How many symphonies did Johannes Brahms write?
Johannes Brahms wrote settings for piano and voice of 144 German folk songs, and many of his lieder reflect folk themes or depict scenes of rural life. Brahms wrote a number of major works for orchestra, including two Serenades, four symphonies, two piano concertos (No. 1 in D minor; No. 2 in B-flat major), a Violin Concerto, a Double Concerto for violin and cello, and two companion orchestral overtures, the "Academic Festival Overture" and the "Tragic Overture". His large choral work "A German Requiem" is not a setting of the liturgical "Missa pro defunctis" but a setting of texts which Brahms selected
Serenades (Brahms) Serenades (Brahms) The two Serenades, Op. 11 and 16, represented two of the earliest efforts by Johannes Brahms to write orchestral music. They both date from after the 1856 death of Robert Schumann when Brahms was residing in Detmold and had access to an orchestra. Brahms had a goal of reaching Ludwig van Beethoven's level in writing symphonies, and worked long and hard on his Symphony No. 1, completing it only in 1876 when he was 43 years old. As preliminary steps in composing for orchestra, he chose early on to write some lighter orchestral pieces, these Serenades. The second