Dedications, works, companions
Exhibition of the Brahms Institute at the MHL from 31 January to 14 December 2024
Opening hours during the Brahms Festival: 3 to 12 May, daily from 2 to 6 pm
Regular opening hours: Wed and Sat, 2 to 6 pm
With each of its exhibitions, the Brahms Institute at the MHL in the Villa Brahms on Jerusalemsberg approaches the composer from a new perspective - and enables a delightful combination of artistic practice and academic research during the Brahms Festival.
The current exhibition shows Brahms in the mirror of his personal relationships with colleagues, friends and companions. Around 60 exhibits from the valuable 明升m88体育_明升体育官网-在线|平台 collection, including busts, manuscripts, prints, photos and letters, combine to create the "relationship magic" that gave the exhibition its title, based on a phrase by Thomas Mann.
And once again it is a new facet that Brahms gains here: Not that of the brittle North German loner, but that of a striking personality who attracted and enchanted people. Among those who were attracted were musical personalities such as Clara and Robert Schumann, Joseph Joachim and Albert Dietrich, but also artists such as Max Klinger and Anselm Feuerbach or the surgeon Theodor Billroth, with whom Brahms travelled to Italy several times.
The Brahms address book on display, which has been digitised for the exhibition, provides an initial insight into this personal network. If you leaf through it, you will come across many prominent names from Brahms' circle of friends and acquaintances, including Max Bruch, Antonín Dvo?ák and Johann Strauss. The booklet is organised alphabetically, partly by name and partly by place, and entries in Brahms' energetic handwriting are repeatedly crossed out or overwritten.
The dedicatory compositions on display are also rich in connections: Almost half of Brahms' works are dedicated to friends and acquaintances from his personal circle. His closest friends and colleagues who honoured him also dedicated their works to Brahms.
Clara Schumann received the most handwritten dedications from Brahms. She was the formative female figure in his life. However, she did not always play a leading role in the composer's life, as a selection of photographs from his estate also on display shows. Among them is the Italian mezzo-soprano Alice Barbi (1862 - 1948) and the picture of an unknown lady who wrote to Brahms on the back of the photograph, which was quite lascivious for the time: "If the original is not forgotten and you want to renew an old acquaintance, you will find it: Wieden. In der 13, I Etage Thüre 4 [...] Best regards to Maestro Brahms".
