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The young Brahms

The waterfront places in Hamburg were known as Animierlokale, roughly “stimulation pubs”. For their clients fresh from sailing ships the Lokale handily integrated the services of dancehall, bar, café, and whorehouse, integrated them also in the persons of the “Singing Girls”, who served food and drink, san and danced with the customers, and took them upstairs for more intimate services. Before he turned 13, Brahms was hired to play piano at the Lokale of St. Pauli. Johannes was surrounded by the stench of beer and unwashed sailors and bad food, the din of rough laughter and drunkenness and raving obscenity. As he approached puberty, Brahms was steeped in an atmosphere where the deepest intimacies between men and women were a matter of ceaseless and shameful transaction. This sense of human relations haunted him for life.