Brahms in the Home and the Concert Hall

This collection explores the boundaries between Brahms' professional identity and his lifelong engagement with private and amateur music-making.

Johannes Brahms remains a figure of perennial appeal and significance to performers, scholars and music-lovers alike. This richly illustrated collection of essays, including a hitherto unpublished memoir of Brahms, explores the boundaries between the composer's public, professional identity and his lifelong engagement with private and amateur music-making.Johannes Brahms was a consummate professional musician, and a successful pianist, conductor, music director, editor and composer. Yet he also faithfully championed the world of private music-making, creating many works and arrangements for enjoyment in the home by amateurs. This collection explores Brahms' public and private musical identities from various angles: the original works he wrote with amateurs in mind; his approach to creating piano arrangements of not only his own, but also other composers' works; his relationships with his arrangers; the deeper symbolism and lasting legacy of private music-making in his day; and a hitherto unpublished memoir which evokes his Viennese social world. Using Brahms as their focus point, the contributors trace the overlapping worlds of public and private music-making in the nineteenth century, discussing the boundaries between the composer's professional identity and his lifelong engagement with amateur music-making.