Happy Brahmsday
Since, for many people in Britain, 7th May currently has only the negative association of The Day We Voted In the Tories, I thought on this sunny, windswept Sunday that it was time we all focused, not on the blue (ha ha) associations of the date, but on something much more positive and important. Namely, that it was also Johannes Brahms’s birthday.
For those of you unfamiliar with the music of Brahms, or as yet unconvinced at how great he is, you now have the most perfect reason to get listening. At 182 years old, JB is still going strong and his music continues to intrigue, inspire and enrich the lives and imaginations of those who play it and listen to it. (Note: yes, I know that 7th May was also Tchaikovsky’s birthday, but he thought Brahms was rubbish, and therefore I am ignoring him. I’m sure someone else has written a blog in praise of Pyotr Il’yich somewhere, so you’ll just have to go and find that instead.) But why, since it’s not some pleasingly round number of an anniversary year, should I feel the need to write an entire post about him?
Ok, hold that thought. And come with me on a little flight of fancy. It’s 1990, and a boy is born in a large town in England. Let’s call him Jo. His dad’s a gigging musician, plays a few different instruments and does pub slots, posh parties sometimes, that kind of thing. After a while, after trouble at home, his parents divorce and his dad remarries. Jo gets into music too: he does stints at a couple of nice wine bars, playing background music, and even manages to get a few things published, arrangements of hit tunes that the punters seem to like. He’s ok at school but not really all about learning, if you know what I mean. Prefers his own thing. But he loves – really loves – a couple of novelists from the 1930s and 1940s, and even the decades after that. He starts a MySpace page and puts up all his favourite quotes. He keeps playing, and saves his money to buy tapes and scores of pop and contemporary classical stuff by his favourite musicians.
As a teenager, Jo keeps his eye on the news. There’s some pretty nasty political unrest going on in the world. He notices the number of immigrants in his town keeps going up. Some of them are only passing through, and head off to the States once they’ve raised funds. But quite a few of them stay. He goes to their gigs sometimes. There’s this one guy, kind of a folk fiddler. They get chatting, and – can you believe it? – just before he turns twenty, this guy invites Jo to go with him on a tour. Nothing international, obviously, but a few of the bigger cities. They meet some really big names on the road. When the fiddler has to get gone (the police are after him, it’s all a bit messy), Jo gets in touch with some of the other people he’s met. He makes some great friends. By the autumn, he’s at the home of his musical idol. This guy loves all the same novellists! He’s a bit unstable, but who isn’t? And his wife is gorgeous. And his kids are fun too, turns out Jo’s really good with kids. And at twenty years old, he gets to publish some real music, some serious stuff he’s been working on for a while now. This is it. Maybe he could make it in music after all.
It never ceases to amaze me at how little, over hundreds of years of history, actually changes. Brahms’s childhood is so easily transported to our own time, everything from his love of old books and popular music to his relatively mediocre schooling. The folk fiddler was one Eduard Hoffmann, using the stage name Reményi, who had fled Hungary following the failed war of independence against the Austrian Empire in 1848 – a lot of Hungarians ended up in Brahms’s home town of Hamburg. In his twentieth year, Brahms suddenly found himself on the road with Reményi, and making the acquaintance of Joseph Joachim, Franz Liszt, and eventually, in the autumn, the Schumanns. He loved old things and new things; ‘high’ music and ‘low’ music; children and toy soldiers and long walks in the countryside. And, in time, when he was settled in Vienna, good coffee and cigars were also among his favourite things.
The Jo of 1990, much like the Johannes of 1833, didn’t go to a top-class private school or attend youth orchestra. What he did have, however, was a supportive family (his father and stepmother, and his mother) who were prepared to help him and who understood the value of a creative career. In time, he had friends who recognised his talent despite his intense shyness and his heavily self-critical attitude to his own compositions. He could be difficult and awkward and rude; he could also be heartbreakingly kind and generous. And for those of us who love his music, and are fond of him despite his flaws, and have made it our business to get to know him as well as we possibly can, he has become a sort of friend, like all great musicians and artists are to their admirers. His career and success is proof that, for all it would be amazing to have a government and support structure that puts the arts front and centre, so long as there are individuals putting it there, we are all in with chance. Happy birthday, Johannes.
