When a pen or brush is taken in hand, the stave or the canvas becomes illuminated by the history of the undertaking. It is a brave artist who boycotts the processes by which his predecessors mastered their craft.

The picture of the artist as somebody who employs a consciousness of process in his work while still striving for avenues of self-expression, comes into its sharpest relief when it is set against the backdrop of the Romantic era in music. At this time, a school of musical thought had emerged that believed that composition should be governed by expression only, generally forsaking all adherence to traditions that would, as they perceived it, inhibit the sentiment.

Richard Wagner pioneered a "new music", whereby sentiment became the very genesis of his compositions.

His music is descriptive, programmatic, defined by emotion itself. The austere German conservatoires were outraged by such recklessness, certain as they were that music, "absolute music" as it became known, must adhere to the established classical forms and processes, never allowing sentiment to interfere and most definitely never telling a story through the music.

The year 1833 saw the birth of a man who was to become the champion of "absolute" music, Johannes Brahms, whose life and work became truly representative of the essence of artistic integrity.

"Destined to give ideal expression to the times, " according to Robert Schumann, Brahms' creativity was crippled by harsh criticism, from the New German school of programme music, from Beethoven dedicatees and, especially, from himself. He once claimed to have destroyed 20 string quartets before he issued his official first in 1873 and the first symphony was toiled over for at least 15 years.

But, for all his perfectionism and a consequential complexity in his output, Brahms was not onedimensional in his creative philosophy and much of his music boasts dashes of more vividly Romantic colours. Folk music intrigued him as his Hungarian dances and vocal settings of 144 German folk songs give testament to.

He once admitted that he would have given anything to have written Johann Strauss II's The Blue Danube waltz and indeed admitted later in his life that he very much respected the compositions of some of his New German school rivals.

"The eternal story with Brahms is that his thinking was classical, his attitude was Romantic and what came out was partly futuristic, " according to conductor, Gerhard Markson. These words should inspire a new sense of discovery and delight in the works of Brahms as performed by the RT�? NSO under Markson in the coming weeks.

The epic first symphony in C minor, will be heard at the NCH on Thursday night (21), preceded by a piano concerto with John O'Conor, which was born out of sketches of a symphony in D minor and became his first official concerto for an instrument whose technological development into its present modern form influenced his writing heavily.

Brahms' second offerings to each of these genres will be heard on 21 April, with Bernd Glemser the soloist at the keyboard.

The series will continue on 28 April with the third symphony and violin concerto in D major alongside a Fergus Johnston commission entitled Brahms Begins the Day. The first weekend of May will bring the series to a close, with the fourth symphony, his concerto for violin and cello, and the magnificent German Requiem in company with the RT�? Philharmonic choir. Markson believes Brahms' "integrity and profundity" is loved by audiences.

The inevitable full houses at these concerts will prove Markson's understanding of the genius of the socalled "true apostle".