- Teresa Carreño, quoted in Rudolph M Breithaupt, Die natürliche Klaviertechnik, Vol II [School of Weight-Touch] (Leipzig 1905, English translation 1909)

'[...] Brahms's manner of interpretation was free, very elastic and expansive; but the balance was always there - one felt the fundamental rhythms underlying the surface rhythms. His phrasing was notable in lyric passages. In these a strictly metronomic Brahms is as unthinkable as a fussy or hurried Brahms in passages which must be presented with adamantine rhythm. Behind his often rugged, and almost sketchy playing, there never failed to appear that routined and definite school of technique without which he might sometimes have become almost a caricature of himself. When Brahms played, one knew exactly what he intended to convey to his listeners: aspiration, wild fantastic flights, majestic calm, deep tenderness without sentimentality, delicate, wayward humour, sincerity, noble passion. In his playing, as in his music and in his character, there was never a trace of sensuality.

'His touch could be warm, deep, full, and broad in the fortes, and not hard even in the fortissimos; and his pianos, always of carrying power, could be as round and transparent as a dewdrop. He had a wonderful legato. He belonged to that racial school of playing which begins its phrases well, ends them well, leaves plenty of space between the end of one and the beginning of another, and yet joins them without any hiatus. One could hear that he listened very intently to the inner harmonies, and of course he laid great stress on good basses.

'Like Beethoven, he was most particular that his marks of expression (always as few as possible) should be the means of conveying the inner musical meaning. The sign < >, as used by Brahms, often occurs when he wishes to express great sincerity and warmth, applied not only to tone but to rhythm also. He would linger not on one note alone, but on a whole idea, as if unable to tear himself away from its beauty. He would prefer to lengthen a bar or phrase rather than spoil it by making up the time in a metronomic bar.

'[...] perhaps the most important essential in starting to reproduce a work of Brahms [is] tempo. The tendency is usually to play the andantes too slowly, and the quick movements, scherzos, &c, too quickly. All Brahms's passages, if one can call them passages, are strings of gems, and that tempo which can best reveal these gems and help to characterize the detail at the same time as the outlines of a great work must be considered to be the right tempo. There is no doubt that the same artist will take a different tempo at a different time of life. The balance of dignity with detail comes with experience, but in gaining the one, the artist must not lose the other. Artists are, of course, not only of different temperaments but of different schools of craft. Therefore, one must not uphold one single and only way of arriving at a great goal, the aim being surely to arrive at conveying the highest message in any great work. I heard Brahms say once, "Machen Sie es wie Sie wollen, machen Sie es nur schön" ("Do it how you like, but make it beautiful"). [...]

- Fanny Davies, 'Some Personal Recollections of Brahms as Pianist and Interpreter', Cobbett's Cyclopedic Survey of Chamber Music, Vol I (London 1929). Davies heard Brahms between 1884 and 1896. Her account valuably includes a performance analysis of the C minor Piano Trio Op 101 documenting a run-through in private by Brahms, Joachim and Hausmann (Clara Schumann turning pages). Additionally, a metronome guide verified by Joachim: