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It has been said that Brahms' friends included Robert and Clara Schumann, Hans von Bulow, Albert Dietrich, Felix Mendelssohn, Joseph Joachim, Franz Liszt (to a certain extent), and Eduard Remenyi. As to Richard Wagner, one might say that they had a 'professional relationship'; but, owing to 'the War of the Romantics' (it is recommended that you read about this), most would conclude that the two were sworn enemies. ~ A rather new friendship that developed near the end of Brahms' life was with the young Gustav Mahler. After Brahms had vocally (and loudly so!) protested to his colleagues on an evening in Prague, that he was not at all interested in hearing Mahler conduct Mozart's comic opera, 'Don Giovanni', Brahms' reportedly curled up on a sofa for a nap, in the box at the opera house; but when Mahler gave the performing musicians his downbeat, Brahms sat straight up, just minutes into the Mahler interpretation, and from that moment, Johannes Brahms became a converted Mahler fan. History records, as well, that it was upon Brahms' recommendation to the Austrian emperor, that the Jewish Mahler, once he was converted to the Catholic faith, was in 1897 engaged by royal and imperial decree to serve as Director of the Vienna Court Opera. Further, but a short time prior to Brahms' death in that same year, legend has it that Mahler visited Brahms for several days at the senior composer's lakeside home in the Austrian alps. And upon Mahler's arrival in Vienna to accept his new position, it was his friend, Brahms' funeral that Mahler would attend mere days after his relocation from Hamburg, Brahm's city of birth, to Vienna, where the 36 year old Mahler would usher in "The Golden Autumn of Opera", to endure for a decade before Mahler moved on to New York's Metropolitan Opera, in January 1908.
