The Brahms Experience

[kernelbogey]

As Barbirollians has emphasised, the idea of Brahms as "stodgy" is - just an idea, a blurred cliche of image & response. ....[/I]

Richard's comment (in his post 89 above) notwithstanding, I'm wondering - given some of the previous doubts about the sound of Brahms - whether the whole of the revival of early music and the adoption of the 'authentic performance'/HIPP movement has changed the way we listen to music: so that the thickness of his orchestrations, if I may so describe it, has led to a turning away. The chamber music, when I began to discover it after a prolonged diet of B's orchestral music only, was a revelation: crystal clear melody and ravishing harmonies. (Note to self: acquire some HIPP/period intstrument recordings of the symphonies.)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

A major stumbling block for me with Brahms was/is his orchestration - all those melodic doublings at thirds and sixths drive me crazy!

But such doublings are also a feature of his Chamber Music and the solo Piano works and Choral & Vocal works, too - surely this is a harmonic feature rather than one of orchestration? I'm not sure what you mean by how these doublings "make more sense" when played on period instruments? In what way "sense", 'djogger?

[Richard Barrett]

But such doublings are also a feature of his Chamber Music and the solo Piano works and Choral & Vocal works, too - surely this is a harmonic feature rather than one of orchestration?

Indeed. Although it does inevitably lead to thick orchestration because all those notes have to be given to someone... and oh look! some instruments are left over, let's throw in a countermelody to keep them busy.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Indeed. Although it does inevitably lead to thick orchestration because all those notes have to be given to someone... and oh look! some instruments are left over, let's throw in a countermelody to keep them busy.

But it's not a countermelody - it's a doubling (if I've understood hedgehog's point) and it's a feature that occurs even in Brahms' non-orchestral Music, where it isn't a case of "some instruments left over".

I think hedgehog has a ponit - from many discussions and comments I've read, in a lot of cases it's this harmonic feature (together with 2 against 3 cross-rhythms) that cause(s) some listeners to react against the sound that Brahms creates (you'll no doubt be delighted to know that your opinion is essentially identical to Britten's!) - and, as you say, if listeners perceive this as "stodgy" then that's how they perceive it. The Music has enough admirers - I think I'd find coping with the shet that life throws at us a lot less bearable without it.

[Richard Barrett]

But it's not a countermelody - it's a doubling

A doubling is a doubling and a countermelody is a countermelody, I'm aware of the difference! I was saying, not very seriously, that (especially but not exclusively in orchestral music) once Brahms was finished with filling in all the doubling he'd add a countermelody if there were instruments left over.

[kea]

But it's not a countermelody - it's a doubling (if I've understood hedgehog's point) and it's a feature that occurs even in Brahms' non-orchestral Music, where it isn't a case of "some instruments left over".

Well there is also usually a countermelody in Brahms, distinct from the harmonic doublings (3rds/6ths) (and octave doublings in the orchestral music). Probably something else he got from Chopin, this time his practice of making up a melody from several quasi-independent polyphonic lines (as expanded on by Charles Rosen in The Romantic Generation)—Brahms's countermelodies are rarely of much independent musical interest, unlike those of say Mozart, but fit together with the 'main' melody most felicitously and indeed add interest to it. (The cello melody in the adagio of the 2nd symphony would be much poorer without its bassoon companion, which in turn outside of its context is just a rising scale.)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

A doubling is a doubling and a countermelody is a countermelody, I'm aware of the difference!

Ah! I misunderstood your use of " ... "

I was saying, not very seriously,

Oh, I got that bit

[hedgehog]

But such doublings are also a feature of his Chamber Music and the solo Piano works and Choral & Vocal works, too - surely this is a harmonic feature rather than one of orchestration? I'm not sure what you mean by how these doublings "make more sense" when played on period instruments? In what way "sense", 'djogger?

They drive me crazy there too fhg! Yes I thought carefully about the word "Orchestration" rather than "harmonic" - to me particularly when a melody is consistently doubled as Brahms so often does, it becomes more of an colouring issue (I use the word orchestration in that sense, rather than the literal application to an orchestra) rather than a harmonic feature - since it doesn't function like that to me.

I did first write "instrumentation", but then thought that was too specific in terms of choice of instruments, though having said that in the performances with period instruments there is more clarity and I hear the doublings more as two lines, the colouration changes with the registers and it works better - ie at least his choice of instruments shows up here what he was doing better, but even there the doublings do still bug me - "me and my shadow".

Also just the plain doublings in chords as opposed to the melody lines - heaping lots of thirds and 6ths in the chords are more transparent in the works with period instruments - but still very thick as opposed to say Beethoven's tutti chords in his music irrespective of the genre (I hope that makes some sort of sense.)

[P. G. Tipps]

I'm not sure why so many listeners immediately jump to orchestral music to make judgments about a composer. Apart from Mahler, Bruckner and Strauss I can't think of any composers whose orchestral works present them in a significantly better light than e.g. chamber, solo piano, choral or vocal works—indeed it's often the opposite, as in the cases of Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Fauré, Debussy, Janáček, Skryabin etc, whose symphonic works are "all right" but for the most part nonessential.

It depends on what you mean by 'judgments'. I've always said my failure to appreciate Brahms is to do with my listening shortcomings not the composer's music ... millions of music-lovers can't be wrong! However, when I say the symphonies have 'left me cold' it's the simple truth and undoubtedly more a judgement on me than the composer. There is obviously something going on that I appear to be missing!

Why orchestral music? Simply because that's what I listen to most and love the best!

[jayne lee wilson]

Richard's comment (in his post 89 above) notwithstanding, I'm wondering - given some of the previous doubts about the sound of Brahms - whether the whole of the revival of early music and the adoption of the 'authentic performance'/HIPP movement has changed the way we listen to music: so that the thickness of his orchestrations, if I may so describe it, has led to a turning away. The chamber music, when I began to discover it after a prolonged diet of B's orchestral music only, was a revelation: crystal clear melody and ravishing harmonies. (Note to self: acquire some HIPP/period intstrument recordings of the symphonies.)

Orchestral recordings on period instruments are rare, but for HIPPs - Berglund/COE, Mackerras/SCO, and Manze's marvellous Symphony cycle with an orchestra of around 60 (Helsingborg SO) really are revelatory. Completely different sonic and emotional experience from the tradition that became famous in the "classic stereo" era from the 50s through 70s. (Dorati was almost HIPPs avant la lettre but even that sounds a shade hefty to me now).

We overlook too often the effect on our musical perception of the "recorded tradition" which became established through those decades and dominated interpretative as well as buying choices. Refresh and recreate, keep it alive!

AS THE SUN
MAKES IT NEW
DAY BY DAY
MAKE IT NEW
YET AGAIN
MAKE IT NEW

(Chinese poem tr. Ezra Pound)

[richardfinegold]

True - but, to be fair, Bruckner was at that age when he wrote most of the pieces that feature most frequently in concerts and on CD.

Janacek's most passionate and best music was written late in his life.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Janacek's most passionate and best music was written late in his life.

Indeed - the model of hope for all undiscovered composers in their fifties!*

(My reference was to the photos of Bruckner which are, for the most part, contemporaneous with the later Symphonies, unlike Brahms, whose "image" - even when the early works are being performed.)

* = musically, at any rate! (Fancying someone thirty-odd years younger than oneself and happily married isn't to be envied.)

[P. G. Tipps]

(Fancying someone thirty-odd years younger than oneself and happily married isn't to be envied.)

That's true ...

At least poor old Bruckner, so naive in affairs of the heart and much mocked over all the young girls he fancied and even proposed to, and who were sometimes nearly half-a-century younger than himself, could certainly claim that they were all, however ridiculously remotely, 'available' ...

[visualnickmos]

I think the fact that he sometimes answered the door stark naked didn't do him any favours either..... it paints an horrendous picture!

[P. G. Tipps]

It certainly does ... I like my Bruckner 'in the raw' but that was carrying things just a bit too far...