Really got going, finally, on Jan Swafford's Johannes Brahms: A Biography, which, around 100 pages in, is proving every bit as good as I expected. Swafford's outline of Romanticism in its German context is masterly: the clearest explanation of the zeitgeist I've ever read or heard. And even for a non-musician like myself his explanation of the basic split between Brahms and the Wagner/Liszt faction makes easy, accessible reading.
The account of Johannes encountering the Schumanns for the first time is as gripping as any novel. I was vaguely aware of Robert's mental instability but the biography makes this painfully real, as it does the swirling cross-currents of emotion involving Clara, Robert and the young Brahms. As he did in his biography of Ives, Swafford pulls off the remarkable feat of convincing the reader of the almost other-worldly genius of the musicians involved whilst making them painfully vulnerable ordinary mortals.
Gosh, these people really did feel whatever it was they felt. No wonder their music aches so much.
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