. . . Brahms became less and less heavy-handed in the course of his career. I don't think he really hit his stride until the German Requiem, which I contend has some incredibly good music in it. There are good bits in the earlier works, e.g., the op. 25 Piano Quartet in G minor, but I see e.g. the op. 111 String quintet to be a masterpiece of understatement and subtlety. Same with the Clarinet Quintet, which I don't choose as my first example only because it's been talked to death already in other contexts.
Even later (than the
German Requiem) we think - he entered into his true self only with the
Second Symphony - not that is to say until he had got the
First off his chest and was at long last free to be
lyrical in an unforced way.
We vividly remember proclaiming at the age of about twelve that Brahms's
Violin Concerto would "serve very well as background music." We remember our opinion that is to say but not the reasons why we held it. One of our great-aunts - Maud her name actually was, and she had been in her time head-mistress of a great and famous School - told us that we would grow to appreciate Brahms after the passage of a few more years; and lo! that did in fact come to pass.
Brahms therefore is the composer for mature persons who have lived a little is he not.
It was incidentally that same great-aunt Maud who described - but we cannot exactly say dismissed - Elgar as "that pompous gentleman."
