Brahms: Piano concerti nos 1 & 2

[EdgeleyRob]

Alone no longer!

May I join this club
I was blown away by the Arrau,Philharmonia,Guillini LP as a spotty teenager,my first Brahms record IIRC,and the 2nd concerto never compared after that.



I also saw Barenboim play it at the Bridgewater Hall as part of Barbirolli night in 1999,remarkable performance that was too.

[cloughie]

May I join this club
I was blown away by the Arrau,Philharmonia,Guillini LP as a spotty teenager,my first Brahms record IIRC,and the 2nd concerto never compared after that.



I also saw Barenboim play it at the Bridgewater Hall as part of Barbirolli night in 1999,remarkable performance that was too.

No, can't agree. The 2nd is my favourite, but both concerti are ahead of any others in my top ten - Schumann is No 3.

[Pulcinella]

Must listen again, but possibly not back to back.
I think I prefer whichever I'm listening to at the time!
Both fine works, as is his violin concerto, but not the double (in my book, anyway).
Can't say the same (in terms of preference) about the symphonies, though, and don't feel the same way as ferney does about them.
I studied symphony number 2 for A level, way back when, but it needs to have the exposition repeated, as Boult does; find the end of number 1 supremely exciting; never got on with 3; and don't see all the fuss about 4, even the great passacaglia fourth movement, though it's growing on me!
Classic Gilels/Jochum here, but also Serkin (elder)/Szell and Tirimo/Sanderling (1) and Levi (2, uncredited in the booklet).
Heard Serkin (younger) play number 2 at Tanglewood on 10 August 1979 with the BSO under Ozawa; I bought (and dated!) my copies of the scores of both concertos there. The first half of the concert was Bartok's Miraculous Mandarin. The following day was Bartok's Music for SPC and complete Ravel Daphnis and Chloe. Happy memories.

[Hornspieler]

An interesting variance of opinions.

I was introduced to the Second concerto whilst still at school by my music master's mono set of Solomon playing with the Philharmonia. That lovely opening horn solo by Dennis Brain and some fine playing by the third horn, who was,I believe, the Australian, Roy White.

Professionally, I played on many occasions with Julius Katchen, who, for me, was the finest interpreter of both works - to such a degree that both were works of equal (and, for me) unsurpassed performances .
It was significant that Katchen was always aware of when he was the soloist and when he was the accompanist.
When I was playing any of those lovely horn solos, he never took his eyes off me, demonstrating that he was following the important passages for other players as a good accompanist should.

So I don't have a favourite; they are both great works and which /whose performance gives the listener the most pleasure is simply a matter of opinion and personal preference.

HS

[Pulcinella]

Hornspieler:
Is that opening solo something to fear as a player, or not?
At the very least, it is dreadfully exposed, so that must get the nerves jingling!
But what a way to start a concerto.

[HighlandDougie]

An interesting variance of opinions.

I was introduced to the Second concerto whilst still at school by my music master's mono set of Solomon playing with the Philharmonia. That lovely opening horn solo by Dennis Brain and some fine playing by the third horn, who was,I believe, the Australian, Roy White.

Professionally, I played on many occasions with Julius Katchen, who, for me, was the finest interpreter of both works - to such a degree that both were works of equal (and, for me) unsurpassed performances .
It was significant that Katchen was always aware of when he was the soloist and when he was the accompanist.
When I was playing any of those lovely horn solos, he never took his eyes off me, demonstrating that he was following the important passages for other players as a good accompanist should.

So I don't have a favourite; they are both great works and which /whose performance gives the listener the most pleasure is simply a matter of opinion and personal preference.

HS

What an interesting reminder of Katchen's artistry. I remember my shock at his tragically early death - I had been buying his Brahms (when I could afford it) and almost wore out the Bartok/Ravel coupling with Kertesz conducting. The son of some of my best friends is going in the autumn to the same small college (Haverford - in the Philadelphia suburbs) which Katchen attended with such brilliance - not, alas, a young man with any pianistic skills to be nurtured.

[verismissimo]

... So I don't have a favourite; they are both great works and which /whose performance gives the listener the most pleasure is simply a matter of opinion and personal preference.

HS

Same for me.
1. Younger, more passionate.
2. Older, more reflective.
I'll have both, please.

[Sir Velo]

The Second is, no doubt about it, a strange work with its tiny little wisp of a scherzo. The first two movements so full of awe, conjuring up images of the vast beyond so that one feels one is standing like Cortes' men, "Silent, upon a peak in Darien".

And then, the third and fourth movements; beautiful in their way, but like an afterthought, almost impossible to relate back to the Homeric achievements of the first half of the work.

Gilels, in both, for me.

[Hornspieler]

Hornspieler:
Is that opening solo something to fear as a player, or not?
At the very least, it is dreadfully exposed, so that must get the nerves jingling!
But what a way to start a concerto.

Not as frightening as opening a concert with Weber's Oberon overture!

In fact, it starts in the comfortable middle of the instrument's range.

With Brahms, in all his works, it is the 3rd horn who is given those high parts to play.

Let me explain why:

If for instance a work is written in a minor key, say, D minor, the valveless horn in Brahms day could not produce the minor third (F natural in this case), so Brahms would write for another set of horns (Both sets marked as Horns ! & 2) in the Relative Major - in this case, F major. So the 3rd and 4th horns in the modern orchestra find themselves playing the important solos at a higher (and therefore more dangerously exposed} level most of the time. Both of the Brahms concertos follow this pattern, as do his symphonies.

So the opening bars of the second concerto are a lot less frightening than the higher solos played by the 3rd horn.



Confused? Well we horn players like to keep alive the myth that the horn is the most difficult instrument to play. (Try sight reading at the speed of a flautist or violinist! *All instruments are written these days to the limit of their capacity and beyond, but we like to keep the myth going.

HS

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

The Second is, no doubt about it, a strange work with its tiny little wisp of a scherzo.

????? Nine-and-a-half minutes = "tiny little wisp"???

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwVkUYcLxgU

The first two movements so full of awe, conjuring up images of the vast beyond so that one feels one is standing like Cortes' men, "Silent, upon a peak in Darien".
And then, the third and fourth movements; beautiful in their way, but like an afterthought, almost impossible to relate back to the Homeric achievements of the first half of the work.

Gilels, in both, for me.

You got the right work, SirV? The "tiny little wisp" (lasting a fifth of the whole work) IS the Second Movement (unless someone has found a letter from Brahms saying he changed his mind).

[Pulcinella]

Confused?

Yes, but thanks for your explanation!


Of course, Oberon's horn was a magic one, wasn't it?

[Tony Halstead]

????? Nine-and-a-half minutes = "tiny little wisp"???

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwVkUYcLxgU

You got the right work, SirV? The "tiny little wisp" (lasting a fifth of the whole work) IS the Second Movement (unless someone has found a letter from Brahms saying he changed his mind).

Wasn't Sir Velo quoting Brahms himself who mischievously referred to the Scherzo as a 'tiny little wisp'?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Wasn't Sir Velo quoting Brahms himself who mischievously referred to the Scherzo as a 'tiny little wisp'?

Did he?! - I didn't know about that; but he was fond of such descriptions, wasn't he: the Second Symphony needing to be published in a black-lined edition, so funereal was the content. (In fact, the idle thought did occur to me when I was hanging out my washing [on my Siegfried Idyll line] if SirV was picking up from Pulcie's references to the Symphonies and describing the Second Symphony - but then the reference to Gilels didn't "fit".)

[Pulcinella]

Did he?! - I didn't know about that; but he was fond of such descriptions, wasn't he: the Second Symphony needing to be published in a black-lined edition, so funereal was the content. (In fact, the idle thought did occur to me when I was hanging out my washing [on my Siegfried Idyll line] if SirV was picking up from Pulcie's references to the Symphonies and describing the Second Symphony - but then the reference to Gilels didn't "fit".)

Have edited my posting to include 'symphony' to help avoid confusion about what I was trying to say!

[Sir Velo]

Wasn't Sir Velo quoting Brahms himself who mischievously referred to the Scherzo as a 'tiny little wisp'?

Should have put the remark in quotes, but assumed it was too well known to need it...