Johannes Brahms: Variations on a theme by Haydn, Symphony No. 4, Hungarian Dance No.5

More important than all his other works, the four symphonies written by Johannes Brahms have accentuated his importance as a composer. The composer had to struggle for a long time for his first symphonic work - the overpowering role model Beethoven always in front of his eyes, the "giant", whom he heard, as he once jokingly remarked, marching behind him. It took Brahms twenty years to complete his first symphony in 1876, at the age of 43, and eight more years for three more symphonies. The fourth and last symphony was published in 1885. In the autumn before, Brahms had returned to Vienna from his holiday home Mürzzuschlag with the first two movements of the work. The news that he had written a new, tremendous symphony on a summer vacation had been in advance, after he had written in a letter of Aug. 29, 1885 to his dear friend Elisabeth von Herzogenberg: "I am not at all eager, a bad number 4 to write ".

“Following the example of the American Tanglewood Festival, Leonard Bernstein created an eduction center for top-level young orchestra musicians in Germany in 1987.” — Christoph Eschenbach