Three Composers, One Small Stage
After a weekend of Puccini-haunted spies, a Habsburg empress and Frank Wildhorn’s lovesick Count, I wanted something more intimate. In October 2026 in Seoul, I found it in Daechi-dong, far from the Daehak-ro crowds: Brahms, a chamber musical about the most famous friendship, and the most discussed unconsummated love, in Romantic music.
This is a home-grown Korean work, not a Broadway import. It was selected for the creative-support programme of the 2022 Daegu International Musical Festival, then played a short Seoul run that October. Now it returns as a 2026 KT&G Sangsang Madang “Sangsang Stage Challenger” pick, in a new production with a new creative team and cast. PH E&M presents it, with NTA Company, which originally produced the show, at KT&G Sangsang Madang Daechi Art Hall from September 19 to October 25, 2026.
The story begins in 1853 in Düsseldorf, when an unknown 20-year-old Johannes Brahms knocks on Robert Schumann’s door. Schumann hails him as a genius. Schumann’s wife Clara, the great pianist of the age, becomes his lifelong muse. A fourth figure frames it all: the painter Max Klinger, who later turned his love of Brahms’s music into art.
The casting rotates. Three Brahmses alternate: Oh Seung-yun, Taeho and Hong Ju-chan. Park Jin-woo and Lee Si-kang share Robert Schumann, and Kim Dam-hyun and Kim Charlie share Max Klinger. Cho Seung-hee, formerly of DIA, returns to the musical stage after 15 years as Clara, alternating with Jo Eun-saem. My own evening paired Oh Seung-yun‘s Brahms with Lee Si-kang‘s Schumann, Jo Eun-saem’s Clara and Kim Charlie‘s Klinger.
A Romance Written in Letters
Everything here really happened, or very nearly. The musical builds on the letters and autobiographical writings of Brahms, Schumann and Clara. In 1853 the young Brahms, poor and unknown, travelled to Düsseldorf to prove his music to Robert Schumann. Schumann recognised him at once, declared him the genius of a new era and introduced him to the world. Brahms, who never married, stayed devoted to Clara for the rest of his life.
The production has not published a numbered song list, so here is the evening’s arc, with the real music that belongs to each moment.
- Düsseldorf, 1853 – Brahms arrives at the Schumanns’ door and plays his own piano music, the moment that changes his life.
- “New Paths” – Robert hails Brahms in print as the coming genius, the famous essay Neue Bahnen.
- Clara – Brahms meets the great pianist, 14 years his senior, and the three begin sharing music and daily life.
- Robert’s collapse – Schumann’s mental illness and his 1854 attempt to drown himself in the Rhine; Brahms stays to support Clara and her children.
- Variations for Clara – Brahms pours his feelings into music written on a Schumann theme and dedicated to her.
- Fame and its costs – as Brahms’s reputation grows, so do artistic anxiety, conflict, an impossible love and hard choices.
- Klinger’s memory – the painter Max Klinger, who made the 1894 print cycle Brahmsphantasie from his love of Brahms’s music, remembers the man and the age he lived in.
Three Composers in the Credits
The programme credits for the original music are remarkable: Johannes Brahms, Robert Schumann and Clara Schumann. The new score is by Hwi (Park Byung-gun) and Jin Ju-baek, with lyrics by Hwi, Son Su-min and Kim Ji-sik. Hwi is also the music director and arranger, and co-produces with Son Su-min. The production describes its numbers as built on the masters’ melodies and reborn in a modern idiom, with familiar themes meeting new music.
That is a clever answer to the composer-musical problem. How do you write songs for a character whose own music is more famous than anything you could invent? You let him sing through his music. Expect fragments you half-recognise, from Brahms’s turbulent early piano writing to the lieder tradition that bound all three composers together.
Clara’s place in those credits matters. She was not only a muse but a composer and a concert pianist who championed both men’s work. A musical that lists her alongside them makes a quiet point the story then dramatises.
This season the score has been fully orchestrated for a grander yet more delicate classical sound, a step up from the 2022 version. Hwi knows this world well: he also wrote the play Schumann, produced by PH E&M, which tells the same 1853 meeting from the other side of the piano.
So do the new melodies stand beside the borrowed ones? In the theatre, the answer was a resounding yes. The music is amazing, blending classical themes with modern ballads, and it was beautifully played. It blew me away.
A Salon Lit by Candlelight
After three big-machine shows in a row, Brahms is refreshingly human-scaled, and the stage is simple. As the production photos show, it is a period Düsseldorf drawing room. Tall panelled walls and paned windows are lit by wall sconces. A grand piano sits to one side, with a small tea table and heavy curtains behind. It is less a set than a home, which suits a story about three people sharing music and daily life.
The 2022 premiere at the Daegu festival used video across three sides of the stage to pull the audience into the music, and this season’s publicity promised media art inspired by Romantic-era painting, created by PH E&M and PH IPLAB. Yet what stays with me is the simplicity. Nothing comes between the four actors, the piano and the music, and that is exactly right for this story.
Kim Sung-jin directs and co-adapted the book with Kim Ji-sik, from an original script by Son Su-min. Kim Si-yul choreographs, Kim Kwang-hoon lights the piece, and Park Hwi-min and Choi So-ri design the period costumes. Four actors carry the whole evening, so the 100 minutes live or die on intimacy rather than spectacle.
A Small Show Earning Its Place
Let me be honest: the major papers have not reviewed this run yet. Brahms is a mid-scale original playing outside Daehak-ro, and its reputation has been built by selection panels and word of mouth.
The panels have been kind. The show has been chosen twice: for the creative-support programme of the 2022 Daegu International Musical Festival, and for KT&G Sangsang Madang’s 2026 “Sangsang Stage Challenger”. The producers present those selections as proof of the work’s quality and potential. Some faces have stayed loyal: Kim Dam-hyun has played Max Klinger since the Daegu premiere and the 2022 Seoul run.
Audiences seem pleased. The NOL ticketing page shows an average rating of 4.4 from 74 audience reviews. It also sits in the site’s weekly musical chart, impressive for a 100-minute chamber piece.
The story itself has a long and contested reception history. Biographers have argued for over a century about what Brahms and Clara really felt, not least because they agreed to destroy much of their correspondence. Any show built on their letters is reading between the gaps, and that ambiguity is its richest material.
It also lands in a Seoul year crowded with composers, from Beethoven and Stravinsky to the play Schumann earlier this year. Brahms stands out by giving Clara equal billing.
Chamber Music for the Stage
Brahms blew me away. After a weekend of turntables, giant fans and vampires, it asks for something different: close listening. It has a true story with no need for exaggeration, a simple stage, and music that blends three composers’ melodies with modern ballads, beautifully played.
The usual risk for composer musicals is that the new songs cannot hold their own beside the master. Here they do. Clara’s equal place in the credits shows it knows whose story this also is.
This show will have a great future. If you love the Romantic repertoire, or simply want a quieter evening, catch it before it closes on October 25.
Rating: 5 out of 5 sonatas. KT&G Sangsang Madang Daechi Art Hall, Gangnam, September 19 to October 25, 2026. 100 minutes; tickets 55,000–77,000 won; ages 12 and up.
Also from Seoul in October 2026: Elisabeth in Seoul: Death Dances Again, M. Butterfly Takes Flight as a Musical and Dracula in Seoul: Four Centuries of Longing, Four Rings of Stage.
— References —
NOL Ticket: Brahms • Newsis: 2022 DIMF line-up • Financial News: 2022 premiere • Sports Kyunghyang: Cho Seung-hee returns • Popga: 2026 production details • NOL Ticket: Kim Dam-hyun credits • Naeil: the play Schumann • Segye Ilbo: Schumann 2026 • The Musical: 2026 line-up
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