Originally posted by P. G. Tipps
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The Brahms Experience
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Originally posted by aeolium View PostWhy - 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.
My point was simply to address the nonsense that is talked about his music being boring or stodgy .
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Originally posted by french frank View Post
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... if not the Kevin Bacon -
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Originally posted by ferneyhoughgeliebte View PostTrue - 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.
Ah, here's the photo ...
Anyway, mustn't hog a Brahms thread!
Here's another picture of the little sweetie ...
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Originally posted by P. G. Tipps View PostIndeed, that is irrefutable, and I remember one Bruckner concert programme I purchased many years ago which showed a photo of the poor chap 'on his deathbed'!
Ah, here's the photo ...
Here's another picture of the little sweetie ...
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Originally posted by ferneyhoughgeliebte View PostAll these pictures of the young Brahms - isn't he reputed to have said that before he grew his beard he looked like Clara Schumann's son, whilst afterwards he looked like her father?
Did you listen to the Piano 4tet movt, PGT?
Maybe things are already looking up, ferneyhoughgeliebte!
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Originally posted by P. G. Tipps View PostIt did cross my mind, Sir Velo, that I had suddenly found Johannes Brahms physically if not yet musically attractive.
Worrying times ...
(And brilliant news about the Pno 4tet! )[FONT=Comic Sans MS][I][B]Numquam Satis![/B][/I][/FONT]
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Richard Barrett
Well I don't know, I'm always interested to hear people expressing themselves enthusiastically about Brahms's music but, with a few exceptions, I find the "passion" in his music is overwhelmed by the stodginess, a pedantic need to underline everything (which unfortunately he passed on to the Brahmsian side of Schoenberg). For me the beard was there a long time before he let it grow!
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Originally posted by Richard Barrett View PostWell I don't know, I'm always interested to hear people expressing themselves enthusiastically about Brahms's music but, with a few exceptions, I find the "passion" in his music is overwhelmed by the stodginessIt isn't given us to know those rare moments when people are wide open and the lightest touch can wither or heal. A moment too late and we can never reach them any more in this world.
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Richard Barrett
Originally posted by french frank View PostI find the symphonies 'staid' at times rather than 'stodgy'. But I've often been surprised on hearing some chamber music to discover it was Brahms. Surprised in a pleasant way, but I find it difficult to think of an epithet (I'm not that familiar with the chamber music).
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