A New York Times Notable Book

This brilliant and magisterial book is a very good bet to...become the definitive study of Johannes Brahms.--The Plain Dealer

Judicious, compassionate, and full of insight into Brahms's human complexity as well as his music, Johannes Brahms is an indispensable biography.

Proclaimed the new messiah of Romanticism by Robert Schumann when he was only twenty, Johannes Brahms dedicated himself to a long and extraordinarily productive career. In this book, Jan Swafford sets out to reveal the little-known Brahms, the boy who grew up in mercantile Hamburg and played piano in beer halls among prostitutes and drunken sailors, the fiercely self-protective man who thwarted future biographers by burning papers, scores and notebooks late in his life. Making unprecedented use of the remaining archival material, Swafford offers richly expanded perspectives on Brahms's youth, on his difficult romantic life--particularly his longstanding relationship with Clara Schumann--and on his professional rivalry with Lizst and Wagner.

Johannes Brahms] will no doubt stand as the definitive work on Brahms, one of the monumental biographies in the entire musical library.--London Weekly Standard

It is a measure of the accomplishment of Jan Swafford's biography that Brahms's sadness becomes palpable.... Swafford] manages to construct a full-bodied human being.--The New York Times Book Review

"'The minor chords that drive the symphony to its end reeled to their final E minor shout, and the Viennese leaped to their feet.' It is with such drama worthy of E.T.A. Hoffmann that the author of this monumental biography writes about one of the great titans of 19th-century music. Despite the author's passionate dedication to Brahms's genius, it is his purpose to take his subject 'off the pedestal and put him back in the world of the living, with his feet on the ground.' As in any successful biography, this work effectively places Brahms's accomplishment in its proper context, richly suggesting the links between the work and the man." Reviewed by Andrew Witmer, Virginia Quarterly Review (Copyright 2006 Virginia Quarterly Review)

Swafford sets out to reveal the little-known Brahms, the boy who grew up in mercantile Hamburg and played piano in beer halls among prostitutes and drunken sailors, and the fiercely self-protective man who thwarted future biographers by burning papers, scores, and notebooks late in his life. 22 photos.

Proclaimed the new messiah of Romanticism by Robert Schumann when he was only twenty, Johannes Brahms dedicated himself to a long and extraordinarily productive and creative career. In this book, Jan Swafford sets out to reveal the little-known Brahms: the boy who grew up in mercantile Hamburg and played piano in beer halls among prostitutes and drunken sailors; the fiercely self-protective man who thwarted future biographers by burning papers, scores, and notebooks late in his life. Making unprecedented use of the remaining archival material, Swafford offers richly expanded perspectives on Brahms's youth, on his difficult romantic life — particularly his longstanding relationship with Clara Schumann — and on his professional rivalries with Liszt and Wagner. Judicious, compassionate, and full of insight into Brahms's human complexity as well as his music, Johannes Brahms is an indispensable biography.

Jan Swafford lives in eastern Massachusetts.