Robert Stumpf, II responds to Bob Chen:

>> I would recommend "Johannes Brahms: A Biography," by Jan Swafford
>> (Knopf).  Very readable, lively, and more or less straightforward.  He
>>speculates a bit about Brahms' early life,
>
>I am sorry, but I would have to disagree.  I found the book so
>"speculative" that I couldn't finish it.

If you check Swafford's notes, and read the sources he quotes, which
provide first hand testimony by a contemporary of Brahms, for instance,
you may revise your opinion.  I wouldn't call it speculative.

Jim Tobin