One man's Brahms ...

"The classical
composer par excellence of the present day, who free from any
provincialism of expression or national dialect... writes for the whole
world and for all time - a giant, lofty and unapproachable - Johannes
Brahms."
- Edward Elgar, 1886




"I have played over the music of that scoundrel Brahms. What a
giftless bastard!"

- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, 1886




"The real Brahms is nothing more than a sentimental voluptuary...
He is the most wanton of composers... Only his wantonness is not
vicious; it is that of a great baby... rather tiresomely addicted to
dressing himself up as Handel or Beethoven and making a prolonged and
intolerable noise."

- George Bernard Shaw, 1893




"Brahms is just like Tennyson, an extraordinary musician, with
the brains of a third rate village policeman."

- George Bernard Shaw, 1893




"Take Brahms: the product of the misty landscapes of north
Germany, his works are full of groping, dreaminess and introspection.
Mist gives a sense of infinity; it may be only two feet deep but equally
it may cover the world, there is no knowing."

- Yehudi Menuhin