January 15th 2025, Vienna, by Gabriel Bebeselea

Even before arriving in Vienna for the rehearsals and the upcoming 5 performances together with the astonishing Sayaka Shoji and the wonderful Tonkünstler Orchester (two of those taking place in Musikverein Wien, where the second rendition of this piece took place), I was asking myself what connects me on a personal level to Brahms’ Violin Concerto in D Op. 77. And in the very next second I had the answer: my birth city, Sibiu (or Hermannstadt in German), a place which for centuries was the capital of Transylvania (or Siebenbürgen, from the seven fortresses spread across the whole region).
After the bumpy world premiere of this Concerto, on the first day of 1879, Johannes Brahms and Joseph Joachim, the dedicatee of this piece, were not very happy with how the performances went. According to the reviews, Brahms looked incredibly nervous, spreading throughout the Gewandhausorchester vibes of insecurity. Also, despite being one of the greatest violinists in history, Joachim seemed to be ill-prepared. No wonder Brahms pulled out from the Viennese premiere which was supposed to take place with him as a conductor and Joseph Hellmesberger (the son of Georg Hellmesberger, Joachim’s violin teacher in Vienna) taking center stage. Instead of Brahms, Hans von Bülow took over and both him and Hellmesberger were relatively skeptical in regards with the music, giving birth to one of the most famous musical anecdotes, attributed by different sources to both, stating that this was a piece ‘against the violin’, even if the performance in Musikverein Wien was rather successful. To emphasize that point of view, Pablo de Sarasate and Henryk Wieniawski refused to perform it.
No wonder that after all this fuss, even if Joachim performed the Concerto after almost two months in London, Joachim and Brahms started to have long and incredibly detailed debates in their letters regarding what and how should be modified and re-written so that this piece gets better. Later on, these letters started to become a triangle, Brahms keeping his editor, Fritz Simrock, updated with how the Concerto was morphing.
During the summer of 1879, while Brahms was still correcting and changing the piece in his personal Paradise found in the tiny fischer’s village of Pörtschach, Joachim writes that he’s being awarded ‘Honorary Doctorate’ of the Music Conservatory in Kolozsvár, or Cluj-Napoca in Romanian and Klausenburg in German, coming up with a crazy idea: to go on a tour in the exotic Transylvania (and not because of the vampires), a principality part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire which seemed far from Vienna.
Transylvania was a cultural melting pot inhabited by Germans (two different types: Sachsen, settled in the 13th Century, and Schwaben, arriving after the Austrian Empire conquered the Banat region from the Ottoman Empire in the beginning of the 18th Century), Hungarians, Romanians, Jews, Gypsy and many more. Brahms immediately replied: ‘To invitations for concerts and parties e round JA […] So do whatever you want with me, in countries less civilized, which interest me the most’ (1).
After changing more ideas about the places worth visiting and performing and ideas about repertoires, Brahms writes to the librarian of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde: ‘I can expect Joachim to pick me up any day now to take me to Siebenbürgen, Novi Pazar and Bosnia – for that I am in need of the holy scriptures in order to preach to the heathens’ (2).
Novi Pazar and Bosnia never happened, but for their trip to Transylvania they met in Budapest for a brief rehearsal on the 13th of September 1879 and took the night train to Arad, the first stop.
When the ‘King of the Violin’ and the ‘Greatest Pianist and Composer’ (how the local newspapers were promoting the recital) arrived, I assume they were a bit disappointed in not finding any heathens, but a city with a pretty long musical tradition, a conservatory opened in 1833, almost half a century before their arrival (!), an almost fanatical audience which still had reminisces of the lisztomania the city experienced in 1846 when Franz Liszt performed here and almost the same amount of passion one year later when Johann Strauss II performed here.
After a huge reception, the next day, on September 15th, ‘the two musical heroes’ (3) traveled to Timișoara (European Capital of Culture 2023), where they were welcomed at the train station by a huge cheering crowd. Due to conflicting dates appearing in the newspapers from Arad and Timișoara, the best proof for the exact date of the recital can be found in the Guest Book of the Philharmonic Society in Timișoara/Temeswar (founded in 1872), a document which I revisited several days ago, where one may find the signatures of Pablo de Sarasate, Béla Bartók, George Enescu or more recent, Wynton Marsalis and Nicola Benedetti.
Funnily, Brahms makes a mistake when he writes the date – 1879 Sept 79 (!), the date being later corrected in pencil.

But the most important part of the recital in Timișoara was their rendition of the Violin Concerto, testing all the changes done in person or through their letters exchanged throughout the whole year. A local journalist realised he was witnessing a moment of greatness and called the Violin Concerto ‘one of the most important pieces in music history’.
The reception in Timișoara lasted only a few hours because the two artists returned by carriage to Arad, preparing for their next trip. They arrive in the medieval town of Sighișoara/Schäßburg (the birthplace of Vlad Tepeș) and the recital takes place on September the 17th, followed by – of course – a generous party. The next day, before taking the noon train to Brașov/Kronstadt, they were invited to a beautiful chalet in the hills nearby. Spellbound by the surroundings and good wine (that region has some of the best wines in nowadays Romania), Brahms, annoyed by Joachim who stresses every other minute the urgency of not losing the train, tells him: ‘What do I care of the train, when I have this beautiful view and and fine wine?’ (5).
But the match is won by Joachim and they arrive the same evening in Brașov, ‘The Crown City’, where they are welcomed by a committee formed by German, Hungarian and Romanian representatives of the city council. The next day the committee organized for the special guests a small hike on Tâmpa, the big hill which guards the city. They perform on September 19th, and at the huge reception the local kapell performs Romanian folk music, which according to the local Romanian language newspaper stirred great interest in Brahms (6).
The next stop is Sibiu/Hermannstadt, my birth city, where they were invited by the ‘Hermania’ Choral Society. On September 21st Brahms is invited at the newly built headquarter of the Choral Society; if you visit Sibiu and want to eat German-Transylvanian cuisine, don’t miss Hermania Restaurant in the very building where Brahms heard three of his choral pieces – you need to have Henklesch. The recital held in the fascinating Thalia Hall (which hosts even today the local orchestra, where coincidentally I first performed together with Sayaka Shoji almost a decade ago), included the Violin Concerto, the last time Joachim and Brahms performed it together as a duo, a performance of the utmost importance if we have in mind that it was the last time when they tested the piece together before publishing it in the version we know it today.
After the recital, at Hotel Neuricher, all the men from the Choral Society brought drinks and food and sang all night long German songs. At one point, Brahms, mesmerized by the great time, started to sing along and the party was extended until sunrise.
If you visit Sibiu, the Blüthner piano on which Brahms performed, offered last minute by Viktor von Heldenberg, the owner of the only piano shop in the city, is still hosted by the Democratic Forum of Germans in Romania (https://www.fdgr.ro/ro/home-ro/).
That very morning they left for Cluj, the city where the local Conservatory was offering Joachim the Honorary Doctorate and where he got this crazy idea of the Transylvanian trip. After the huge crowd led by the mayor and director of the Cluj Conservatory took the two artists to the hotel and after only a few hours they held the first recital in the Reduta Hall (nowadays the Ethnographic Museum of Transylvania). The mostly Hungarian audience goes absolutely crazy when the two musicians perform a selection of Brahms’ famous Hungarian Dances in Joachim’s transcription for violin and piano. Brahms is also celebrated with the Honorary Doctorate and everyone starts to party. Next day, on September 23rd, the second recital in Cluj and last in their Transylvanian tour, brings out an even more ecstatic reaction of the audience and at the reception after a heavily intoxicated reporter writes one of the funniest concert reviews ever (7). On September 24th, probably with a huge hangover, Johannes Brahms and Joseph Joachim leave Transylvania.
In a letter to Clara Schumann, Brahms was writing that details regarding the tremendous Transylvanian parties were to be presented only in person, hinting the usage of too much alcohol. Might that be the reason for the wrong date accompanying his signature from the Guest Book in Timișoara?
For the Romanian readers, more on this topic can be found in my book Musica Ricercata sau 11 povestiri muzicale surprinzătoare, Humanitas, 2024
(1) Moser, Andreas: Johannes Brahms im Briefwechsel mit Joseph Joachim, Deutschen Brahms Gesellschaft, 1908 (German)
(2) Avins, Styra: In the Land of Seven Fortresses, Johannes Brahms and Joseph Joachim in Transylvania: An Unpublished Letter, American Brahms Society, 2017 (English)
(3) Temesvarer Zeitung, 03/09/1879 (German)
(4) Fremden-Buch des Philharmonischen-Vereins Temesvar
(5) Kessler, Klaus: O cronică târzie. Turneul de concerte al lui Johannes Brahms și Joseph Joachim în Banat și Ardeal, Editura Muzicală, 1985 (Romanian)
(6) Gazeta Transilvaniei, 24/09/1879 (Romanian)
(7) Magyar Polgár, 23/09/1879 (Hungarian)
More on this subject:
Avins, Styra: Johannes Brahms: Life and Letters, Oxford University Press, 1997 (
Bikerich, Viktor / Petri, Norbert: Johannes Brahms în Transilvania, Studii de muzicologie, vol. VI, Editura Muzicală a Uniunii Compozitorilor, 1970 (Romanian)
Ebert, Wolfgang: Brahms und Joachim in Siebenbürgen, Hans Schneider, 1991
Kalbeck, Max: Johannes Brahms an Peter Joseph Simrock und Fritz Simrock, Deutsche Brahms Gesellschaft, 1917
Lakatos, István: Brahms es Joachim, Zenetörténeti írások, Könyvkiadó, 1971 (Hungarian)
Litzmann, Berthold: Clara Schumann: An Artist’s Life Based On Material Found In Diaries And Letters Vol. II, MacMillan & Co., London, Breitkopf & Härtel, 1913
Litzmann, Berthold: Clara Schumann und Johannes Brahms, Briefe aus den Jahren 1853-1896, Vol. II, Breitkopf & Härtel, 1927
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