Thread: Why did Brahms use the Schumann template in his important works

Brahms major works are as follows

Schumann wrote 3 piano sonatas, Brahms wrote 3 piano sonatas
Schumann wrote 3 violin sonatas, Brahms wrote 3 violin sonatas
Schumann wrote 3 piano trios, Brahms wrote 3 piano trios (piano, violin and cello)
Schumann wrote 3 string quartets, Brahms wrote 3 string quartets
Schumann wrote 4 symphonies, Brahms wrote 4 symphonies
Schumann wrote 1 piano concerto, 1 violin concerto and 1 cello concerto, Brahms wrote 1 piano concerto (the 1st piano concerto wasn't originally conceived as a piano concerto), 1 violin concerto and a double concerto for cello and violin.
Schumann wrote intermezzos, Brahms wrote intermezzos
Schumann wrote works for clarinet and piano, Brahms countered with 2 clarinet sonatas. (His clarinet quintet and clarinet trio was him imitating Mozart)
Schumann wrote 1 piano quintet, Brahms wrote 1 piano quintet.

I don't think the above is mere coincidence but I know something is up. Was Brahms trying to merely fulfill minimum duties as a composer instead of composing freely? He seems to have buffer his publishing numbers by padding them with songs. Heck I wouldn't mind him composing 2 more symphonies instead of the abundance of songs he wrote.

some of the above were coincidences I feel, but also I do believe that Brahms is some senses viewed himself as Schumann's successor. its not just the quantity of works by genre, but often the themes. He quotes Schumann quite often, or adapts phrases for his own purposes. Just as a few examples, the 4th ballade is a kind of a meditation on 'im leuchtenden sommermorgen', the tune of the 1st rhapsody is based on the latent tune of the 1st piece of Kreisleriana, and the 7th piece of op. 116 reminds me strongly of the 7th number of Schumann's op.16. In fact the whole of Brahms' op.116 is like a response to Kreisleriana, to my ears.

thanks for the response. And I do agree with you, that he viewed himself as Schumann's successor. I think after Schumann's promotion of him, he saw himself as being indebted and he conformed his career to one of strictly paying homage to Schumann. I think its unavoidable. I think Brahms knew that when people look at his body of work they would immediately think of Schumann.
What he even more pronounced is that Brahms 4th Symphony was written in 1884, a full 12 years before he died. It is hard to imagine a titan like Brahms intentionally not penning another symphony during these last years when his powers were at its greatest. I think he purposely did not take up writing a 5th symphony for fear of Beethoven but morely so to honor Schumann.

Well...it is very true that Brahms revered Schumann but also his reverence for Beethoven and Bach was also profound..

Just as a slight caveat, my ears have no difference in distinguishing the works of Brahms and Schumann. Whereas Schumann's forms are more improvisatory, Brahms' are thoroughly orthodox and traditional. Whereas Schumann's music takes flight, Brahms remains earth bound, although Brahms themes are often highly memorable.

Brahms was also self-critical, and tended to view his works in an unfavourable light compared to his great predecessors...

Brahms was more than just a protege of Schumann, he became an almost constant companion and help to Clara Wieck Schumann after Robert's death. Personally, I think the 'template' is coincidental, but it is very interesting to note, I'm glad you brought this to my attention. I've not read a biography of Brahms (yet) - not sure if anyone has ever noticed this before!

They were secret lovers.

Originally Posted by ScipioAfricanus

Schumann wrote 1 piano concerto, 1 violin concerto and 1 cello concerto, Brahms wrote 1 piano concerto (the 1st piano concerto wasn't originally conceived as a piano concerto), 1 violin concerto and a double concerto for cello and violin.

Cheating.

Originally Posted by ScipioAfricanus

Schumann wrote intermezzos, Brahms wrote intermezzos

THIS IS NOT HUMANLY POSSIBLE!

Schumann wrote an opera. Brahms didn't.

Brahms wrote two string sextets, two cello sonatas, a trio for horn, violin, and piano, and a trio for cello, clarinet, and piano. Schumann wrote none of these.

Schumann liked the long piano cycle - Papillons, Carnaval, Davidsbundler Tanzen, Kinderszenen. Brahms didn't write a single one of these. Brahms liked variations - on themes by Handel, Haydn, Paganini, and, yes, Schumann.

Any Brahms song cycles? Schumann wrote one - Dichterliebe.

Piano Quartet score: Brahms 3, Schumann 1.

Coincidences, by definition, do occur.

It's interesting to crunch the numbers, but as some have pointed out above, they're just numbers. They don't say much about the substance of the individual works.

I mean I think the two major c19th French composers both Berlioz and Saint-Saens wrote three symphonies each, but I'm not sure if that means anything. Beethoven, Dvorak, Vaughan Williams & probably some others put down 9 symphonies, does this mean anything? Some say it does, but I'm not sure if 9 as a number means anything? Just building an aura/myth around Beethoven, eg. I don't think that the others stopped at 9 to "honour" Beethoven. Mahler was obsessed with this number, as we all know the story behind not calling his Das Liede von Erde his 9th symphony, but that didn't stop him completing his "real" 9th and even get some way through his 10th before his death.

I could go on and on - eg. all Beethoven, Saint-Saens and Prokofiev did 5 piano concertos. Our very own Peter Sculthorpe has put down 18 string quartets to date, same as Beethoven, does this mean anything? Does Sculthorpe now hang up his hat & say "Okay, I've caught up with Beethoven, so that's that, there'll be no String Quartet #19."

In short, this appears to me to be just pure number crunching, it doesn't say anything to me except raise my interest to a degree, but not much more than that...

Mahler wrote 11 symphonies; Bruckner wrote 11 symphonies
Mahler's 2nd is in c minor; Bruckner's 2nd is in c minor
Mahler's 3rd is in d minor; Bruckner's 3rd is in d minor
Mahler's 4th is considered his most accessible symphony; Bruckner's 4th is considered his most accessible symphony
Mahler's 5 ends with very fugal music; Bruckner's 5th ends with very fugal music
Mahler's 6th is in a minor; Bruckner's 6th is in A Major
Mahler's 7th is in e minor; Bruckner's 7th is in E Major
Mahler's 8th is in E flat; Bruckner's 8th is in c minor (same number of flats)
Mahler's 9th is in D Major; Bruckner's 9th is in d minor
Mahler's last symphony was left incomplete; Bruckner's last symphony was left incomplete
Mahler wrote almost exclusively symphonies and song cycles; Bruckner wrote almost exclusively symphonies and masses

Why are they copying each other!!???

Too much time on your hands, folks.

I'm honor bound to point out that Brahms actually wrote about 25 string quartets but he only published three. He burned the rest.

Originally Posted by Olias

I'm honor bound to point out that Brahms actually wrote about 25 string quartets but he only published three. He burned the rest.

Brahms the insecured old fart. Publishing just one or all 25, I doubt it would have made a huge difference. Thinking about composers who wrote many pieces in one genre, most of the time, we think highly of them by the quality over the quantity anyway, whether it was 106+ symphonies or 9.

Originally Posted by waldvogel

Any Brahms song cycles? Schumann wrote one - Dichterliebe.



Coincidences, by definition, do occur.

Brahms: Die schoene Magelone.

Schumann: Liederkreis (2 different cycles), Dichterliebe, Frauenliebe und -leben, Myrthen...

Yeah, the idea that Brahms planned his whole catalogue out in advance just so that it would match up with Schumann's can't really be taken seriously. Not to mention that Brahms started a Fifth Symphony in A major but abandoned it, and also (if I remember correctly) started a second Violin Concerto and another Double Concerto but abandoned those too.

On the other hand, there are plenty of references to Schumann in Brahms's works, some of them fairly obvious. Almost nobody has heard of Schumann's Festival Overture on the "'Rhine Wine Song" for Tenor, Chorus and Orchestra Op. 123 (and even I haven't actually heard it), but it's obviously related in some way to Brahms's Academic Festival Overture, which also makes use of drinking songs, albeit without the singers. The relationship that Eusebius12 suggests between Brahms's Op. 116 and Schumann's Kreisleriana Op. 16 seems pretty likely to me, although I hadn't noticed it before. Looking out for references like this is a lot of fun, even if it's also a complete waste of time!