It is not hard to compose, but what is fabulously hard is to leave the superfluous notes under the table.

Meeting Joachim and Liszt

He began to compose quite early in life but later destroyed most copies of his first works; for instance Louise Japha a fellow-pupil of Marxsen reported a piano sonata that Brahms had played or improvised at the age of 11 had been destroyed. He destroyed many early works – including a Violin Sonata he had performed with Reményi and violinist Ferdinand David – and once claimed to have destroyed 20 string quartets before he issued his official First in 1873.  122 (1896).

He was a master of counterpoint the complex and highly disciplined art for which Johann Sebastian Bach is famous and of development a compositional ethos pioneered by Joseph Haydn Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Ludwig van Beethoven and other composers. Johannes Brahms (pronounced [joˈhanəs ˈbʁaːms]; 7 May 1833 – 3 April 1897) was a German composer and pianist. Many of his works have become staples of the modern concert repertoire.