BaL 28.04.18 - Brahms: Symphony no. 1 in C minor

[verismissimo]

The earliest recordings of Brahms 1 seem not that early at all.

Concertgebouw/Mengelberg 1931
Concertgebouw/Karajan 1943
VPO/Furtwangler 1947

Have I missed something? Why so late?

I have the Karajan and Furtwangler, but not the Mengelberg. Reports?

[verismissimo]

The earliest recordings of Brahms 1 seem not that early at all.

Concertgebouw/Mengelberg 1931
Concertgebouw/Karajan 1943
VPO/Furtwangler 1947

Have I missed something? Why so late?

I have the Karajan and Furtwangler, but not the Mengelberg. Reports?

Or is the Mengelberg only of the third movement, which I do have on a Naxos CD mainly of S3?

[rauschwerk]

- one of the recordings that includes the essential Exposition repeat, too.

I would certainly not describe that repeat as essential, and surely neither would Brahms.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I would certainly not describe that repeat as essential, and surely neither would Brahms.

I would, and surely so does the Music.

[Sir Velo]

I would, and surely so does the Music.

Surely not. Unless Brahms expected his audience to be half asleep at the start!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I would certainly not describe that repeat as essential, and surely neither would Brahms.

Brahms said it was unnecessary if the audience knew the music. The sticking point here is that an audience is a diverse group of people, and for some, a performance will be the first time they have heard the work.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Brahms said it was unnecessary if the audience knew the music.

Where is this comment recorded, Alpie? I know that it's been quoted - by Brendel and others - but I've not found the source. It's puzzling, in that between a quarter and a third of Brahms' "Sonata Form" first movements - before and after the First Symphony was written - don't have the repeat marked (the Fourth Symphony is one): did he expect the audiences for those works to get to know the works more readily than the others? And, for all the alterations the composer made to his works when he supervised revisions & editions, he never included an ossia marking over the repeat marks, let alone excised them.

Of course, there are chaps who like to get to a climax as quickly as possible, and those conditioned by recordings led to believe that the repeats are unwelcome, and those keener to get to the post-concert bar than to listen to the repeated bars - but I find the timing of events is so much better, so much more satisfactory, when the score is played unabridged. It would certainly make your job easier if Mr Hewett had told you he was only going to discuss recordings which include the repeat!

And, speaking of

http://kennethwoods.net/blog1/2013/02/23/obama-announces-support-for-exposition-repeats-in-state-of-the-union-address/

[gurnemanz]

Where is this comment recorded, Alpie? I know that it's been quoted - by Brendel and others - but I've not found the source. It's puzzling, in that between a quarter and a third of Brahms' "Sonata Form" first movements - before and after the First Symphony was written - don't have the repeat marked (the Fourth Symphony is one): did he expect the audiences for those works to get to know the works more readily than the others? And, for all the alterations the composer made to his works when he supervised revisions & editions, he never included an ossia marking over the repeat marks, let alone excised them.

I contributed a reference to this (link) in the Schubert D960 thread, having just read something in Brendel's book of essays. He includes a couple of Fischer books in the bibliography one of which is presumably his source.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I contributed a reference to this (link) in the Schubert D960 thread, having just read something in Brendel's book of essays. He includes a couple of Fischer books in the bibliography one of which is presumably his source.

Thanks, Gurne - that explains where Brendel got his idea from. Has anyone read the Fischer originals to see what his source was?

[Richard Barrett]

And, speaking of

http://kennethwoods.net/blog1/2013/0...union-address/

Repeats are fake news!

[kea]

I would certainly not describe that repeat as essential, and surely neither would Brahms.

As I said, I always appreciate hearing it, and it seems structurally important. Brahms's attitude was fairly casual towards exposition repeats as far as I recall, & there are only a few of his works where the first time ending is such an essential part of the music that it makes no sense to cut the repeat.

Where is this comment recorded, Alpie? I know that it's been quoted - by Brendel and others - but I've not found the source. It's puzzling, in that between a quarter and a third of Brahms' "Sonata Form" first movements - before and after the First Symphony was written - don't have the repeat marked (the Fourth Symphony is one): did he expect the audiences for those works to get to know the works more readily than the others?

Many of those movements are nonetheless based on the "convention" of the exposition repeat, with the development section opening with material from the beginning of the exposition, as in e.g. the Violin Sonatas Op.78 and 100, the Trios Op.87 and 101, the Fourth Symphony; or for that matter the sonata-form last movement of the First Symphony itself. The exposition repeat is usually indicated in works where the development begins with unrelated material & therefore interposes a fairly lengthy period of time before the "first theme" returns; the lack of repeat is usually indicated in works where the development returns to the opening theme, which in turn has a reduced or highly varied presence in the recapitulation. These movements also tend to be much shorter—I think the opener of the 4th symphony and finale of the 1st are the longest by some distance, at around 11-12 minutes each, leaving out the introduction to the latter; the first movements in the violin sonatas and trios are under 10 minutes. Compare the first movement of the 2nd symphony which even without repeat comes in at about 15 minutes, and with it closer to 20; the first movements of the two string sextets, the first piano trio & first two piano quartets are all around the quarter hour mark with repeat, and if the repeat is taken the start of the development section usually falls just about halfway through.

[verismissimo]

The earliest recordings of Brahms 1 seem not that early at all.

Concertgebouw/Mengelberg 1931
Concertgebouw/Karajan 1943
VPO/Furtwangler 1947

Have I missed something? Why so late?

I have the Karajan and Furtwangler, but not the Mengelberg. Reports?

It looks as though Mengelberg was the first to record Brahms 1, but in 1940 (just ordered). His 1930/31 recording was indeed of the third movement only.

That is, of course, unless someone knows otherwise.

BTW there seem to be a lot of repeats in the fascinating discussion of a repeat.

[HighlandDougie]

Err, donning my record-geek anorak, Stokowski recorded in 1927 with the Philadelphia Orchestra, released on RCA. To hear an excerpt:

http://www.stokowski.org/1927_Electrical_Recordings_Stokowski-1.htm

And Bruno Walter recorded it with the VPO in 1937 for HMV

Both these recordings are available from Andrew Rose at Pristine Classical

And how could I have forgotten Weingartner (especially as I cited him in an earlier post):

i) with the so-called Royal Philharmonic Orchestra for (UK) Columbia in 1928/29;
ii) with the LSO in 1939 for HMV

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

BTW there seem to be a lot of repeats in the fascinating discussion of a repeat.

Just for you, verism -

I have Loughran, Karajan x 4, Boult, Furtwangler, Celibidache, Toscanini (NBC) and Horenstein.


Kea - interesting comments, and a fascinating new possibility creeps to my mind. I'll need to check some scores before I say any more.

[jayne lee wilson]

Personally I can't live without the exposition repeats in the Brahms symphonies. Given the expansive and continuously evolving flow of motives and ideas in the statements themselves, especially in 2 and 3, I feel you need the repeat, to emphasise the distinction between statement and development, and for the structural balance too - the climactic intensity of the development and/or later stages of the first movements needs the counterbalance of more musically and emotionally stable exposition(s). Sans repeat, there can be an odd feeling of exposition/counter-exposition, or two development(al) sections.

So when the 4th makes as if to repeat (Like Beethoven’s Op.59/1 Quartet) but doesn’t, diving off into an extraordinarily turbulent and eventful development, it is the more meaningful for its contrasted, creative structural choices over those first three.

I always feel there’s something fundamental, almost metaphysical, about the difference between statement and development, in human life and in nature, which comes before and after works of art or ideas and philosophies. But I struggle to define it further… something about being and doing...being and time….Winter and Spring; the seed and the flower…. the resident and the migrant…