It’s one of the most famous stories about the life of Johannes Brahms: he played piano in brothels as a teenager, and the experience scarred him for the rest of his life. However, is this mythology based on truth? Some

Johannes Brahms had famously difficult romantic relationships with women. He had a penchant for idealising women, as well as sabotaging his romantic relationships with them once he got close to proposing. In the first part of this article, we met

Composer Johannes Brahms is famous for the difficult romantic relationships he had with women. He was attracted to many women (especially singers), but ultimately found it impossible to envision any of them as his wife. He was also perpetually worried

Born in December 1851, Eugenie Schumann was the seventh of Robert and Clara Schumann’s eight children. In 1920, she wrote a memoir about her life and family. It offers priceless insight into the genius of her mother and their entire

Born in 1851, Eugenie Schumann was the seventh of composer Robert Schumann and pianist Clara Schumann’s eight children. She was also the only child to write a memoir about her life. That memoir offers invaluable insight not only into her

Great composers are often placed on pedestals, and it can be easy to forget that they spent their careers working alongside talented composer colleagues. Johannes Brahms was no exception. Today, we’re looking at the lives and music of five of

After their first recording of Beethoven‘s piano trios, described as the biggest project a piano trio could undertake, the Trio Sōra then decided to tackle the next biggest challenge: Brahms’ complete piano trios. Trio Sōra takes its name from a

We tend to think of the great composers as gods who created their masterpieces in some kind of temple of art. But in reality, there was no temple, and none of the great composers lived in a vacuum. All were