great success. Brahms went on to perform it at a number of successful concerts in
Germany, Austria and the Netherlands, some conducted by Hans von Bülow. Eugen
d’Albert later performed both concertos under the composer’s baton.
Piano Sonatas
- C major opus 1
- F sharp minor opus 2
- F minor opus 5
Piano pieces
Rhapsodies, Intermezzos and Fantasies from opus 76, 79, 116, 117, 118 and 119
Handel Variations opus 24
Paganini Variations Books 1 and 2 opus 35
Chamber music
Piano trios, piano quintet, piano and violin sonatas
Brahms & Liszt
On Wednesday morning 15 June 1853 Liszt played his Piano Sonata in B minor at the
Altenburg, Weimar, in the presence of the young American pupil William Mason (1829-
1908), the twenty year old composer and pianist Johannes Brahms (1833-1897), violinist
Edé Reményi, pupils Karl Klindworth (1830-1916) and Dionys Pruckner (1834-1896),
composer Joachim Raff and others of Liszt's pupils and friends.
Brahms and Reményi were on a concert tour at the time and detoured to Weimar so that
Brahms could show some of his early unpublished compositions to the older composer.
What started out as a happy occasion, with Liszt’s brilliant sight-reading of Brahms’s
hardly legible E flat minor Scherzo and part of his C major Sonata, ended quite
uncomfortably for all concerned.
Mason continues: ‘A little later someone asked Liszt to play his own sonata, a work
which was quite recent at that time, and of which he was very fond. Without hesitation,
he sat down and began playing. As he progressed he came to a very expressive part of
the sonata, which he always imbued with extreme pathos, and in which he looked for the
especial interest and sympathy of his listeners. Casting a glance at Brahms, he found that
the latter was dozing in his chair. Liszt continued playing to the end of the sonata, then
rose and left the room. I was in such a position that Brahms was hidden from my view,
but I was aware that something unusual had taken place, and I think it was Reményi who
afterward told me what it was.’
Reményi corroborated Mason’s account in an interview for the ‘New York Herald’ of 18
January 1879, the first time this story found its way into print. It was later reprinted in