It is hard to make much of Brahms's life, which completely lacked the colour and incident common to the careers of Wagner, Liszt and Berlioz. To a great extent, he was in the mould of the old-style career musician, turning out one work after another and living quietly, almost colourlessly. His rise to fame was steady and he found powerful friends from the start, but he seems also to have possessed a shrewd career-sense and to have managed his own publicity in Vienna quite adroitly, though from behind the scenes. Brahms never married, nor did he have any liaisons or spectacular failures in love. In the end, your interest in him as a man pivots on your degree of interest in his music, and this well-written study wisely places the emphasis on that.