The Brahms Experience

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  • ferneyhoughgeliebte
    Gone fishin'
    • Sep 2011
    • 30163

    #61
    Originally posted by P. G. Tipps View Post
    Brahms is not the only one ...
    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.
    [FONT=Comic Sans MS][I][B]Numquam Satis![/B][/I][/FONT]

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    • amateur51

      #62
      Originally posted by P. G. Tipps View Post
      Brahms is not the only one ...








      The following one we rarely see:



      And I do like this one!

      The final piece in the mystery of P.G.Tipps' identity is revealed - in spite of all protestations, it's WELCOME BACK scottycelt

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      • Barbirollians
        Full Member
        • Nov 2010
        • 11669

        #63
        Originally posted by aeolium View Post
        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.
        Very true but that does not make him any the less passionate at times when his music calls for it . Passion can in any event be restrained and hidden .

        My point was simply to address the nonsense that is talked about his music being boring or stodgy .

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        • aeolium
          Full Member
          • Nov 2010
          • 3992

          #64
          Originally posted by Barbirollians View Post
          My point was simply to address the nonsense that is talked about his music being boring or stodgy .
          Agreed on that

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          • vinteuil
            Full Member
            • Nov 2010
            • 12793

            #65
            Originally posted by french frank View Post

            quite the Gautier Capuçon de ses jours -
            .


            .
            ... if not the Kevin Bacon -

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            • ferneyhoughgeliebte
              Gone fishin'
              • Sep 2011
              • 30163

              #66
              Originally posted by Caliban View Post


              (... even though ferney, your comment highlights that in that photo he appears to be caressing himself! )
              Hmmm - well, he does look about twelve years old in that photo ...
              [FONT=Comic Sans MS][I][B]Numquam Satis![/B][/I][/FONT]

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              • P. G. Tipps
                Full Member
                • Jun 2014
                • 2978

                #67
                Originally posted by ferneyhoughgeliebte View Post
                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.
                Indeed, 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 ...



                Anyway, mustn't hog a Brahms thread!

                Here's another picture of the little sweetie ...

                Comment

                • ferneyhoughgeliebte
                  Gone fishin'
                  • Sep 2011
                  • 30163

                  #68
                  All 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?
                  [FONT=Comic Sans MS][I][B]Numquam Satis![/B][/I][/FONT]

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                  • Sir Velo
                    Full Member
                    • Oct 2012
                    • 3225

                    #69
                    Originally posted by P. G. Tipps View Post
                    Indeed, 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 ...

                    Johanna Brahms?

                    Comment

                    • P. G. Tipps
                      Full Member
                      • Jun 2014
                      • 2978

                      #70
                      Originally posted by ferneyhoughgeliebte View Post
                      All 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?
                      I did indeed ... however, I shall listen to it two or three times more, I think, as I really need to settle down in the evening with my headphones before listening to a piece properly. On first hearing it does appear to possess a depth and beauty I'd never before associated with JB.

                      Maybe things are already looking up, ferneyhoughgeliebte!

                      Comment

                      • P. G. Tipps
                        Full Member
                        • Jun 2014
                        • 2978

                        #71
                        Originally posted by Sir Velo View Post
                        Johanna Brahms?
                        It did cross my mind, Sir Velo, that I had suddenly found Johannes Brahms physically if not yet musically attractive.

                        Worrying times ...

                        Comment

                        • ferneyhoughgeliebte
                          Gone fishin'
                          • Sep 2011
                          • 30163

                          #72
                          Originally posted by P. G. Tipps View Post
                          It did cross my mind, Sir Velo, that I had suddenly found Johannes Brahms physically if not yet musically attractive.

                          Worrying times ...
                          Nah! Just go with the flow (or the Flo ... or the Jo) as the mood takes you. PGT.


                          (And brilliant news about the Pno 4tet! )
                          [FONT=Comic Sans MS][I][B]Numquam Satis![/B][/I][/FONT]

                          Comment

                          • Richard Barrett

                            #73
                            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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                            • french frank
                              Administrator/Moderator
                              • Feb 2007
                              • 30249

                              #74
                              Originally posted by Richard Barrett View Post
                              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
                              I 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).
                              It 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.

                              Comment

                              • Richard Barrett

                                #75
                                Originally posted by french frank View Post
                                I 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).
                                I've had the same experience. The first movements of the Bb string sextet and the G major string quintet did it for me the first time I heard them. I still haven't worked out what it is that makes them different from almost everything else of his that I've heard though...

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