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Motto: “Indeed, what would become of all historical research and all biographies, if they were written with too many scruples about giving offence.” Brahms to Clara Schumann
It is evident that musicians command a language which enables them to express their inner selves, without revealing it to all the world. There is often a wide range of alternative possibilities in the interpretation of a musical composition: “If you can't get the meaning, put some meaning into it” (Goethe).
Among great musicians we find reserved personalities, usually taciturn, solitary creative. It can be shown that the musical language which they use is due to some deep spiritual need, seeking to resolve internal conflicts and moods, and is often derived from the traditions of early home-life.
When we are told with what deep emotional disturbance and with what weeping Brahms sometimes composed and how easily when he was playing, the tears came to his eyes, we begin to be interested in his otherwise well concealed inner life. In studying him, we shall not neglect the professionally trained interpreters of his compositions, yet we shall not renounce other means of comprehending his personality.
This essay does not seek to give musical instruction of any kind, but it takes the privilege of psychoanalysis to investigate the love-experiences of a great artist, an investigation, which has been much neglected by other biographers. It is our aim to examine in Brahms' bachelorhood a typical mental phenomenon and to make a contribution to the estimation of his personality. He himself said that it was his life's misfortune not to be married, to have no children, to be forced to mental solitude as to the causes of which his own reasoning misled him; he himself recognized all this in the violent grief, which attacked him and made him appear so harsh and unjust under the power of disappointment and envy.