Brahms is omnipresent with his music – he had been at his lifetime and still is until today. Even beyond the concert halls, he is present in many ways in the media age: from the music box with the lullaby "Good evening, good night" to the background music of numerous film scenes. As present as at least the canonized Brahms works are today, the composer behind them seems less tangible. Nevertheless, Brahms images are permanently anchored in the collective musical consciousness. They are often dominated, sometimes even in music-historical research, by ideas and clichés that are by no means congruent with the multifaceted spectrum of the "historical Brahms". The lecture by Wolfgang Sandberger, Professor of Musicology and Director of the Brahms Institute at the University of Music Lübeck, will take a new look at the composer and thus launch the Brahms focus that will span all festivals of the Heidelberger Frühling 2024.