Brahms Collection
Documentary heritage submitted by Austria and recommended for inclusion in the Memory of the World Register in 2005.
© Archives of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Wien
Portrait of Johannes Brahms by K. Rona, 1896.
Ranking amongst the famous composers in the history of western music, Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) is no doubt one of the major representatives of the Romantic style, which features most prominently in classical music performances around the world and has also served as a model in film music to this day.
The core of the Brahms Collection is the Estate of Johannes Brahms, bequeathed by him to the Archives of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna so that it would survive as a unified whole.
Thanks to the systematic acquisition of additional materials closely related to the personality and artistic creativity of Johannes Brahms, this Estate has gradually grown into the Brahms Collection of the Archives of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna.
Unparalleled in scope and completeness, the Brahms Collection constitutes a self-contained part of the Archives of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna. Beyond artistic and scholarly interest in Brahms, it is one of the most important sources for cultural history in general and the music history of Vienna in the second half of the 19th century.