I put Jan Swafford's biography of Brahms to one side, two-thirds completed, when we went to New Zealand, sensing I wouldn't be able to do it justice on a real holiday. It was a wise decision. The final third proved very easy to move on with on my return. The biographer writes with such clarity and purpose that it was easy even for a forgetful old soul like myself to maintain the necessary continuity. In fact I'd suggest the final part of the biography dealing with the composer in the years of melancholy decline and assessing his place in musical history takes the work to another level - from the excellent to the superlative. Swafford is simply the best writer about music and musicians I've ever read. I mean, I'm no great fan of Brahms yet his biographer had made me ultra-keen to listen and appreciate the full range of his work. Isn't this what any kind of writing about any art should do?
He's also made me feel very guilty. This bit from the final segment really hurt: Yet in today's concert hall relatively few concertgoers can follow the course of any traditional musical form. The mode of listening that Brahms condemned Bruckner for fostering - wallowing without thought in a bath of sonority and emotion - is how audiences today largely listen to Bruckner symphonies, Bach fugues, Wagnerian opera and Brahms. Yes, that's me, and I'm now acutely aware it's really not good enough.
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