If there was ever a composer who was acutely aware of his place in history, it was Johannes Brahms. He knew from a very young age, what he wanted to do in life, and by the time he reached middle age,  he was well aware of his standing in the history of composers.

Brahms’ father was a bassist in the orchestra, and not a particularly good one. He encouraged his boy, Johannes Brahms, to take up violin or bass so he could always have a steady job as a musician. Brahms insisted on piano lessons when he was a young boy. His father said “no.” “Only one in a million piano players actually make a living at it.” The father told the son, “Learn an instrument that will ensure you a steady job.” The boy persisted and his father finally relented. Then at 14, Brahms insisted that his father find him a teacher to teach him musical composition. Once again his father resisted. “You’ll never make a living at composition, my son” he told him. Little Johannes Brahms was so insistent about it that his father finally gave in. The boy began lessons and studying the scores to everything he could get a hold of by Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, and eventually Bach and Handel. But his father continued to discourage the boy from trying to be a composer.

At the age of 20, Brahms showed Schumann a couple of piano sonatas he had composed. The sonatas were very derivative of certain piano sonatas by Beethoven, yet at the same time, they showed originality, and a firm grasp of form. Schumann was very impressed with those works and in his music magazine he announced that the young Brahms would be the next Beethoven.

His next few compositions were not as skillfully composed as those sonatas, and were not very successful. His first piano concerto was a disaster.

Wagner, who was 20 years Brahms’ senior, thought that the young Brahms was just a dumb yokel from the slums of Hamburg who thought he was some sort of big shot. Wagner did not take the young Brahms seriously until one day when he attended a party at which Brahms played his “Variations on a theme by Handel.” That completely changed Wagner’s opinion of Brahms. He knew then and there that Johannes Brahms was not just a dumb yokel from the slums of Hamburg. Wagner had to admit that it is still possible to compose great music in the old forms, something he had declared a lost art.

It was with his so-called German Requiem that Brahms first gained popularity. That work was composed in an easy enough style for it to be performed by any amateur choir ambitious enough to tackle it. It became immensely popular in his own lifetime.

He went on the compose four symphonies, two huge piano concertos, lots of chamber music, and some very nice short piano pieces. He wrote songs for solo voice with piano all of his life, and a few part songs as well.  Probably his least popular pieces are his two string quartets. They are skillfully composed, yet they seem to lack vitality and soul. Another work of his that never became popular is the cantata, Rinaldo. It is usually cited as being among his worst efforts.

He composed two large sets of variations, the Variations on a Theme by Handel for solo piano, and the Variations on St Anthony’s Choral (usually known by the misnomer, “Variations on a Theme by Haydn”. Brahms eventually orchestrated the variations on a Theme by Haydn, and in my opinion, it is the only instance of really good orchestration by Brahms. It is the first free-standing set of variations for orchestra in history. Other composers, notably Beethoven, had used variation form (or at least a quasi-variation form) for finales of symphonies, but this was the first time a composer composed a set of variations for orchestra as a complete work in itself, rather than as a movement for a symphony. It is a great work and one of my favorites. There is a nice orchestration of Brahms’ Variations on a Theme by Handel, that can be found on some recordings, but the orchestration was not done by Brahms. His Hungarian dances are very popular in their orchestrated version (orchestrated by Brahms), but the original piano versions of those dances are worth listening to as well.

There are a few nice choral works in his oeuvre, such as “The Song of Fate,” though nothing on the level of Bach, Handel, or Mozart. Brahms knew he was not as great as the aforementioned composers, and he knew he was never going to be another Beethoven. Yet he knew his worth as a composer.

All his life Brahms toyed with the idea of composing an opera, and thus competing with Wagner on his own turf. Although Brahms composed some very good vocal music, he never got around to composing an opera.

After announcing his retirement from composing, Brahms was inspired by a great clarinetist to compose a few more works. He composed his last works for the clarinet. They include a clarinet quintet, a clarinet trio, and two sonatas for clarinet and piano.

All his life Brahms loved Gypsy music and incorporated gypsy-styled melodies into much of his music, especially chamber music. Shortly before he died, Brahms heard a banjo player from America play some ragtime music at a party. Brahms said that the music had “such rhythmic vitality and energy.” He loved it. It was some of the last music he ever heard. Had he lived much longer, maybe Ragtime music would have influenced him the way Gypsy music did.

Brahms is rather unique in musical history. He lived during the Romantic era, but composed in the classical style. He is sometimes called a neoclassicist. In a sense, he was the leader of a movement to return to the classical forms of Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven. Even though he endeavored to return to the old forms, the harmonic innovations of the Romantic period were not entirely lost on him. He combined the Romantic style with classical forms, and when he uses sonata form, he usually attempts to smooth over the transitions between the sections so that the form is not so obvious. His compositions are always densely textured, and counterpoint is very important in his music.

More than any composer, Brahms studied the music of others. His knowledge of everything from Renaissance music to the most modern music was profound. He was obsessed with counterpoint and part-writing procedures and did counterpoint exercises all of his life.

For many, the music of Brahms seems too serious, too stilted, too dry, and the orchestration is awkward and too dense. For others he is simply the greatest composer ever.

For someone who has not listened to any music of Brahms, I would recommend the “Variations on a Theme by Haydn,”  especially the orchestrated version, and also the Hungarian dances, either the orchestrated version or the piano version. The “Academic Festival Overture”  is another work I would recommend. In this rousing and somewhat informal work, Brahms uses a looser, sort of episodic form. It is Brahms with his shirt unbuttoned and his hair down.

If you like choral music, I would recommend starting with the German Requiem.  There are some single-movement choral works by Brahms that are good, but the German Requiem is by far his most famous choral work.

There are many fine recordings of his symphonies, two piano concertos, and the violin concerto. Personally, I find the piano concertos somewhat boring and too long, though the second one does have a pretty slow movement. I find the first movement of the violin concerto to be too long and ambitious for its own good. The violin concerto does, however, have a pretty slow movement, and a wonderful finale in Brahms’ gypsy style.

It is a commonly held view that chamber music forms the core of Brahms’ repertoire in the sense that the piano sonata forms the core of Beethoven’s repertoire. There are two string quartets, two string quintets, and two string sextets. The sextets and quintets are much more entertaining than the two quartets. There are two piano trios, a trio for piano, violin, and horn, and a trio for piano, violin, and cello. There are three piano quartets. There is a quintet for two violins, viola, cell, and piano. All of this chamber music is of very high quality, though so far I have found the two quartets to be rather boring.

There is an orchestral version of the G minor piano quartet, but the orchestration is not by Brahms, but by Arnold Schoenburg. Schoenburg did an excellent job of orchestrating this piece of chamber music.

Brahms composed two fine sonatas for viola and piano. I am listing the sonatas for piano and one other instrument separately from chamber music because sonatas are not usually considered to be chamber music. There are two excellent sonatas for cello and piano, three lovely sonatas for violin and piano. There are two beautiful sonatas for clarinet and piano that date from Brahms’ last years as a composer.

The above list of Brahms’ compositions is not exhaustive. I have attempted to list his more well known pieces. For those who take a keener interest in Brahms, I would recommend the book “Johannes Brahms, a Biography” by Jan Swafford. This excellent book is both a biography and a critique of his music.