The Brahms Experience

[P. G. Tipps]

When I see the word "conductress" I reach for my... bus fare. 4p. Last time I heard the word I was still at school...

But, PGT (terrible affliction, my sympathies), what about the Brahms Serenades? Full of Brahmsian soul and with lighter moods than in the symphonies. I've loved them not wisely but too well, almost used them up.. Very loveable music, do try them. My best-loved is Mackerras with the SCO on Telarc.

The Serenades should be on next week, not the Academic Borefest and the 1st Symphony...

Conductors and Conductresses apart, I shall look out for The Serenades as you kindly suggest, Ms Wilson. One never knows.

When I was a toddler the Brahms Lullaby was played quite often on the home piano presumably in a vain effort to get me to shut up. I think this may well have been the root cause of my peculiar aversion to the widely-appreciated (and much-performed) music of the great Herr Brahms. You see, I must get thrilled by music I listen to, moved by it, or, best of all, experience some spiritual, transcendental mood ... a few composers, such as Bach, Bruckner and R Strauss, often manage to provide all three for me.

Alas, up until now at least, I have felt none of the three moods listening to the music of Brahms. I am told by passionate Brahmsians that his music is like a fine wine that should be savoured in all its deliciousness. Maybe, in my usual tasteless manner, I simply prefer musical plonk?

[french frank]

he's conventionally portrayed like an Old Testament prophet or perhaps Kapellmeister with that beard worthy of an Edward Lear poem.

Yes, why not 'conventionally' use this one:

New image (I think the last one had been cropped and turned):

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

If the symphonies have singularly failed to stir my hopefully just slumbering Brahmsian soul then maybe the chamber works just might?

ahinton mentions the second Piano Trio (IIRC, the longest of Brahms' chamber works) - and you have spoken of preferring some "spiritual, transcendental" from your listening. Give yourself a free, undisturbed quarter-hour (it's only twelve minutes, but you'll need some time to get your breath back) and dip your toes into this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Y-JCUnWA4U

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Yes, why not 'conventionally' use this one:

... so many performances of Brahms suffer from gout: even in his physical later years, the Music is athletic - and the humour of the Music so clearly there in the score isn't just overlooked, it's positively repressed, as if it might be some sort of blasphemy to suggest that the Great Works (sorry - Great Works) should - or even could - display a sense of fun!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

... and erotic, too - that moment at around ten minutes in the Piano Quartet I posted - gently, sensuously caressing; the tenderness there ...

[ahinton]

When I see the word "conductress" I reach for my... bus fare. 4p. Last time I heard the word I was still at school...

Reminds me of the days of the Third Programme when Donald Swann teamed up with Henry Reed and provided spoof atonal music (that might better have been done by Humphrey Searle, who occasionally collaborated, as Swann was later to do, with Gererd Hoffnung) for the fictitious "composeress" Hilda Tablet.

the Academic Borefest and the 1st Symphony...

I take your point about the former but the First Symphony is WONDERFUL!

[ahinton]

ahinton mentions the second Piano Trio (IIRC, the longest of Brahms' chamber works)

I fear that you don't remember correctly on this! - even the A major Piano Quartet to which you linked above is longer, as indeed are some of Brahms's other chamber works for piano and strings!

[ahinton]

... so many performances of Brahms suffer from gout: even in his physical later years, the Music is athletic - and the humour of the Music so clearly there in the score isn't just overlooked, it's positively repressed, as if it might be some sort of blasphemy to suggest that the Great Works (sorry - Great Works) should - or even could - display a sense of fun!

I take your point, as clearly does kernelbogey when he writes (about passion in Brahms)
"I think this is downplayed (and hence he's 'beery and stodgy' to some) partly because (to repeat myself) he's conventionally portrayed like an Old Testament prophet or perhaps Kapellmeister with that beard worthy of an Edward Lear poem. There was plenty of passion early on. (Not to be beardist, of course: beards do not per se inhibit passion....) "

Some performance have indeed suffered as you say but others certainly don't - and Brahms is only very rarely like that, so he has been widely misintgerpreted and misunderstood all too often.

"beards do not per se inhibit passion", writes kernelbogey; I should certainly hope not! - and the younger photograph posted by FF shows him shaven in any case.

[Nick Armstrong]

Yes, why not 'conventionally' use this one:

... and erotic, too - that moment at around ten minutes in the Piano Quartet I posted - gently, sensuously caressing; the tenderness there ...

I have this portrait on the wall near the CD collection:





(... even though ferney, your comment highlights that in that photo he appears to be caressing himself! )

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I fear that you don't remember correctly on this! - even the A major Piano Quartet to which you linked above is longer, as indeed are some of Brahms's other chamber works for piano and strings!

Argghhh! mea twerpissimo, mea maxima twerpissimo: for reasons it's probably charitable to overlook, I was thinking of the A majot second piano quartet as I wrote "Piano Trio".

[Barbirollians]

I have this portrait on the wall near the CD collection:







(... even though ferney, you comment highlights that in that photo he appears to be caressing himself! )

Or simply adopting a Napoleonic pose .

Brahms is an intensely passionate composer IMO - no old bearded pictures please .

Think of the slow movement of the Violin Concerto , the finale of the Double , the irresistible sweep of the first movement of the Third Symphony etc etc .

[Nick Armstrong]

Or simply adopting a Napoleonic pose .

Brahms is an intensely passionate composer IMO - no old bearded pictures please .

Oh yes. (I'm sure you're right about the conventional pose, by the way... !)

Some of the early photos (and there are a lot, he was clearly something of a pin-up!) are in fact astonishingly vivid, by which I mean conjuring a really immediate feel for the man. Like this one:

[P. G. Tipps]

Yes, why not 'conventionally' use this one:

Brahms is not the only one ...








The following one we rarely see:



And I do like this one!

[DracoM]

Well, sorry, but a Radio 3 'Brahms Experience' intensive blitz will have me running for cover.

[aeolium]

Brahms is an intensely passionate composer IMO - no old bearded pictures please .

Why - can't old composers write passionate music? Verdi?

In any case, I feel there's something reductive about describing Brahms' music as "passionate" - it brings to mind Yeats' line "the worst are full of passionate intensity" or, more recently, Blair speeches about being passionate about this or that. There's surely so much more to Brahms, a kind of innigkeit, the lyricism of so many works especially in the chamber and piano music, the elegiac quality in the slow movement of the Horn Trio inter al, a sort of festiveness in the first Serenade. He can represent many aspects of the human condition, not just passion.

I'm glad that R3 has rowed back from previous Experiences and abandoned wall-to-wall immersion in favour of an extended focus on a composer so that other music is not drowned out for a week. Like jlw, I wish there had been a chance to hear the Serenades, and more of the lesser-heard chamber music, piano music and songs. The symphonies and piano concertos are after all played throughout the year. The Bristol lunchtime concert series looks the most interesting to me.