Product Description

This book is the first comprehensive collection of the letters of Johannes Brahms ever to appear in English. Over 550 are included, virtually all uncut, and there are over a dozen published here for the first time in any language. Although he corresponded throughout his life with some of the great performers, composers, musicologists, writers, scientists, and artists of the day, and although thousands of his letters have survived, English readers have until now had scant opportunity to meet Brahms in person, through his own words, and in his own voice. 'I am aware of my bad habit of writing briefly but obscurely', Brahms once wrote to a friend. He was needlessly hard on himself, for his letters describe many significant events in his life, throw light on his friendships and music, and reveal his wit, idealism, intelligence, generosity, sarcasm, and above all his powerful sense of integrity. The letters in this volume range from 1848 to just before his death. They include all Brahms's letters to Robert Schumann, over a hundred letters to Clara Schumann, and the complete Brahms-Wagner correspondence. They are joined by a running commentary to form an absorbing narrative, documented with scholarly care, provided with comprehensive notes, but written for the general music lover. The result is a lively biography. The work is generously illustrated, and contains several detailed appendices and an index.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #474832 in Books
• Published on: 2001-07-26
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 912 pages

Calum MacDonald, BBC Music Magazine
"Delightful and absorbing. It is going to become an absolutely central work of reference: I expect to be using it for the rest of my life"

Review
Styra Avins's massive selected letters, scrupulously translated in collaboration with Josef Eisinger has rapidly established itself as the classic text, with her linking narrative and annotations virtually doubling as a biography (BBC Music Magazine )

Occasionally a book comes along which changes perceptions of its subject. This is such a book. Her annotations are not only scholarly but often witty and always full of common sense (Michael Kennedy, Sunday Telegraph )

Delightful and absorbing. It is going to become an absolutely central work of reference: I expect to be using it for the rest of my life (Calum MacDonald, BBC Music Magazine )

BBC Music Magazine
"Styra Avins's massive selected letters, scrupulously translated in collaboration with Josef Eisinger has rapidly established itself as the classic text, with her linking narrative and annotations virtually doubling as a biography"

Customer Reviews

Surprisingly gripping sketchbook
I found this volume quite unexpectedly absorbing: during the fortinght in which I was reading Brahms seemed to take up permanent residence in my mind. It offers a fascinating partial exposure of a complex personality, set against the background of many of the most prominent figures and events of 19th century music.

Brahms always mocked his own poor letter writing, usually writing briefly and laconically, and often cryptically. And although the editor fills in beautifully with context and clarification, the reader is nonetheless left with endless puzzles and uncertainties about the composer's thoughts, feelings, and development of character. The beauty of this continual half-sketching is that it makes the reading experience somewhat novelistic, the creative imagination being free, and in fact required, to work with the material to generate a personally believable sense of time, place and character. As such I soon became saddened at the realisation that the book could inevitability only end one way.

The letters are filled with inconclusive and one-sided accounts of momentous loves and tortuous disputes and fallings-out, less so (and less interesting) in the second half as Brahms' life settles in Vienna and becomes less eventful, although I should acknowledge too that scarcely a single letter completely avoids the topic of money. Memorable highlights include the dreadful early account of Schumann's madness, and comic exchanges with Wagner and Mathilde Wesendonck.

The editorial commentary is substantial and at times quite revisionist, assaulting the usual stereoptypes of the composer, but in this it is convincing, scholarly and highly believable.

Insights into life, both musical and otherwise, in mid-nineteenth century Germany and Austria, are abundant and intriguing. But most of all the gradual, hesistant revelation of a particular personal development, accentuated by what is unsaid, is moving and timeless. I recommend this in preference to any biography.

Excellent, comprehensive, and revealing.
Unfortunately, Jan Swafford did not have a chance to read this book before writing his own "biograohy" of Brahms. If he had, he would have been privy to a wealth of information, much of which has not been available to non-german speakers. Avins' commentary on the letters of Brahms and many of his correspondents is clear and well researched.

From recent reviews of: Johannes Brahms - Life and Letters
"Richly informative" - Sunday Times, London. "Occasionally a book comes along which changes perceptions of its subject. This is such a book. ... [The] annotations are not only scholarly but often witty and always full of common sense. ... Wherever you read, you will feel you are in Brahms's world and that he is speaking to you." - Sunday Telegraph, London. "There are many gems here ... much to be gleaned from what Avins has selected.. Those who seek to be on more intimate terms with Brahms and his circle... will find much to pore over in this collection" - Los Angeles Times. "Little short of a bombshell ... Ms. Avins's contributions are terse and often illuminating... fascinating illustrations, a helpful chronological table and other tools... Brahms reveals himself in workaday as well as transcendent moods." - New York Times. "This is a work that will thrill Brahms fans and provide much pleasure to those entertained by the personal correspondence of great artists. Recommended for general and academic libraries." - Library Journal. "It is not much of an exaggeration to say that the book presents Brahms in a new but quite convincing light... the book can be read as a biography... this composer has seldom seemed more lovable, more vulnerable, more honorable." - Gramophone. "This is one of the most important music books published in recent years." - The Oldie, London.