The Brahms Letters – Rory Thompson, piano

The Brahms Letters We all know who Brahms IS, but do we know anything about him… as a human? Although I have loved Brahms for my lifetime, I never knew what made him tick! I have gone to quite a few Biopic movies that tell about the lives of many well-known popular musicians and bands. They use the music as a device to delve into the eventful lives, the emotional lives of these musicians. The music helps to tell the story, and we come away loving both the musicians and the music even more than we did. The Brahms Letters is my attempt to do the same, by telling about the real events of Brahms’ life, his “trials and tribulations”. Short readings from love letters that he sent to Clara Schumann over decades, and readings from Clara’s diary expose the deep emotional background to the final piano pieces from Op. 116-119, written in the last two years of Brahms’ life. He shared these pieces with Clara, along with impassioned letters that he continued to send until her death. Historical images of the people and places in which they lived and loved accompany these stories and pieces. I hope everyone comes away knowing the very real humans that Johannes and Clara were.