He masterfully bridged Classical tradition and Romantic emotion, blending rich harmonies, structural brilliance, and profound depth in music that continues to stir the soul and challenge the mind.
Yes, there's no doubt about it, the German composer Johannes Brahms is one of the greatest names in all classical music. Below, 15 Brahms superfans - from conductors and pianists to horn players and sopranos - reveal their all-time favourite Brahms work.
Top 15 Brahms works
1. 'Die Mainacht' ('The May Night')
Chosen by Juliane Banse, soprano
The song 'Die Mainacht' is about the moon rising up one night in May. The colours and the light that reflect from the moon stir up all kinds of emotions. So it’s all about the power of the moon, reminding someone of what he has lost. I love it so much. It’s very moving, very touching.
It has so many aspects of Brahms on just four pages of music, which makes it really interesting every time I sing it. But it’s not trying to be intellectual; it’s just very open, very honest, very clear. Every time I read through it, it reaches me somehow.
2. Piano Quartet No. 2, Op. 26
Chosen by Renaud Capuçon, violinist
The Piano Quartet Op. 26 is a mix of a piano concerto and chamber music, with one of the most amazing slow movements. You can feel Brahms's youth in it and you can sense, in the slow movement, his tenderness. There’s a phrase in that movement when the violin and cello play together which seems to come from the sky.
Playing Brahms’s chamber music is like taking a bath with essential oils
What I love to do is to play Op. 25 in the first part of a concert, then Op. 26 – and then you have an idea of what Brahms can be. Playing Brahms’s chamber music is like taking a bath with essential oils. And he makes you feel like you’re embracing somebody very warmly.
3. Symphony No. 1
Chosen by Riccardo Chailly, conductor
The majesty and the mysteriousness of the fourth movement of the First Symphony still remains for me a superior piece of mastery. The darkness, the complexity and the almost mystic start to the movement blossoms with Brahms’s big chorale-like melody in the major key.
- Brahms's Symphony No. 1 featured in our list of the 20 greatest symphonies of all time
It’s so soft compared to the huge chorale in Beethoven's Symphony No. 9. Of course, Beethoven was a great father-figure presence in Brahms’s life, but he was just an example for Brahms. The young composer had the ingenuity to build his own universe. When the melody appears, it’s like the sun shining suddenly after this dark introduction. I want to mention the horn melody near the start which is straight from the Alps, and is a miracle of sound for me.
4. Clarinet Quintet
Chosen by Michael Collins, clarinet
For me, the Brahms Clarinet Quintet documents all the feelings associated with Brahms: it’s like his life story. From the first phrase to the last there’s so much expectation. It takes you through this long journey and when you get to the last chord you feel that you’ve reached the end. It really touches my heart because, even before I played the clarinet, it was the first thing I heard on LP.
I can visualise myself even now as a little kid staring up into space listening to this incredible piece of music. Brahms’s writing for stringed instruments is amazing – so well crafted and thought out, and the clarinet part is equally brilliant. Put the whole thing together and you’ve got a work of genius.
5. Piano Sonata No. 3 in F minor
Chosen by Barry Douglas, pianist
There is something very substantial about the F Minor Piano Sonata, because it’s got all his youthful enthusiasm and skill and pianistic prowess. But it is also pointing to something very apocalyptic towards the end of his life. In many ways it is quite Wagnerian, although Brahms was poles apart from Wagner.
'It's like a coiled spring'
The Sonata itself comes from a sort of late-19th century, music-charmer tradition, but there is something in the second movement which reminds me very much of Wagner. I think it’s got this incredible kaleidoscope of different moods and atmospheres and skills. And as with a lot of Brahms’s piano works, it’s sort of like a coiled spring. There’s a lot going on that is ready to burst.
More best of Brahms
6. Liebeslieder Waltzes, Op. 52
Chosen by Sir John Eliot Gardiner, conductor
The Liebeslieder Waltzes, Op. 52 are some of my favourite Brahms pieces of all. It’s Brahms unfettered by academic convention or constraints. He’s just letting his hair down. It’s the most exuberant, lyrical and smiley series of choral waltzes that you can possibly imagine.
I first heard them on a recording that my teacher Nadia Boulanger made with her star pupil Dinu Lipatti. Even though she wasn’t a great fan of Brahms, her playing with Lipatti is just beautiful. These Waltzes are the greatest fun to perform too. When we do them with the Monteverdi Choir, everyone is just beaming from ear to ear.
7. Horn Trio
Chosen by David Pyatt, horn player
The Brahms Horn Trio is probably the finest piece of music ever written for the French horn. Brahms innately understood what makes the horn... the horn. He knew what it took to bring out the instrument’s most satisfying lyrical side, in a way that other composers before and after didn’t really get.
The slow movement is remarkable: it’s very contained, very calm, almost icy calm, until this extraordinary outburst in the last couple of lines of the movement where this huge anguish comes out, and then it goes away again. It’s extraordinary.
8. Violin Sonata No. 3
Chosen by Evgeny Kissin, piano
I’ve played many Brahms piano works, but my favourite Brahms work is his Violin Sonata No. 3. Why? When it comes to love, we cannot explain it. But I remember when I heard it for the first time – not even all of it (it so happened that I came to the concert late).
So I was just under 13 years old when I heard Vladimir Spivakov perform this work in Yaruban in Armenia. Something struck my heart as I listened to it and I fell in love with it for the rest of my life.
9. Cello Sonata no. 2 in F major, Op. 9
Chosen by Paul Watkins, cellist
Brahms’s F major Cello Sonata is one of the first pieces I tackled as a kid. It’s so symphonic and dynamic and heroic and touching… The slow movement is one of Brahms’s finest – it’s simply structured, but he creates an incredible sound world with low writing for the piano in the left hand, the cello singing in its prime register on the A-string, and a pizzicato colour that he uses all throughout.
The piano part is hugely virtuosic and full of colour, but he keeps the cello in the right part of its range so it has a chance to come through. The whole Sonata is incredibly imaginative and daringly modern.
10. Viola Sonata No. 2
Chosen by Tabea Zimmermann, violist
The Viola Sonata Op. 120 No. 2 in E flat major was originally a clarinet sonata but Brahms saw it and made his own little changes to allow it to be played on the viola. The instruments are practically the same register and it’s only in playing techniques that we are very different.
The last movement of the second sonata is a variations movement which I think is a perfect example of a mix of beauty, subtlety and complexity. It’s the late Brahms that I love – the mood, the slowness and the width of the space between the notes. Virtuosity has absolutely no room there, and that’s what I love about this Sonata.
Best of Brahms works: the BBC Music Magazine team add their choices
11. Symphony No. 3
Brahms’s finest symphony may not have the fireworks of, say, the Violin Concerto, but the subtle drama and dark atmosphere of his Third Symphony are simply magical. The slow movement is particularly beautiful - have a listen below.
Recommended recording: Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra/Herbert von Karajan DG 477 7159
12. Ein Deutsches Requiem
Brahms employs full symphony orchestra and chorus for this majestic setting of passages from the Lutheran Bible, written in response to his mother’s death.
Here is the much-loved fifth movement, 'Ihr habt nun Traurigkeit' ('You now have sorrow'), known for its tender, consoling soprano solo and serene orchestration.
Recommended recording: Dorothea Röschmann (soprano), Thomas Quasthoff (baritone), Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and Berlin Radio Choir/Simon Rattle EMI 365 3932
13. Piano Concerto No. 2
This beautiful, deeply felt concerto was written just after the Symphony No. 3. The Adagio slow movement’s use of cello as a ‘second’ solo instrument was highly innovative for its time, while the long, expansive Allegro opening movement is an emotional rollercoaster ride.
Recommended recording: Emil Gilels (piano), Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra/Eugen Jochum DG 447 4462
14. Intermezzi Op. 117
Brahms was a supreme pianist and his solo piano music has extraordinary range and variety. His late Intermezzi, for example, are stunningly written miniatures.
Recommended recording:
Nicholas Angelich (piano)
Virgin 379 3022
15. Violin Concerto
Full of gypsy inflections and wild virtuosity, the Violin Concerto, written in 1879 for Joseph Joachim, is one of the most greatest and most popular violin concertos in the repertoire.
Recommended recording: Nikolaj Znaider (violin), Vienna Philharmonic/Valery Gergiev RCA 88697103362