Brahms ... inexplicable innit

[gurnemanz]

Guess who nicked this melody? The same guy who used Bruch's grand melody from his violin concerto again in an Alpine setting: Richard Strauss. Brahms returns in the pompous Festliches Präludium op.61 from 1913

I've just listened on YouTube (E Power Biggs + L. Bernstein are suitably pompous). Not a work I will return to that often. I kept thinking of Parry's "I Was Glad" (which actually came first).

[Roehre]

I've just listened on YouTube (E Power Biggs + L. Bernstein are suitably pompous). Not a work I will return to that often. I kept thinking of Parry's "I Was Glad" (which actually came first).

No. Once every 10 years suffices for me, I'm afraid.
I stick to the Brahms original, which is an impressive piece by any means ( I prefer the sextet version)

[gradus]

From the LSO website to YouTube re Brahms:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nV4baHqw8Jw

[gmw]

Works in my case

[Lento]

[QUOTEthe wonderful Clarinet Quintet, or the Horn Trio.[/QUOTE]

The sad beauty of the opening of the Horn trio strikes me as being "as good as it gets", pretty much. The trio benefits from being less frequently heard (I think) than the Clarinet Quintet, which, unfortunately for some of us, was a firm favourite of the examining boards as an A level "set work" in the 1970s!

[Sir Velo]

Works in my case

I suppose that largely depends on the size of your case.

[pastoralguy]

By coincidence, we went to an excellent Imogen Cooper solo recital in Reading Concert Hall last night which included Schubert D960 and Schumann's First Sonata. One of the other items was his arrangement of the Op 18 Andante. I did not previously know it existed (done for Clara, of course) and notice that she included it on a recent Chandos disc.

I picked up a cd of a pianist called Marie-Joseph Jude playing this op. 18 Theme and variations movement coupled with the op. 2 sonata and the Variations on a theme of Schumann. Very good playing IMHO.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

Tom Service on Brahms 4th Symphony in his Graun blog - good essay imho

[Bryn]

Tom Service on Brahms 4th Symphony in his Graun blog - good essay imho

Starts of in classic Grauniad style:

This symphony might a reliable and over-familiar staple on concert programmes, but listen to it with fresh ears.

[Roehre]

Tom Service on Brahms 4th Symphony in his Graun blog - good essay imho

Interesting observations indeed.
Thanks aCDJ

[Serial_Apologist]

Tom Service on Brahms 4th Symphony in his Graun blog - good essay imho

Where Service writes, "What you can't escape is that the expressive integrity that you have in the Fourth Symphony is a direct result of the density of it's compositional thinking" he's summarising what I most love about the sort of ideal Brahms's music represents for me, and those following his example, such as Schoenberg, uniting thought and feeling non-dualistically, so to speak.

[ahinton]

This seems to me to represent a massive improvement in the quality of Service provided, compared to some of that to which his readers and listeners have become accustomed - really insightful in many ways; I recall (though I cannot now find the interview text in which it originated) that Elliott Carter one claimed that "the most radical work an American composer could write would be one like Brahms’s Fourth Symphony, which assumed the most highly developed musical culture in its listeners"...

[Thropplenoggin]

Tom Service on Brahms 4th Symphony in his Graun blog - good essay imho

I enjoyed this piece, too. Service writes with more lucidity than he presents (or interviews).

I dug out my Klemperer/Philharmonia Orchestra 4th which, combined with Legge's recording production skills, makes for an exhilirating listen.

[amateur51]

I enjoyed this piece, too. Service writes with more lucidity than he presents (or interviews).

I dug out my Klemperer/Philharmonia Orchestra 4th which, combined with Legge's recording production skills, makes for an exhilirating listen.

This the one you were listening to only yesterday afternoon over on the Bargains thread, Throppers?

[Thropplenoggin]

This the one you were listening to only yesterday afternoon over on the Bargains thread, Throppers?

Indeed. A snip at £7.21, not like those £100+ 'bargains' that get posted. Tho' I expect many forum members own them already.