Concert Actart - Der Riese und sein Nachfolger

Concert Actart - Der Riese und sein Nachfolger

“You have no idea how we feel when we hear such a giant marching behind us,” said Johannes Brahms to a friend at the beginning of 1870.

The “giant” meant Ludwig van Beethoven.

Robert Schumann also once predicted that he would follow in the footsteps of the symphonic composer Beethoven. What was intended as praise and encouragement turned out to be a heavy burden.

The extremely self-critical Brahms was fully aware of his role as Beethoven's successor in Vienna's - and therefore in international - concert life. It is known that Brahms was always surrounded in his composing room by the scores of the older grand masters, especially Bach, Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, and was deeply familiar with the repertoire of his predecessors. So he was probably partly inspired and partly almost discouraged by the mastery of his predecessors. This sometimes made him so dissatisfied with himself that he did not even make many of his compositions available to the public and probably threw a large number of his own works into the fire. Nobody knows what a treasure Brahms withheld from us through his sharp self-criticism.

In this concert it becomes clear that Brahms was in no way inferior to his great predecessor in his mastery of genius.