Johannes Brahms Quotes

“What elevates one and not another to the level of genius is not only talent and ambition and luck, but a gift for turning everything to the purpose. ... Perhaps that is a common element in the story of genius: beyond talent and ambition and luck, in some degree you have to be forcibly booted out of everyday life and everyday goals. In any case, it was like that with Brahms. The fulfillment of love was denied him so that other things might take wing.”
― Jan Swafford, Johannes Brahms: A Biography

“Part of what Brahms and others could never quite get over was that Bruckner the composer of epic symphonies behaved, much of the time, like a nincompoop.”
― Jan Swafford, Johannes Brahms: A Biography

“He noted that with women Brahms had a habit of straight-faced teasing that was often misinterpreted—especially by Clara, who generally missed the joke and waxed indignant.”
― Jan Swafford, Johannes Brahms: A Biography

“Counterpoint is the joining of disciplined science with expressive art: to superimpose beautiful and logical melodies whose combination also, magically, creates beautiful and logical harmonic progressions.”
― Jan Swafford, Johannes Brahms: A Biography