Written and Unwritten

Arrangements in Brahms’s Performances

Abstract

Through crafting and performing arrangements publicly, Johannes Brahms engaged with works he admired and demonstrated his use of virtuosity in the service of music of substance and artistry. In addition to promoting works that were unfamiliar to audience members, his performances allied him with historical works, both within and outside of the piano repertoire, that were becoming part of an emerging canon. All of these activities continue to hold relevance in our own time.
In his concerts from the 1850s to the 1880s, Brahms performed his own arrangements of works of other composers, including J. S. Bach, Beethoven, Gluck, Schubert, Chopin, and Robert Schumann, as well as his solo setting of the variation movement from his op. 18 Sextet. Contemporary accounts describe the inventive and often highly virtuosic techniques he employed to convey a composition’s structure and actual sound, and an improvisatory approach that led audiences to imagine they were witnessing the unfolding of his creative processes before their eyes. The fact that Brahms did not publish, and probably did not even notate most of his performed arrangements reinforced their perceived status as a composer-pianist’s highly personal, variable readings.

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