Why Did Brahms Take 21 Years to Write His First Symphony? The Perfectionist in Beethoven's Shadow

Johannes Brahms (1833–1897) took so long to finish his First Symphony because he was a ruthless perfectionist writing in the shadow of Beethoven. Sketches date back to 1854, and by Brahms's own later account the work took 21 years, from 1855 to 1876. When it finally appeared, the conductor Hans von Bülow called it "Beethoven's Tenth", a compliment that showed both how high Brahms had aimed and how heavy the comparison was. The story of that symphony is, in many ways, the story of Brahms himself: slow, self-critical, deeply loyal to tradition, and in the end one of the great composers of the Romantic era.

A musician's son from Hamburg

Brahms was born on 7 May 1833 in Hamburg. His father, Johann Jakob, was a working musician who played the double bass, as well as the horn and flute, and he gave his son his first lessons. Johannes began studying piano in 1840 and from 1845 took lessons from Eduard Marxsen, a respected teacher who gave him a solid grounding in the classics.

You may read that the teenage Brahms played piano in Hamburg's sailors' bars and even brothels to help his family. That story has only anecdotal origins, and many modern scholars dismiss it. What is clear is that the family was not wealthy and that music was a trade as well as an art in the Brahms household.

1853: the year everything changed

In 1853, aged twenty, Brahms went on a concert tour with the Hungarian violinist Ede Reményi. During that year he also visited the great violinist Joseph Joachim in Hanover, who became a lifelong friend.

That autumn, Brahms knocked on the door of Robert and Clara Schumann in Düsseldorf. Robert Schumann was so impressed that he published an article called "Neue Bahnen" ("New Paths") in his music journal, presenting the unknown young man as the coming genius of German music. It was a huge boost, and also a huge burden: overnight, Brahms was expected to produce masterpieces.

Clara Schumann and a lifelong bond

Only a few months later, in February 1854, Robert Schumann attempted suicide. He was taken to an asylum, where he died in 1856. Brahms stood by Clara, a brilliant pianist with a large family, and helped support her household.

The two developed a deep friendship that lasted the rest of their lives. Exactly what they felt for one another has fascinated biographers ever since, but the documented fact is simple: Brahms never married, and Clara remained his closest musical confidante.

Failures, Detmold and a famous quarrel

Brahms's early career was not a straight path to success. From 1857 to 1860 he spent his winters working at the small court of Detmold. His First Piano Concerto, which had grown out of an abandoned symphony project, was badly received in 1859; Brahms himself called the occasion a "brilliant and decisive failure".

In 1860 he also stepped into the "War of the Romantics". Brahms helped draft a public statement against the so-called New German School of Liszt and his followers, who believed music should move towards programme music and music drama. The statement leaked early and was mocked, and Brahms never again took part in public polemics. Brahms first met Richard Wagner in 1863, and Wagner later made openly critical and insulting remarks about his music.

Vienna and A German Requiem

In 1862 Brahms visited Vienna and decided to make it his home. After his mother died in 1865, he worked intensively on Ein deutsches Requiem (A German Requiem). When the complete work was performed in Bremen in 1868, it was a triumph, and it made Brahms famous across Europe.

Success of a lighter kind came with his Hungarian Dances, first published in 1869, which became enormously popular in homes and concert halls.

The symphony he could not finish

Why, then, did the First Symphony take so long? Partly because Brahms was his own harshest critic. He destroyed many early works and once claimed to have destroyed twenty string quartets before publishing his official first quartet in 1873. For a composer who measured himself against Beethoven, a symphony was the ultimate test.

When the Symphony No. 1 in C minor was finally premiered in Karlsruhe on 4 November 1876, conducted by his friend Felix Otto Dessoff, listeners heard the echo of Beethoven at once. The broad theme of the finale strongly resembles the "Ode to Joy" melody from Beethoven's Ninth. When someone pointed that out, Brahms reportedly snapped that "any ass can see that". He saw his use of Beethoven's language as conscious homage, not imitation.

Once the dam broke, the rest came faster. Three more symphonies followed, and Richard Strauss called the Fourth "a giant work, great in concept and invention".

The third B and his final years

Hans von Bülow liked to name Brahms alongside Bach and Beethoven as one of music's great masters, a pairing remembered today in the phrase "the three Bs". In 1889 his home city of Hamburg made him an honorary citizen.

In the summer of 1896 Brahms was diagnosed with cancer. He died in Vienna on 3 April 1897, aged 63, and was buried in the city's Central Cemetery.

Why Brahms still matters

Brahms showed that you could be modern while respecting the past. He combined the strict forms of Bach and Beethoven with warm Romantic emotion, and his symphonies, concertos, chamber music and songs remain central to the repertoire. For anyone learning something difficult, his story also offers comfort: it took him two decades to finish the work he feared most, and it was worth the wait.

Learn with Brahms: English phrases about patience and pressure

Phrase	Meaning	Example
to live up to expectations	to be as good as people hoped	Brahms worried he couldn't live up to expectations.
in someone's shadow	less noticed because of someone greater	He wrote in Beethoven's shadow.
to be your own worst critic	to judge yourself very harshly	Brahms was his own worst critic.
worth the wait	good enough to justify a long delay	The First Symphony was worth the wait.
to pay homage to	to show respect publicly	The finale pays homage to Beethoven.

Try this: Think of a project you have been putting off. Write three English sentences using "to live up to expectations", "to be your own worst critic" and "worth the wait".