1818: Leopold Kozeluch, Bohemian composer, died.

1833: Johannes Brahms, composer, born.

1883: The Royal College of Music in London opened for the first time.

1947: Premiere of The Mother of Us All, opera by V. Thomson.

Johannes Brahms was born on May 7, 1833, in Hamburg. He was born into a family of limited means, the son of a double bass player. He began music lessons early and his parents had hopes of him becoming a prodigy but this did not occur.

He did exhibit promise on the piano and in composition. He was forced to use his skills on the piano to help support his family as a young adolescent, playing at night in brothels and taverns.

In 1853, he embarked on a concert tour with the Hungarian violinist Eduard Reményi and met the violinist/ composer Joseph Joachim (who would become a close friend) as well as Liszt, and Robert and Clara Schumann. Robert Schumann was so impressed with Brahms that he declared it publicly in his Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, shortly before being confined in an asylum.

Brahms had developed strong feelings for Clara Schumann (Robert’s wife, a pianist and composer in her own right) and helped her with her children and other household issues. Whether or not Brahms and Clara ever had more than a platonic relationship is not known. However, Brahms was also engaged to three different women. All of these committments he broke off.

In 1859, he premiered his Piano Concerto No. 1 in Hamburg, although it was not initially well received. He moved to Vienna in 1863, and in 1868 he conducted his Ein Deutsches Requiem, adding the movement “Ihr habt nun Traurigkeit” shortly afterwards to honor his mother. He finally completed his Symphony No. 1 in 1876. He personally premiered his first piano concerto in 1881.
During his lifetime, Brahms was primarily regarded as a master and genius working in traditional and more conservative forms (as compared to composers at the time such as Wagner and Liszt). As his life progressed, his works grew in popularity and importance (they are still very popular today). He died of liver cancer on April 3, 1897 in Vienna.