Brahms makes his debut

Synopsis

On today’s date in 1853, expectations both on stage and off must have been pretty high when a 20-year-old German pianist and composer named Johannes Brahms made his public debut in Leipzig. Just two months earlier, the older composer Robert Schumann had published a glowing prediction that young Mr. Brahms was going to turn out to be the bright hope for the future of German music.

Brahms played his big Piano Sonata in C, his Opus 1, no. 1, at the Leipzig Gewandhaus, on a concert program he shared with members of the David String Quartet. Brahms also met the great French composer Hector Berlioz, who wrote: “Brahms has had a great success here and made a deep impression on me... this diffident, audacious young man who has taken into his head to make a new music.”

It was an especially exciting time for Brahms, who looked forward, as a kind of Christmas present, to seeing his music in print for the first time: both his Piano Sonata No. 1 and a set of Songs were due at any moment from Breitkopf & Haertel.

When the music appeared, he immediately sent copies off to Schumann, with this note: “I take the liberty of sending you your first foster children (who owe to you their citizenship of the world). In their new garb they seem to me too prim and embarrassed—I still cannot accustom myself to seeing these guileless children of nature in their smart new clothes!”

Music Played in Today's Program

Johannes Brahms (1833–1897) Piano Sonata No. 1, Op. 1 Sviatoslav Richter, piano Philips 438 477

On This Day

Births

• 1749 - Italian composer Domenico Cimarosa, in Aversa;

• 1894 - American conductor Arthur Fiedler, in Boston;

• 1904 - Soviet composer Dimtri Kabalevsky, in St. Petersburg (Gregorian date: Dec. 30);

Deaths

• 1562 - Flemish composer Adrian Willaert, age. c. 72, in Venice;

• 1870 - Italian composer Giuseppe Saverio Mercadante, age 75, in Naples;

• 1930 - British composer Peter Warlock (Philip Heseltine), age 36, commits suicide in London;

Premieres

• 1737 - Handel: anthem “The Ways of Zion do Mourn” in London at King Henry VII’s Chapel in Westminster Abbey, during the funeral service for Queen Caroline , a major patroness of Handel’s (Gregorian date: Dec. 28);

• 1853 - Brahms: Piano Sonata No. 1 in C, Op. 1, and "Scherzo" in eb, at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, by the composer at his public debut during a chamber concert of the David Quartet;

• 1865 - Schubert: "Unfinished" Symphony in b (No. "8") in Vienna, Johann von Herbeck conducting; For this performance, the last movement of Schubert's Symphony No. 3 was appended as a finale;

• 1879 - Dvorák: String Quartet No. 10, Op. 51, in Prague;

• 1887 - Rimsky-Korsakov: “Capriccio Espagnol,” in St. Petersburg, by the Russian Symphony, with the composer conducting (see Julian date: Dec. 5);

• 1937 - Miaskovsky: Symphony No. 17, in Moscow;

• 1953 - Shostakovich: Symphony No. 10, by the Leningrad Philharmonic, Yevgeny Mravinsky conducting;

• 1954 - Persichetti: Symphony No. 4, by the Philadelphia Orchestra, Eugene Ormandy conducting;