Main content

Brahms: Symphony No. 1

Stephen Johnson explores Brahms's Symphony No. 1, which took the composer around 20 years to compose. While Brahms strove to create his own unique sound, critics pounced upon it.

Stephen Johnson explores Brahms's Symphony No. 1, which took the composer a long time to compose. Brahms had a number of disappointments as an orchestral composer, in particular the reception of his First Piano Concerto. This made him very wary as a symphonist, and he didn't complete his First Symphony until the age of forty-three, despite having begun the work some twenty years earlier. By the time Brahms did feel ready to launch himself onto this purely orchestral scene, it was to a public already used to programmatic works from Wagner and Berlioz. Brahms strove to create his own unique sound, but the critics pounced upon the symphony, in particular the last movement for its Beethovenian echoes.

Available now

20 minutes

Last on

Fri 28 Sep 2012 20:05

Music Played

  • Ludwig van Beethoven

    Symphony no 9: Scherzo

  • Johannes Brahms

    Scherzo for violin and piano

  • Johannes Brahms

    Symphony no 1, mvt 1

  • Johannes Brahms

    Symphony no 1, mvt 3

  • Johannes Brahms

    Symphony no 1, mvt 2

  • Johannes Brahms

    Symphony no 1,mvt 4

Credit

Role Contributor
Composer Johannes Brahms

Broadcast

  • Fri 28 Sep 2012 20:05

Featured in...