A Toast to the Greatest Composer

Johannes Brahms’s characteristic dislike of flattery showed itself after a concert in Berlin in 1895, when his old friend Joseph Joachim proposed a toast to the greatest composer. Before Joachim could name him, Brahms leapt up and drank to the health of Mozart, a self-deprecating gesture which deeply impressed the watching Charles Villiers Stanford.

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Music and Musicians (45) Johannes Brahms (3) Sir Charles Villiers Stanford (5) Victorian Era (106) British History (377) Extracts from Literature (459)

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