Brahms Archive

In 1862, the twenty-nine-year-old composer and pianist Johannes Brahms settled in Vienna, the capital of the western musical world. He introduced himself to that city’s musical elite with his Piano Quartet in g minor, the …

Born in a small town near Brescia, in Italy, Michelangeli graduated from the Milan Conservatory at age 14. Five years later, he won first prize at the Geneva International Competition, where Alfred Cortot declared: “In …

Grigory Sokolov was born in Leningrad (now St Petersburg) on the 18th of April 1950. He started to play piano at the age of five and, two years later, began studies with Liya Zelikhman at …

Tabea Zimmermann began learning the viola at the age of three, and two years later began playing the piano. She studied with Ulrich Koch at the Musikhochschule Freiburg and subsequently with Sandor Vegh at the …

During the summers of 1884 and 1885, Brahms composed his Symphony No. 4, working secretly in a quiet Austrian town in the Alps as was his usual practice. Despite the beautiful surroundings and his widespread …