Johannes Brahms Complete Symphonies in Full Score

by Johannes Brahms, Hans Gál (Editor)

This volume reproduces, complete and unabridged, the scores of all four symphonies of Johannes Brahms, from the Vienna Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde Edition edited by Hans Gál.
Included are Symphony No. 1 in C Minor , Op. 68; Symphony No. 2 in D Major , Op. 73; Symphony No. 3 in F Major , Op. 90; and Symphony No. 4 in E Minor , Op. 98.
Do not confuse this with a piano rendering; it is a full orchestral score. In addition to its obvious uses for study, this score is also an indispensable associate for anyone listening to record sets or broadcasts. In no other manner can the listener appreciate the full orchestral richness of these works.

Genres: Music, Scores, Reference

352 pages, Paperback

First published May 26, 1974

About the author

In 1833, Johannes Brahms was born in Germany. As a teenager playing for drunken sailors in a Hamburg bar, Brahms would prop up books of poetry to read as a diversion. His favorite poet was the anticlerical G.F. Daumer, described by the Catholic Encyclopedia as "an enemy of Christianity". Brahms' works were influenced by such writers as Hoffman, Friedrich Schiller and Robert Burns. He was well-read in philosophy and science, and was an avid hiker who took inspiration from nature. When asked by a conductor to add additional sectarian text to his German Requiem, Brahms responded, "As far as the text is concerned, I confess that I would gladly omit even the word German and instead use Human; also with my best knowledge and will I would dispense with passages like John 3:16." (Jan Swafford, Johannes Brahms: A Biography). A liberal, Brahms ardently opposed anti-Semitism, was approachable even at the height of his fame, and was always generous with his time and charity. Biographer Swafford writes of the young composer: "Though he was to be a freethinker in religion, Johannes pored over the Bible beyond the requirements for his Protestant confirmation." From then on, "Music was Brahms' religion." According to Swafford, Brahms was "a humanist and an agnostic." After nearly 64 years of near perfect health, never even enduring a headache, Brahms succumbed quickly to liver cancer. There was no deathbed conversion. D. 1897.

In his lifetime, Brahms's popularity and influence were considerable; following a comment by the nineteenth-century conductor Hans von Bülow, he is sometimes grouped with Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven as one of the "Three Bs". The diligent, highly constructed nature of Brahms's works was a starting point and an inspiration for a generation of composers.

More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes...

http://www.johannesbrahms.org/

http://www.biography.com/people/johan...

http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Lib/Brah...

http://www.ipl.org/div/mushist/rom/br...

http://www.naxos.com/person/Johannes_...

http://www.last.fm/music/Johannes+Brahms

http://www.classicalarchives.com/brah...

http://www.allmusic.com/artist/johann...

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/educati...

Reviews

[Daniel]

Hmm. Am I now going to start listing the scores I'm looking at?