Brahms

His Life and Work

Karl Geiringer, Irene Geiringer

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2024
• Print ISBN: 9781032896199
• eBook ISBN: 9781040222584
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Classical Music

Originally published in 1936, as a second edition in 1948 and as an enlarged and third edition in 1982, Karl Geiringer's biography of Brahms is generally regarded as one of the finest studies of the composer ever published in any language. It is based on the body of material in the archives of the Viennese Society of Friends, for which Karl Geiringer was curator from 1930-1938, and which contains more than a thousand letters written by and to Brahms. These letters, exchanged with family and with his famous contemporaries, reveal his loneliness, grim humour, loyalty, painful shyness and enthusiasm for the music of Beethoven and Schubert – moods that the self-effacing composer did not like to publicly display. Divided into sections on Brahms's solitary, scholarly existence and his fruitful composing career – including examinations of rare first drafts – the biography relates how crises in Brahm's personal life were translated into his music, and how he often managed to ignore or suppress them.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Dedication
• From the Preface to the First Edition
• Preface to the Second Edition
• Preface to the Third Edition
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Part One His Life
• Part Two His Work
• Part Three The Man and the Artist
• Brahms Writes Letters
• Appendix II Brahms as a Reader and Collector
• Bibliography
• Supplementary Bibliography
• Index