Brahms: Beethoven's Successor?

[Waldszenen]

In your opinion, is Brahms the successor to possibly the greatest composer in living history, or is he some cheap rip off composing nothing near to Beethoven's level?


Post your vote.

[stevie]

neither, he is very different to beethoven to me, not quite as much of a genius, but still one of the greatest composers ever.

i consider beethoven the greatest musical genius who ever lived.

[pianistimo]

yeah, besides mozart.  it's a toss up.

beethoven has personal triumph over the aristocracy, whereas mozart was barely getting out of that and sufferred for it more.  brahms, well he may have been just as stoic about love as beethoven, and sufferred similarly, but his belief in the ressurrection of the dead was acknowledged greatly by the requiem he wrote which is one of the most beautiful, imo, expressing verses directly out of the bible.  in other words, he truly believed that there was hope in the end.  Beethoven once considered suicide (due to deafness beginning - so he didn't accept fate as something to be calm about) and Mozart a little crazy (but i can relate).  Brahms was steady.  he sufferred but he didn't complain much.

one similarity, though, might be that beethoven took such great care of his nephew carl, and brahms had similar kindnesses to clara.  they were very trustworthy and caring people.

beethoven's successor was probably someone like mahler or someone who wrote a lot of symphonies.  someone who thought on a grand scale.  it's really odd, but i think of bernstein as having been a sort of modern day beethoven.  correct me if this is way off.

[apion]

In many respects, Brahms is the greatest composer ever; nevertheless, overall, Beethoven has a slight edge (very slight) and Beethoven remains my favorite composer.

[jeremyjchilds]

I would say yes...

I think Brahms did what beethoven would have done if he lived longer.

[Tash]

some of brahms reminds me a lot of beethoven, like the passacaglia from the symphony no.4 was played in a class for us and we were trying to guess the composers- my first thoughts was sounds like beethoven, but not. thus i can see brahms as being beethoven's successor

[Waldszenen]

In my opinion, yes he is, solely for the reason that he has the largest proportion of his compositions in the active repertoire, and not to mention they're all amazingly talented compositions at that.

[pianistimo]

but, one disagreement, they don't fit in the hands as nicely.  brahms is much more difficult to play than beethoven.  he didn't think pianistically, he thought in terms of chamber music and violin/voice/and some orchestral ideas for the piano.  with beethoven, he ended with his fantastic last piano sonatas that were quite 'out there' in form and harmony.  brahms didn't complete that idea.  he started his own.  to me, mahler completes where beethoven left off. take a listen to his ressurrection symphony (symphony #2) conducted by zubin mehta on amazon.  it's amazingly beethovenish.

ps  i'm not down on brahms, and if i were to order my favorite piano composers - it would be brahms as the successor - but if it were symphonic - mahler is the one i would choose.

[stevie]

brahms was actually a virtuoso pianist, and knew what he was doing when he wrote his music.

his works can be called unpianistic, but they are written by a man who knew the piano so very well.

they were intended to be new, new textures and figurations.

[pianistimo]

he labored intensively over his work, whereas with other composer's it sort of flowed out.  with beethoven, it just came out.