The Brahms Experience

[teamsaint]

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...

Some interesting thoughts about musical structures and the mind, amongst other things, in this lecture on Sextets,RB.

http://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/the-joy-of-six

[Richard Barrett]

Some interesting thoughts about musical structures and the mind, amongst other things, in this lecture on Sextets,RB.

Thanks, that's most interesting. Actually I find the string-sextet sound highly attractive, not only in Brahms and Strauss but of course Schoenberg as well.

[Suffolkcoastal]

Brahms apparently had rather a high pitched voice, and was extremely slender as a young man. This may interest Brahms lovers if you haven't heard it already.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRcMPxbaDAY&list=PLUnj1frarvUnPru-0WxwlIo1KXq0yiMQV&index=81

[Barbirollians]

I ca only think that those who regard Brahms as staid have just been listening to the wrong performances .
I defy anyone to say that about the EMI Furtwangler and Columbia SO/Walter accounts of the symphonies , the Menuhin/Kempe account of the Violin Concerto or the Oistrakh/Fournier Double

[french frank]

I ca only think that those who regard Brahms as staid have just been listening to the wrong performances .
I defy anyone to say that about the EMI Furtwangler and Columbia SO/Walter accounts of the symphonies , the Menuhin/Kempe account of the Violin Concerto or the Oistrakh/Fournier Double

What about those who regard him as stodgy? :-)

I've been listening to the B minor clarinet quintet - v. light-hearted, late work (1891). Love the 3rd movement.

[Richard Barrett]

I don't think it's anything to do with listening to the wrong performances!

[jayne lee wilson]

As Barbirollians has emphasised, the idea of Brahms as "stodgy" is - just an idea, a blurred cliche of image & response. With the Piano Sonatas & Serenades at one end of his creative life, the Clarinet Trio and Sonatas at the other, the Symphonies 2-4, the Quintets, and the 2nd Piano Concerto in between, for those that truly know and love their Brahms, he is simply one of the greatest composers, with a wonderfully wide range of moods and sounds in his inspirations. Enjoy him while you're here!

Symphony No.1, the 1st Piano Concerto, Op. 51/1? A coming to terms with - Beethoven, the Tragic, The Romantic Artist atop the Crag, the Sturm und Drang, of his inherited tradition. But ALWAYS - in his own voice, true to himself...

[kea]

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).

Can't say I relate to this very well... far from underlining everything Brahms is for me a master of leaving just enough unsaid, perhaps sometimes a bit too understated/subtle but the reverse never... certainly the fate of Schumann seems to have left him with a ruthless suppression of the irrational, but it still peeks through sometimes, as in the 'sarabande'+'sicilienne'+'gavotte' movement of the 1st String Quintet, the darker moments of the 1st String Quartet and parts of the 3rd symphony among others. The Sextets are hardly unique in that respect, though they are certainly among his best works.

Sometimes the motivic development is a bit pedantic (the Romance of the 1st Quartet comes to mind for me) but this seems to affect mostly the movements where he is trying a bit too hard, e.g. the first movements of the Quartet Op. 25 and Quintet Op. 34—when he relaxes a bit, as in the last two movements of both works, any signs of stodginess quite disappear. And in the later works (2nd String Quintet etc) he got much better at making his lines seem "seamless" à la Chopin/Bellini, without belabouring their derivation from short motivic cells. Strange how everyone hears these things differently I suppose.

[hedgehog]

A major stumbling block for me with Brahms was/is his orchestration - all those melodic doublings at thirds and sixths drive me crazy! Was until I heard some performances on period instruments and then a lot started to make more sense in that department.

[Sir Velo]

What about those who regard him as stodgy? :-)

I've been listening to the B minor clarinet quintet - v. light-hearted, late work (1891).

Funny. I see that work shot through with a sense of overwhelming melancholy and nostalgia!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Funny. I see that work shot through with a sense of overwhelming melancholy and nostalgia!

Crickey, yes! And the way the opening B minor melody returns at the very end in the Phrygian mode - the melancholy turned into sour despair (and the culmination of the process of the variations of that movement; that this is the only outcome) - pitiless!

[P. G. Tipps]

A major stumbling block for me with Brahms was/is his orchestration -.

Maybe that has been my own problem with the composer. I remember reading Mahler's comment about the music being 'over-cooked' and that is the way I often hear it. Sometimes even 'too clever by half' and 'self-satisfied' sounding, though I can't be any more technical than that as I'm simply not musically-qualified enough to be so ...

I admit I'm only referring to the symphonies here ( I actually quite like the German Requiem) and I need to sit down with a fresh mind and explore the rest of Brahms' output further, that's for sure.

[kea]

I admit I'm only referring to the symphonies here

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.

[Richard Barrett]

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

I don't wish to get into a squabble, but no it isn't. It's a direct experience of the music which is just as real as anyone else's.

[french frank]

Funny. I see that work shot through with a sense of overwhelming melancholy and nostalgia!

Well, there you are. The sleeve notes did tell me it was melancholy ('pervaded with a melancholy beauty'), but I mentioned the third movement and perhaps that was the feeling I was left with. (Sleeve note says it is the nearest the work gets to lightheartedness.)

Listening to the final movement again (I left the turntable on all night!) I still hear it more as gentle contentment. But I suppose these things can vary depending on what your own mood is. Maybe I just meant a lightness of touch. Not heavy and staid like the symphonies. Isn't this where you can say there's no universal validity? Particularly with quieter works. Some people find quietness quite tiresome.