding judgment 00:27:30.410 --> 00:27:34.430 and hellfire. It's all about the afterlife. Brahms 00:27:34.430 --> 00:27:37.650 tossed out the Latin liturgy completely. He wrote 00:27:37.650 --> 00:27:40.450 his own text. He handpicked his own texts from 00:27:40.450 --> 00:27:42.769 Martin Luther's German translation of the Bible. 00:27:42.950 --> 00:27:46.049 And every single passage he chose is focused 00:27:46.049 --> 00:27:48.730 on comforting the living. That's a huge shift. 00:27:48.809 --> 00:27:50.390 It's not about the soul departing. It's about 00:27:50.390 --> 00:27:53.109 the people left behind who are crying. Exactly. 00:27:53.170 --> 00:27:55.509 The very first line is, Blessed are they that 00:27:55.509 --> 00:27:58.029 mourn, for they shall be comforted. It's psychological, 00:27:58.089 --> 00:28:00.630 not theological. He even told a conductor that 00:28:00.630 --> 00:28:02.750 he would have gladly swapped the word German. 00:28:03.150 --> 00:28:06.289 in the title for Human, he wanted it to be a 00:28:06.289 --> 00:28:08.529 universal message of comfort for anyone suffering 00:28:08.529 --> 00:28:10.769 loss regardless of their faith. That makes it 00:28:10.769 --> 00:28:12.670 feel much more modern. Yeah. It's about the human 00:28:12.670 --> 00:28:14.849 condition, not dogma. Which is why it still hits 00:28:14.849 --> 00:28:16.829 people so hard today. It's for us. Let's move 00:28:16.829 --> 00:28:19.289 to the final chapter of his life. Brahms is getting 00:28:19.289 --> 00:28:21.789 older. He's achieved everything. He's rich. He's 00:28:21.789 --> 00:28:25.250 famous. The war has mostly cooled down. In 1890, 00:28:25.569 --> 00:28:29.619 at age 57, he decides to retire. He thinks he's 00:28:29.619 --> 00:28:32.200 tapped out. He really did. He wrote his will. 00:28:32.319 --> 00:28:34.460 He started throwing away incomplete manuscripts. 00:28:34.640 --> 00:28:37.400 He told his publisher, I'm done. I've achieved 00:28:37.400 --> 00:28:39.660 enough. I'm just going to eat well and enjoy 00:28:39.660 --> 00:28:42.900 my vacation. He felt the creative well was dry. 00:28:43.220 --> 00:28:46.039 But the universe had other plans. And those plans 00:28:46.039 --> 00:28:49.579 involved a clarinet. Right. In 1891, he takes 00:28:49.579 --> 00:28:51.559 a trip to the court of Meiningen and hears the 00:28:51.559 --> 00:28:53.980 principal clarinetist, a man named Richard Muehlfeld. 00:28:54.420 --> 00:28:56.880 And something about the sound of that instrument, 00:28:57.079 --> 00:29:00.500 that mellow, hollow, autumnal quality just captivated 00:29:00.500 --> 00:29:03.559 him. It unlocked one last door in his creativity. 00:29:03.859 --> 00:29:06.200 It's his Indian summer. It is a beautiful one. 00:29:06.339 --> 00:29:08.660 He comes out of retirement and writes the clarinet 00:29:08.660 --> 00:29:11.500 trio, the gorgeous clarinet quintet and two clarinet 00:29:11.500 --> 00:29:14.099 sonatas. And these pieces are just sublime. They're 00:29:14.099 --> 00:29:16.369 less stormy. me than his early stuff they're 00:29:16.369 --> 00:29:20.109 nostalgic sad but so deeply beautiful it's the 00:29:20.109 --> 00:29:22.230 sound of a man looking back on his life and saying 00:29:22.230 --> 00:29:24.609 goodbye and the goodbye came relatively soon 00:29:24.609 --> 00:29:28.450 after that it did in 1896 he was diagnosed with 00:29:28.450 --> 00:29:30.849 liver cancer the same disease that had killed 00:29:30.849 --> 00:29:34.640 his father he deteriorated very quickly His last 00:29:34.640 --> 00:29:37.619 public appearance was in March 1897, just a month 00:29:37.619 --> 00:29:39.900 before he died. Where was it? He went to the 00:29:39.900 --> 00:29:42.099 Musikverein in Vienna to hear a performance of 00:29:42.099 --> 00:29:43.819 his own Fourth Symphony. That must have been 00:29:43.819 --> 00:29:46.220 an incredibly emotional night. It was overwhelming. 00:29:46.579 --> 00:29:48.720 The audience knew he was dying. He was sitting 00:29:48.720 --> 00:29:51.319 up in the director's box looking pale and frail. 00:29:51.460 --> 00:29:53.900 And after every single movement of the symphony, 00:29:53.960 --> 00:29:56.720 the entire audience erupted into applause looking 00:29:56.720 --> 00:29:59.640 up at him. Tears were streaming down his face. 00:29:59.720 --> 00:30:01.640 It was the public telling him, we understand. 00:30:01.700 --> 00:30:04.769 We love you. Thank you. Wow. That gives me chills. 00:30:04.869 --> 00:30:07.670 What a way to go. He died on April 3rd, 1897. 00:30:08.069 --> 00:30:10.390 He was buried in the Vienna Central Cemetery 00:30:10.390 --> 00:30:13.210 right near Beethoven and Schubert. He finally 00:30:13.210 --> 00:30:15.109 took his place physically among the giants he 00:30:15.109 --> 00:30:17.670 spent his whole life looking up to. And history 00:30:17.670 --> 00:30:20.089 cemented that place pretty quickly. The conductor 00:30:20.089 --> 00:30:22.369 Hans von Bülow coined that fountains phrase, 00:30:22.589 --> 00:30:26.029 the three Bs. Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, the holy 00:30:26.029 --> 00:30:28.589 trinity of German music. It solidified him as 00:30:28.589 --> 00:30:31.380 the third pillar of that great lineage. the rightful 00:30:31.380 --> 00:30:34.059 heir. So as we wrap this up, let's try to summarize 00:30:34.059 --> 00:30:37.160 what we've learned. Brahms wasn't just the bearded 00:30:37.160 --> 00:30:40.140 statue on the piano. No, he was the bridge. He 00:30:40.140 --> 00:30:41.940 was the one who proved that you didn't have to 00:30:41.940 --> 00:30:44.400 burn down the library to write a new book. He 00:30:44.400 --> 00:30:46.559 showed that you could take the strict, ancient 00:30:46.559 --> 00:30:49.599 forms of the past, the counterpoint, the sonata, 00:30:49.660 --> 00:30:52.039 the passacaglia, and fill them with a modern, 00:30:52.119 --> 00:30:55.400 complex, emotional language. He paved the way 00:30:55.400 --> 00:30:58.259 for modernism not by breaking the rules, but 00:30:58.259 --> 00:31:01.559 by mastering them so completely that he exhausted 00:31:01.559 --> 00:31:04.200 their possibilities from the inside out. It brings 00:31:04.200 --> 00:31:06.799 me to a final provocative thought for you, for 00:31:06.799 --> 00:31:09.000 our listeners. We live in a world today that's 00:31:09.000 --> 00:31:12.079 defined by remix culture. We sample old songs. 00:31:12.099 --> 00:31:14.099 We reboot old movies. We archive everything. 00:31:14.220 --> 00:31:18.200 We often create by recontextualizing the past. 00:31:18.599 --> 00:31:21.339 In that sense, is Brahms actually the first true 00:31:21.339 --> 00:31:24.519 modern artist, a creator who built new worlds 00:31:24.519 --> 00:31:27.279 strictly by remixing the DNA of his musical ancestors? 00:31:27.619 --> 00:31:30.259 He didn't invent the forms. He evolved them into 00:31:30.259 --> 00:31:32.140 something new. That's a fascinating way to look 00:31:32.140 --> 00:31:34.500 at it. He was the ultimate synthesizer. He proved 00:31:34.500 --> 00:31:37.039 that the past is never really dead, if you know 00:31:37.039 --> 00:31:39.339 how to talk to it. If you want to hear that synthesis 00:31:39.339 --> 00:31:42.339 in action, I want everyone to go listen to the 00:31:42.339 --> 00:31:44.460 finale of the Fourth Symphony. Don't just let 00:31:44.460 --> 00:31:47.000 it wash over you. Really listen and try to hear 00:31:47.000 --> 00:31:49.480 that eight -bar bass line hidden underneath, 00:31:49.779 --> 00:31:52.559 holding up that massive, tragic, romantic storm. 00:31:53.069 --> 00:31:55.250 It's a trip. It certainly is. A masterpiece. 00:31:55.609 --> 00:31:57.589 That's it for this deep dive into the progressive 00:31:57.589 --> 00:31:59.890 traditionalist. Thanks for listening, and we'll 00:31:59.890 --> 00:32:00.869 catch you on the next one.