| Contents |
Introduction: Rethinking Brahms / Nicole Grimes and Reuben Phillips -- Part I: Intellectual contexts. Brahms in the Schumann Library / Reuben Phillips ; Johannes Brahms, connoisseur of graphic arts / Styra Avins ; Settling for second best: Brahms's Männerchor-Lieder in historical context / David Brodbeck ; Hearing and seeing Brahms's harps / Jane Hines -- Part II: Rehearing Brahms. Brahms and the unreliable narrative / Janet Schmalfeldt ; The transmission and reception of courtly love poetry in late folksong settings by Johannes Brahms, Friedrich Wilhelm Arnold, and Wilhelm Tappert / Loretta Terrigno ; Rehearing Brahms's late intermezzi: the eternal recurrence of reflection / Tekla Babyak ; Joachim and Brahms in the spring and summer of 1853: formative influences and performative identities reconsidered / Katharina Uhde ; Doesn't play well with others: performance and embodiment in Brahms's chamber music with piano / Anna Scott -- Part III: Analytical perspectives. First-theme syntax in Brahms's sonata forms / Julian Horton ; Formal elision in the chamber music of Mendelssohn and Brahms: a case-study in romantic Formenlehre / Benedict Taylor ; Compositional range versus compositional ideal type: some reflections on Brahms and Dvořák / Peter H. Smith ; Intentional transgressions: transformation and prolongation in selected works by Brahms / Frank Samarotto -- Part IV: Monuments and memorialization. Images, monuments, constructs: Johannes Brahms in the culture of remembrance / Wolfgang Sandberger ; Templates of grief: Brahms's Requiem and the Dresden Kreuzchor, 1939-1949 / Martha Sprigge ; 'Aimez-vous Brahms?': the history of a question / Daniel Beller-McKenna -- Part V: Afterlives of Brahms. Brahms's serious songs in the orchestral imagination: two episodes in the arrangement history of Op. 121 / Frankie Perry ; Hearing Rihm hearing Brahms: Symphonie 'Nähe fern' and the future of nostalgia / Nicole Grimes ; Spectres and 'Derangements': Michael Finnissy's summonings of Brahms the progressive / Edward Venn. |
| Abstract |
As one of the most significant and widely performed composers of the nineteenth century, Brahms continues to command our attention. This book counterbalances prevailing scholarly assumptions that position him as a conservative composer (whether musically or politically) with a wide-ranging exploration and re-evaluation of his significance today. Drawing on German- and English-language scholarship, it deploys original approaches to his music and pursues innovative methodologies to interrogate the historical, cultural, and artistic contexts of his creativity. Empowered by recent theoretical work on form and tonality, it offers fresh analytical insights into his music, including a number of corpus studies that interrogate the relationships between Brahms and other composers, past and present. The book brings into sharp focus the productive tension that exists between the perceived fixedness of musical texts and the ephemerality of performance by considering how historical and modern performers shape established understandings of Brahms and his music. This book invites the reader to hear familiar pieces anew as they are refracted through historical, artistic, and philosophical prisms. Bringing us up to the present day, it also gives sustained attention to the resounding impact of Brahms's compositions on new music by exploring works by recent composers who have engaged deeply with his oeuvre. Combining awareness of overarching contexts with perceptive insights into Brahms's music, this book enlivens our understanding of Brahms, providing a dynamic, multifaceted, complex, and invigoratingly fresh portrait of the composer. |
