Table of Contents

Preface
List of Illustrations
Prelude, in Canon1: Young Kreisler (1833-54)
2: The Romantic foreground
3: Storm and stress (1854-60)
4: Fully armed like Minerva: the music to 1860
5: Not quite a Viennese (1860-72)
6: The sense of the past
7: The music of the middle years, 1860-75
8: 'Frei aber froh'
9: The music of the middle years, 1876-82
10: The final phase
11: The later music, 1883-96
12: Music and [Menschenbild]
13: A Music of the Future
Appendices
Index

Reviews

`Brahms by Malcolm MacDonald in the Dent Master Musicians Series certainly explores the key issues of Brahmsian lore. It does so with passionate sensitivity and wisdom, dealing with several issues ... The life and music blend revealingly, with keen intelligence applied to both, in this wonderfully human and refreshingly written new biography. I will read it again and wish it twice as long.'
James Strecker, Arts Beat, May/June 1995
richly detailed study...MacDonald manages to say something illuminating about almost everything Brahms wrote, neglected gems not least. Published only in 1990, the book might seem a bit recent for a classic; but Master Musicians are written to last, and this one certainly should.
` 'There is no better book on Brahms in print, and all its succesors will be deeply in its debt...inaugurates a new era in Brahms studies''
The Musical Times