Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra

A concert dedicated to one of Hamburg’s most famous musicians: Johannes Brahms had a strong will, but he was also very withdrawn. His close confidante Clara Schumann once summarised his character saying: »He almost never speaks, and on the rare occasion he does so, his voice is so quiet that I cannot understand what he says. There is no doubt that he has a secret internal world – he takes in all that is beautiful and feeds on that inside.« Brahms liked to hide behind a facade of irony and sarcasm, and even his friends often failed to comprehend his puzzling behaviour. Who was he, this Johannes Brahms? The Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra explores this question in its fifth Philharmonic Concert of the season, with performances of Brahms’s Symphony No. 4 and Piano Concerto No. 1: »People always say that I am coarse and without tact. Where should I have learnt tact? In my youth I had to play in sailor’s taverns to avoid going hungry, and there one learns nothing good.«