j'aime vraiment Brahms

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

... Symphony no 2 played by The Montreal Symphony /Kent nagano on TTN as i post ... flowing understated romantic and just gorgeous ...

also have acquired the taste for the Clarinet Trio which i recently heard performed live ... interesting piece with a lot to offer ...

TTN is just about my favourite programming on R3

[antongould]

Yes Calum like you my love of Brahms is growing. i have just acquired a box set of Rubinstein playing Brahms which is, IMHO, excellent.

[Richard Tarleton]

Likewise. I seem to be enjoying Brahms more as I get older. Recent acquisitions - Brahms songs, Jessye Norman/Barenboim, Perahia playing Brahms piano music. I always liked the concertos, but not the symphonies, but that seems to have changed.

[Panjandrum]

Perahia playing Brahms piano music.

As a staunch admirer of MP, I have to confess to being disappointed with his playing of the Sonata in F minor. A lot more fire from Messrs Katchen or Zimerman, to name but two, which is what is needed, IMO, in this youthful work.

[Richard Tarleton]

As a staunch admirer of MP, I have to confess to being disappointed with his playing of the Sonata in F minor. A lot more fire from Messrs Katchen or Zimerman, to name but two, which is what is needed, IMO, in this youthful work.

Will look into those - Katchen of course. This was the disc of Handel Variations, 2 Rhapsodies etc....

[Nick Armstrong]

I first "got" Brahms (despite the Klemperer Symphony LPs at home through my childhood) at the age of 19. I happened to acquire (not sure why, I think it was in a sale and I'd figured out Abbado was someone special) a cassette of him conducting Brahms 3 and the Haydn Variations with the Dresden Staatskapelle. It accompanied my first term at University and was all about autumn and new beginnings yet missing and pining for the year away in Paris I'd just had... Hooked since then.

[Panjandrum]

This was the disc of Handel Variations, 2 Rhapsodies etc....

Of course, Perahia brings a certain poetry to whatever he plays.

I'm afraid I fail to understand what some have against Brahms. For the times, he was fairly long-lived. Accordingly, there is a greater emotional range to his music than practically any other composer of whom I can think. If you're young and idealistic, there is all that wonderfully ardent piano music. If you're a crusty old codger, there's the mellow, "autumnal" chamber music; and if you just glory in the sounds of a symphony orchestra at full beans, then the symphonies can't be beat. Don't know the songs as well as I should, but have just acquired a recital of Popp singing Brahms and Mahler.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

when sprog was learning the Op 118 No 2 i discovered the Wilhelm Kempf set of Op 116 - 119 .... and still love it deeply some years on ... here is Radu Lupu

[gurnemanz]

...

also have acquired the taste for the Clarinet Trio which i recently heard performed live ... interesting piece with a lot to offer ...

That opening cello solo has haunted me since I first heard it about 40 years ago. When think about it, there isn't that much by him which I don't appreciate. I already have quite a few songs but have just bought the Brilliant Classics Complete set - all new recordings by excellent (non-star) German performers.

http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/r/Brilliant%2BClassics/93936

[aeolium]

A lovely clip of Lupu playing that Brahms Intermezzo, Calum.

And here is an old recording of another favourite pianist, Clifford Curzon, playing the Capriccio in D minor. Whenever I saw Curzon give solo recitals, he would almost invariably end with an encore of one of the Brahms Intermezzi (and/or a Schubert Impromptu).

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

thank you aeolium really appreciated the Curzon playing! [saw him once at the RFH in the mid 70s playing Mozart]

[Serial_Apologist]

Not all Brahms is that "involving" to listen to, I find, tbh, so I think what led me to "review" my comparative lack of interest in Brahms was hearing his harmonic thinking extended in the chamber music of Reger and early Schoenberg and Webern. Also finding out that Schoenberg regarded Brahms as progressive, and listening to David Owen Norris's "dissection" of the Op 118 piano pieces, where he showed late Brahms as worthy successor to the JS Bach of the Goldberg Variations - and for me, a link to the Second Viennese School - not the pale recycler of Beethoven my father always portrayed him as being. As a kid, the opening of the First Symphony had a similar effect on me as that described by Anthony Payne.

[3rd Viennese School]

I dont much like Brahms Symphony no.2 except maybe that ending.

First heard it in December 1994 on a train ride back from Tenby.

I felt ill.

3VS

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

alas i see you have not recovered 3VS ...

[amateur51]

A lovely clip of Lupu playing that Brahms Intermezzo, Calum.

And here is an old recording of another favourite pianist, Clifford Curzon, playing the Capriccio in D minor. Whenever I saw Curzon give solo recitals, he would almost invariably end with an encore of one of the Brahms Intermezzi (and/or a Schubert Impromptu).

I saw him late in his career at the RFH giving a piano recital. Always a bag of nerves he had the score and a page turner, and a rubber mat was placed under his feet as he was quite a stamper.

The closing piece of the first half was late Brahms and Curzon made a right Horlicks of it and hurried off. Before the applause faded he was back on & played the same piece sans music absolutely perfectly - the wave of applause and affection contained therein was enormous!