# Do you think Brahms should get married?



## CageFan (Dec 2, 2010)

I suspect Brahms composition were mostly inspired from his forever "in love" status, especially one of which is his world-known secretive admiration toward Clara, Schumann's wife. Do you think that's possible? How many works he had written were entitled or dedicated to at least one of his many lovers?  (no moral judgement here)


----------



## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

I think that I'm last person to tell Brahms if he should get married or not and same thing can be said about you or any other member of this forum. 

I doubt that hundred of various Brahms biographies could provide you with even half of knowledge about him and his situation that would be necessary to say such thing. 

It's like asking "do you think that Chopin should turn back and became a soldier in 1830?". Or "do you think that Strauss shouldn't shake Goebbel's hand?".

These are questions considering far too personal aspects of composer's lifes that occured in circumstances that we know very little about, to little to talk about it.


----------



## ScipioAfricanus (Jan 7, 2010)

"Do you think Brahms should have gotten married?"...Brahms wasn't cut out for married life. He was to blunt and impatient with people.


----------



## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Makes me think how a number of the great composers, like Handel(?), Beethoven and Ravel, never married. In a way, they were wedded to their music...


----------



## CageFan (Dec 2, 2010)

Aramis said:


> I think that I'm last person to tell Brahms if he should get married or not and same thing can be said about you or any other member of this forum. it.


 I know I am gonna get a response like that. Noooope, nothing personal necessary here. Forgive me, if I were not clear in my question. I am simply wondering how a composer's love life inspire his composition. Not just Brahms, but many other composers...:tiphat:


----------



## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

CageFan said:


> I am simply wondering how a composer's love life inspire his composition. Not just Brahms, but many other composers...:tiphat:


Here's what I'm coming up with off the top of my head.

As far as Brahms and Clara, it can be argued that Brahms' first symphony was acknowledging his release from Clara, especially in the last movement. At least that's what BBC Radio 3 feels in their commentary on it.

As far as love lives, Beethoven's 4th sounds like someone who is in love. And again citing BBC Radio 3, their commentator also feels that Tchaikovsky's violin concerto is about Bob. Then there's Symphonie Fantastique, inspired by a woman Berlioz was unfortunate enough to marry. Guillaume de Machaut as an old man sent virelays to an adolescent admirer (yeah, creepy) - and he got in trouble when she noticed he was sending her "new" things that he had actually sent her before.

I think the coolest love letter was when Mahler sent Alma the adagietto to his 5th symphony; that got her attention.

Of course, whether marriage would affect a composer is hard to gauge. Marriage didn't seem to affect Mozart, except he wrote the Mass in C Minor for his bride. It didn't have much effect on Mendelssohn, either. Haydn had a miserable marriage, but it only affected his music when his wife used his manuscripts to roll her hair.


----------



## JSK (Dec 31, 2008)

Brahms and Clara Schumann were indeed close friends, but there's no evidence whatsoever that they harbored any romantic/sexual interest in each other.


----------



## CageFan (Dec 2, 2010)

Wonder if I should delete this post since it caused uneasiness and frown..I apologize again and feel really guilty if I were not wording it properly. Please if we seem to be disturbed by this post, let's just delete it and repost something else. I was reading a short article with Brahms' love life and its relativities to his composition, last year I also purchased a CD centered with Clara's piano pieces and Schumann, Brahms "friendship" and so on. Again, a few hour ago, happened to read another artticle on music critics specially mentioned Brahms love life...thus, I can't help but come up with this questions.


----------



## CageFan (Dec 2, 2010)

ScipioAfricanus said:


> "Do you think Brahms should have gotten married?"...Brahms wasn't cut out for married life. He was to blunt and impatient with people.


Thanks, ScipioAfricnus. I am listening to his piano quartet No.3 Op.60 said to be a conclusion of his long lasting "friendship" offerred to Clara and only published it 20 years after its complettion.


----------



## CageFan (Dec 2, 2010)

Manxfeeder said:


> I think the coolest love letter was when Mahler sent Alma the adagietto to his 5th symphony; that got her attention.
> 
> Haydn had a miserable marriage, but it only affected his music when his wife used his manuscripts to roll her hair.


Manxfeeder, I love every bit of your post, so informative yet lack no humor at all. It really depends on which composer it seems. One thing we can celebrate is that they were all wedded to music, regardless they have carnal marriage or not.


----------



## CageFan (Dec 2, 2010)

Andre said:


> Makes me think how a number of the great composers, like Handel(?), Beethoven and Ravel, never married. In a way, they were wedded to their music...


I am thankful for that. Imagine the treasure we missed if they were not wedded to their music.:tiphat:


----------



## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

He _was_ married. Married to his music.


----------



## myaskovsky2002 (Oct 3, 2010)

*I found this piece of information...*

Brahms was born in the red-light district of Hamburg and as a boy earned money playing the piano in brothels. This, amateur psychologists say, messed up his chances of sexual relations with women for ever, which is why, when he did show interest in a possible partner, he shrank from commitment. De Souza repeated the familiar claim that Brahms was "in love" with Schumann's wife, who was 14 years older than Brahms. Brahms himself declared that he loved Clara more than anything or anybody in the world, but as the sharp-eyed Ethel Smyth observed, he treated Frau Schumann "as might a delightful old-world son".


----------



## ricardo_jvc6 (Dec 8, 2010)

I dunno, maybe?? if gets a wife pherhaps... is life would be different


----------



## Rasa (Apr 23, 2009)

If Brahms got married, it would be very unpleasant for his wife :§


----------



## Edward Elgar (Mar 22, 2006)

Marriage does nothing to help the creative mind. So no.


----------



## ScipioAfricanus (Jan 7, 2010)

Edward Elgar said:


> Marriage does nothing to help the creative mind. So no.


Mozart, Mendelssohn, Bach, Wagner and Schumann would disagree with you whilst Beethoven, Haydn, Brahms would agree


----------



## Edward Elgar (Mar 22, 2006)

ScipioAfricanus said:


> Mozart, Mendelssohn, Bach, Wagner and Schumann would disagree with you whilst Beethoven, Haydn, Brahms would agree


Perhaps Mozart, Mendelssohn, Bach, Wagner and Schumann suffered on account of their marriages?

Constanze might have killed Mozart! :devil:


----------



## Olias (Nov 18, 2010)

Listen to Dr. Robert Greenberg's excellent 8 lecture Teaching Company Course on the life of Brahms and you'll come to the conclusion that Brahms was better off having not married.


----------



## Edward Elgar (Mar 22, 2006)

Or go straight to the source:

'When I still had the urge, I was unable to offer a woman what would have been the right thing. At the time that I was still willing to get married, my compositions were received with hisses or icy silence. Now I was perfectly able to put up with this because I knew exactly what they were worth and that the picture would eventually change. And when I returned home to my lonely lodgings after such failures, I was by no means discouraged. On the contrary! But if at such moments I had had to face a wife's anxiously questioning eyes, and if she had tried to console me - a wife's commiseration for her husband's failure - bah, I can't think what a hell on earth that would have been.' - Brahms


----------



## ladyrebecca (Mar 19, 2009)

I'm really bummed out that I read only one intimation about the hilarity of the title: "Do you think Brahms should get married?"

"Should get" is hilarious! Why not, old boy, get married! Oh, wait. He's been deceased for over a hundred years.

It was just a funny moment. Maybe you had to be there. Carry on ....


----------



## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

ladyrebecca said:


> "Should get" is hilarious! Why not, old boy, get married! Oh, wait. He's been deceased for over a hundred years.


No he's not! I - I - I just know he is! He's _real!_


----------



## CageFan (Dec 2, 2010)

Huilunsoittaja said:


> No he's not! I - I - I just know he is! He's _real!_
> 
> LOL..Long time no talk, girl!
> 
> I do not know any of those composers left already. I thought they were all alive right now, at least in my world.


----------



## CageFan (Dec 2, 2010)

After finishing Jocye's "The Dead", I realize that I might have been living with the dead for years. It is time to dwell among the living beings and appreciate the modern arts and artists, for ears' sake.


----------



## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

Absolutely not, because then there would be one (huge) reason fewer for me to not care about my incessant romantic failings!


----------



## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

I have a feeling that Brahms was an example of someone who had not known Love and because of that, had the highest esteem and respect towards Love. I can hear that in his music - the longing and the noble self-sacrifice. Thus, he was an ultimate romantic - although an introverted and secretive one, completely unlike someone such as Berlioz - but inside, I bet that he was not that different from Berlioz.

Unless Brahms would have had a transcendant, perfect romance, something like the relationship of Robert and Clara Schumann, I think that he would have been disappointed. I think he was completely devoted to the idea of Love - even if he had to be without actual Love all his life.

Sort of like how Beethoven was committed to the abstract idea of "humanistic heroism" even though the idea had failed in the flesh (Bonaparte)... he became a "knight" of the idea itself. Maybe it was like that with Brahms and Love, and his experiences with actualized love (bad childhood experiences, plus a confirmation that the ideal still exists in the form of R & C Schumann, even if he himself cannot attain it).


----------



## Klassik (Mar 14, 2017)

Nein. I know this thread is old, but I don't think it's so old that Brahms would have been alive when it was made. Then again, maybe he's still alive today. I did see a fat Elvis impersonator that could have been Johannes Brahms!  Nah, couldn't have been. Surely the popularization of Oscar Mayer wieners would have given Brahms a heart attack sometime around the 1950s, right? If nothing else, the wieners would have allowed Brahms to compete with the Hindenburg in terms of girth. That almost certainly would have disqualified Brahms from marriage. Even Clara wouldn't put up with that. :lol:



Huilunsoittaja said:


> He _was_ married. Married to his music.


I don't know, Brahms seemed pretty critical of his own work. Then again, a lot of men are critical of their wives (and vice versa). Maybe you're right. 



CageFan said:


> I do not know any of those composers left already. I thought they were all alive right now, at least in my world.


Wait, is CageFan really Bettina?  Nah, couldn't be. I really can't see Bettina operating under the name "CageFan." Well, maybe the cage in CageFan really means a cage with Beethoven in it? Nah, nah, couldn't be. Bettina wouldn't have wanted Beethoven to be alive right now. She would have been perfectly fine with him being dead.


----------



## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

^ marrying dead composers is not an unusual thing on TC :devil:


----------



## Klassik (Mar 14, 2017)

EddieRUKiddingVarese said:


> ^ marrying dead composers is not an unusual thing on TC :devil:


This is true. Polyandry, or maybe polyamory, isn't unusual on TC either. 

Having said that, I've yet to see any women on TC say that they want to have a relationship with Brahms even if they like his music. It seems that they prefer trying to turn Tchaikovsky straight. :lol:


----------



## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

Klassik said:


> This is true. Polyandry, or maybe polyamory, isn't unusual on TC either.
> 
> Having said that, I've yet to see any women on TC say that they want to have a relationship with Brahms even if they like his music. It seems that they prefer trying to turn Tchaikovsky straight. :lol:


I like to have relationships with dead posts............................ just saying


----------



## Klassik (Mar 14, 2017)

EddieRUKiddingVarese said:


> I like to have relationships with dead posts............................ just saying


You certainly put a new spin on "raising" a thread from the dead, Eddie.  But, anyway, threads don't die. Well, I suppose they do if a moderator locks or closes them. Even then, they are still visible to enjoy unless a moderator deletes them.


----------



## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

Klassik said:


> You certainly put a new spin on "raising" a thread from the dead, Eddie.  But, anyway, threads don't die. Well, I suppose they do if a moderator locks or closes them. Even then, they are still visible to enjoy unless a moderator deletes them.


Bring a whole new meaning to touching them up a bit.


----------



## id0ntmatter (May 8, 2018)

He was married to his music; the best kind of marriage. I'd say he lived right. Another composer besides Brahms who didn't get married was Czerny. He was so into teaching and composition that he didn't have the time for a love life. If you told me he died a virgin I wouldn't be surprised.


----------



## Klassik (Mar 14, 2017)

id0ntmatter said:


> He was married to his music; the best kind of marriage. I'd say he lived right.


Well, there was that time he cheated on music with Agathe von Siebold. He almost married her! Wouldn't that have been a disaster? :lol:



> Another composer besides Brahms who didn't get married was Czerny. He was so into teaching and composition that he didn't have the time for a love life. If you told me he died a virgin I wouldn't be surprised.


"Magnum P.I." Tchaikovsky was married, but he might have died a virgin too.  As for Czerny's teacher Beethoven, well, :lol:. He might have died a virgin, but that does not mean he's one now based on what I've seen on TC.


----------



## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

An old thread, but emphatically, No. He should not have gotten married, being temperamentally unsuited after observing Clara and Robert's domestic life. He sacrificed marriage for his uncertain life as an artist. And shouldn't the question have been--Should Brahms _have gotten_ married rather than asking--Should Brahms _get_ married? as if he were still alive after more than 100 years.


----------



## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

Larkenfield said:


> An old thread, but emphatically, No. He should not have gotten married, being temperamentally unsuited after observing Clara and Robert's domestic life. He sacrificed marriage for his uncertain life as an artist. And shouldn't the question have been--Should Brahms _have gotten_ married rather than asking--Should Brahms _get_ married? as if he were still alive after more than 100 years.


Don't you know we have a time machine here in TC. Klassik has the keys at present, its available on a timeshare basis


----------



## Capeditiea (Feb 23, 2018)

:3 i am married to music too. officially.  i am an ordained discordian messiah. ;D


----------



## Oldhoosierdude (May 29, 2016)

Yes he should marry. So he could always be wrong about everything like the rest of us.


----------



## David Phillips (Jun 26, 2017)

Yes, he should marry but be sure to put Mrs Brahms on the pill. He won't write a note with screaming kids around him.


----------



## Klassik (Mar 14, 2017)

David Phillips said:


> Yes, he should marry but be sure to put Mrs Brahms on the pill. He won't write a note with screaming kids around him.


Well, there was that Bach fellow...



Oldhoosierdude said:


> Yes he should marry. So he could always be wrong about everything like the rest of us.


Wait, are you suggesting that Brahms is married to Wagner?


----------



## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

Well he did wear women's underwear after all.....................


----------

