Brahms struggled for years with composition of his First Symphony - the feeling of impotence in the face of Beethoven's works seemed overwhelming. He wrote to his friend, the conductor Hermann Levi: I will never compose asymphony! You have no idea how the likes of me feels when he always hears such a giant (Beethoven) marching behind him. But in October 1876 Brahms finally did complete it, and the first - acclaimed - performances of his FirstSymphony immediately took place in Karlsruhe, Mannheim