Proclaimed the new messiah of Romanticism by Robert Schumann when he was only twenty, Johannes Brahms dedicated himself to a long and extraordinarily productive and creative career. In this book, Jan Swafford sets out to reveal the little-known Brahms: the boy who grew up in mercantile Hamburg and played piano in beer halls among prostitutes and drunken sailors; the fiercely self-protective man who thwarted future biographers by burning papers, scores, and notebooks late in his life. Making unprecedented use of the remaining archival material, Swafford offers richly expanded perspectives on Brahms's youth, on his difficult romantic life -- particularly his longstanding relationship with Clara Schumann -- and on his professional rivalries with Liszt and Wagner. Judicious, compassionate, and full of insight into Brahms's human complexity as well as his music, Johannes Brahms is an indispensable biography.