Editing Johannes Brahms (section)

===Early adulthood (1850–1862)===
[[File:E Remenyi and J Brahms.jpg|thumb|upright|Ede Reményi (l.) and Brahms in 1852]]
[[File:Johannes Brahms 1853.jpg|thumb|upright|Brahms in 1853]]
[[File:Franz Hanfstaengl - Clara Schumann (1857).jpg|thumb|upright|[[Clara Schumann]] in 1857, photograph by [[Franz Hanfstaengl]]]]

====Collaboration and travel====
In 1850 Brahms met the Hungarian violinist [[Ede Reményi]] and accompanied him in a number of recitals over the next few years. This was his introduction to "gypsy-style" music such as the ''[[csardas]]'', which was later to prove the foundation of his most lucrative and popular compositions, the two sets of ''[[Hungarian Dances (Brahms)|Hungarian Dances]]'' (1869 and 1880).{{sfn|Swafford|1999|pp=56, 62}}{{sfn|Musgrave|1999b|loc=45}} 1850 also marked Brahms's first contact (albeit a failed one) with Robert Schumann; during Schumann's visit to Hamburg that year, friends persuaded Brahms to send the former some of his compositions, but the package was returned unopened.{{sfn|Swafford|1999|pp=56–57}}

In 1853 Brahms went on a concert tour with Reményi, visiting the violinist and composer [[Joseph Joachim]] at [[Hanover]] in May. Brahms had earlier heard Joachim playing the solo part in [[violin Concerto (Beethoven)|Beethoven's Violin Concerto]] and been deeply impressed.{{sfn|Swafford|1999|p=49}} Brahms played some of his own solo piano pieces for Joachim, who remembered fifty years later: "Never in the course of my artist's life have I been more completely overwhelmed".{{sfn|Swafford|1999|p=64}} This was the beginning of a friendship which was lifelong, albeit temporarily derailed when Brahms took the side of Joachim's wife in their divorce proceedings of 1883.{{sfn|Swafford|1999|pp=494–495}}

Brahms admired Joachim as a composer, and in 1856 they were to embark on a mutual training exercise to improve their skills in (in Brahms's words) "double [[counterpoint]], [[canon (music)|canons]], [[fugue]]s, preludes or whatever".{{sfn|Musgrave|2000|p=67}} Bozarth notes that "products of Brahms's study of counterpoint and early music over the next few years included "dance pieces, preludes and fugues for organ, and neo-[[Renaissance]] and neo-[[Baroque music|Baroque]] choral works".<ref name=bozarth2 />

After meeting Joachim, Brahms and Reményi visited [[Weimar]], where Brahms met [[Franz Liszt]], [[Peter Cornelius]], and [[Joachim Raff]], and where Liszt performed Brahms's Op. 4 Scherzo [[Sight-reading|at sight]]. Reményi claimed that Brahms then slept during Liszt's performance of his own [[Sonata in B minor (Liszt)|Sonata in B minor]]; this and other disagreements led Reményi and Brahms to part company.{{sfn|Swafford|1999|pp=67, 71}}

====The Schumanns and Leipzig====
Brahms visited [[Düsseldorf]] in October 1853, and, with a letter of introduction from Joachim,{{sfn|Gál|1963|p=7}} was welcomed by the Schumanns. Robert, greatly impressed and delighted by the 20-year-old's talent, published an article entitled "Neue Bahnen" ("New Paths") in the 28 October issue of the journal ''[[Neue Zeitschrift für Musik]]'' nominating Brahms as one who was "fated to give expression to the times in the highest and most ideal manner".<ref name="schumannideal">{{harvnb|Schumann|1988|pp=199–200}}</ref>

This praise may have aggravated Brahms's self-critical standards of perfection and dented his confidence. He wrote to Schumann in November 1853 that his praise "will arouse such extraordinary expectations by the public that I don't know how I can begin to fulfil them".{{sfn|Avins|1997|p=24}} While in Düsseldorf, Brahms participated with Schumann and Schumann's pupil [[Albert Dietrich]] in writing a movement each of a [[violin sonata]] for Joachim, the "[[F-A-E Sonata]]", the letters representing the initials of Joachim's personal motto ''Frei aber einsam'' ("Free but lonely").{{sfn|Swafford|1999|pp=81–82}}

Schumann's accolade led to the first publication of Brahms's works under his own name. Brahms went to [[Leipzig]] where [[Breitkopf & Härtel]] published his Opp. 1–4 (the Piano Sonatas nos. [[Piano Sonata No. 1 (Brahms)|1]] and [[Piano Sonata No. 2 (Brahms)|2]], the Six Songs Op. 3, and the Scherzo Op. 4), whilst [[Bartholf Senff]] published the [[Piano Sonata No. 3 (Brahms)|Third Piano Sonata Op. 5]] and the Six Songs Op. 6. In Leipzig, he gave recitals including his own first two piano sonatas, and met with [[Ferdinand David (musician)|Ferdinand David]], [[Ignaz Moscheles]], and [[Hector Berlioz]], among others.<ref name=bozarth2>{{harvnb|Bozarth and Frisch|2001|loc=§2: "New Paths"}}</ref>{{sfn|Swafford|1999|p=89}}

After Schumann's attempted suicide and subsequent confinement in a mental sanatorium near [[Bonn]] in February 1854 (where he died of pneumonia in 1856), Brahms based himself in Düsseldorf, where he supported the household and dealt with business matters on Clara's behalf. Clara was not allowed to visit Robert until two days before his death, but Brahms was able to visit him and acted as a go-between.

Brahms began to feel deeply for Clara, who to him represented an ideal of womanhood. But he was conflicted about their romantic association and resisted it, choosing the life of a bachelor in an apparent effort to focus on his craft.{{sfn|Bozarth and Frisch|2001|loc=§2: "New Paths"}} Nonetheless, their intensely emotional relationship lasted until Clara's death. In June 1854 Brahms dedicated to Clara his Op. 9, the ''Variations on a Theme of Schumann''.<ref name=bozarth2 /> Clara continued to support Brahms's career by programming his music in her recitals.{{sfn|Swafford|1999|pp=180, 182}}

====Early compositions, reception, and polemics====
After the publication of his Op. 10 [[Ballades, Op. 10 (Brahms)|Ballades]] for piano, Brahms published no further works until 1860. His major project of this period was the [[Piano Concerto No. 1 (Brahms)|Piano Concerto in D minor]], which he had begun as a work for two pianos in 1854 but soon realized needed a larger-scale format. Based in Hamburg at this time, he gained, with Clara's support, a position as musician to the tiny court of [[Detmold]], the capital of the [[Principality of Lippe]], where he spent the winters of 1857 to 1860 and for which he wrote his two [[Serenades (Brahms)|Serenades]] (1858 and 1859, Opp. 11 and 16). In Hamburg he established a women's choir for which he wrote music and conducted. To this period also belong his first two Piano Quartets ([[Piano Quartet No. 1 (Brahms)|Op. 25]] and [[Piano Quartet No. 2 (Brahms)|Op. 26]]) and the first movement of the [[Piano Quartet No. 3 (Brahms)|third Piano Quartet]], which eventually appeared in 1875.<ref name=bozarth2 />

The end of the decade brought professional setbacks for Brahms. The premiere of the First Piano Concerto in Hamburg on 22 January 1859, with the composer as soloist, was poorly received. Brahms wrote to Joachim that the performance was "a brilliant and decisive – failure&nbsp;... [I]t forces one to concentrate one's thoughts and increases one's courage&nbsp;... But the hissing was too much of a good thing&nbsp;..."{{sfn|Swafford|1999|pp=189–190}} At a second performance, audience reaction was so hostile that Brahms had to be restrained from leaving the stage after the first movement.{{sfn|Swafford|1999|p=211}} As a consequence of these reactions Breitkopf and Härtel declined to take on his new compositions. Brahms consequently established a relationship with other publishers, including [[N. Simrock|Simrock]], who eventually became his major publishing partner.<ref name=bozarth2 />

Brahms further made an intervention in 1860 in the debate on the future of German music which seriously misfired. Together with Joachim and others, he prepared an attack on Liszt's followers, the so-called "[[New German School]]" (although Brahms himself was sympathetic to the music of [[Richard Wagner]], the School's leading light). In particular they objected to the rejection of traditional musical forms and to the "rank, miserable weeds growing from Liszt-like fantasias". A draft was leaked to the press, and the ''Neue Zeitschrift für Musik'' published a parody which ridiculed Brahms and his associates as backward-looking. Brahms never again ventured into public musical polemics.{{sfn|Swafford|1999|pp=206–211}}

====Failed aspirations====
Brahms's personal life was also troubled. In 1859 he became engaged to Agathe von Siebold. The engagement was soon broken off, but even after this Brahms wrote to her: "I love you! I must see you again, but I am incapable of bearing fetters. Please write me&nbsp;... whether&nbsp;... I may come again to clasp you in my arms, to kiss you, and tell you that I love you." They never saw one another again, and Brahms later confirmed to a friend that Agathe was his "last love".<ref name=Agathe>{{harvnb|Musgrave|2000|pp=52–53}}</ref>

Brahms had hoped to be given the conductorship of the Hamburg Philharmonic, but in 1862 this post was given to [[baritone]] [[Julius Stockhausen]]. Brahms continued to hope for the post. But he demurred when he was finally offered the directorship in 1893, as he had "got used to the idea of having to go along other paths".{{sfn|Musgrave|2000|pp=27, 31}}