The Detroit String Quartet played Brahms last night. Brahms lost.
Brahms believed that there was no need to publish absolutely everything that Schubert ever wrote.
I once sent him a song and asked him to mark a cross wherever he thought it was faulty. Brahms returned it untouched, saying 'I don't want to make a cemetery of your compositions. '
Brahms' Variations are better than mine, but mine were written before his.
Listening to my regular favourites - Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms and so on - I always feel, quite misguidedly, that nothing can be too bad if such beauty and brilliance exists in the world.
When Brahms is in extra good spirits, he sings, "The grave is my joy".
Even if you're playing Brahms or a Beethoven concerto, you've got to have a different vantage point, slightly, each time.
The real Brahms is nothing more than a sentimental voluptuary
If you go to Japan for instance, you should know that they have a different way of playing Beethoven or Brahms. But if you play with them Mozart, Debussy, Mendelssohn, they have a wonderful light feeling for that.
There are some experiences in life which should not be demanded twice from any man, and one of them is listening to the Brahms Requiem.
The three greatest composers are Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms. All the others are cretins.
The Germans have four violin concertos. The greatest, most uncompromising is Beethoven’s. The one by Brahms vies with it in seriousness. The richest, the most seductive, was written by Max Bruch. But the most inward, the heart’s jewel, is Mendelssohn’s.
