johannes brahms

• brahms hakkinda leonard bernstein'in bazi düsünceleri:
  
  "here stands a master composer producing one classical symphony after another, a confirmed and determined classicist in an era when classicism had long since been swept away by the tides of romanticism that flooded europe in the nineteenth century. and through it all, johannes brahms stands firm in his old well-worn coat, insisting to the very end on perpetuating the classical tradition of mozart and beethoven....... what was he avoiding? was he simply a classicist who had outlived his period, a has-been, a left-over, as his detractors would have it? on the contrary, it is precisely the other way around: brahms was a true romantic containing his passions in classical garb. it was clearly a case of self-limitation. the only question that remains is --- why?... whence the rage and whence the containment? what did this celebrated, comfortable king of vienna have to rage about? so much. he raged against his native city of hamburg, which time and again had passed him by when selecting a new conductor for their philharmonic orchestra, a position brahms deeply coveted. he raged against the fates that had destroyed his adored schumann, idol of his youth, after an all-too-brief relationship. he cried out against the forces that had conditioned him to be incapable of happiness with a woman, of domestic bliss, of having children--- and how he loved children! so much to rage about, and so much more we don't even know, at which we can only guess. thus, i believe, arose in his inner being the absolute necessity for containment. brahms was genius enough to be his own psychiatrist, unconsciously of course. he set himself up as the guardian of music order in an age of romantic disorder, but what he was really guarding were his own passions, those conflicts that threatened to tear him apart. and so he invented that persona --- beard, belly, and all --- so familiar to his society and ours. this amazing display of self-control, self-discipline, and self-containment probably saved his life, his sanity, and his god-given powers to fashion the music with which he enriched and ennobled the world."