... Was Brahms a Wiseass?
But it's also worth remembering that he could be wonderfully charming at times. When Frau Johann Strauss asked him for his autograph, he took her fan, scribbled the first few bars of her husband's "Blue Danube Waltz," and wrote underneath, "Unfortunately not by me, Johnanes Brahms."
Also, I would not myself describe the fourth symphony - probably my favorite symphony - as "gloomy." It's too wise to be gloomy. It has about it something of King Leonidas's message to the Spartans: "Go tell the Spartans that we have obeyed their laws." Tough. Stoical. But not gloomy.
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