There’s More to Brahms Than You Think
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- Опубликовано: 26 ноя 2022
- Why Brahms takes patience to understand, why his music is emotionally demanding, and how his music inspired me to write for clarinet quintet.
Check out Henle's Brahms Scores: www.henle.de/en/brahms
Brad Cherwin, guest and clarinet
Professor Gudrun Jalass, guest
Featured musicians:
Amy Hillis and Eric Kim-Fujita, violins
Hee-Soo Yoon, viola
Sebastian Ostertag, cello
Henle Verlag, sponsor and scores
Ben Havey, research assistance
Julius Meltzer, translation
Brad and I are performing again on Dec. 2 in Toronto:
www.westendmusic.ca
Video clips featured:
String Quintet Camerata Pacifica: • Brahms: String Quintet...
Piano Sonata in F Minor Claudio Arrau: • Brahms - Piano Sonata ...
Symphony No. 4 NDR Elbphilharmonie: • Brahms: Sinfonie Nr. 4...
Violin Sonata No. 3 Michael Rabin: • Michael Rabin and Garv...
Postillons Morgenlied: • Johannes Brahms: Posti...
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As a violist in 1974, I met Dr. Richard Lert who was the godson of Brahms. He kept looking and studying me from a distance as I played in the orchestra he was conducting. I am a rather big and portly guy. He had been a conductor of the Vienna Phil and many other famous orchestras. He was even friends with Richard Strauss. Anyway, one day he watched and heard me playing one of my improvisations on the piano. He became fascinated with me and loved my music. He then told me that I reminded him so much of Brahms. He even offered to conduct me in a performance of the Bach Brandenburg 6th Concerto for 2 violas. He became my first conducting teacher and mentor. I was captivated by the stories he told of Brahms that no one knows. Brahms was indeed a huge super genius, paradox, mystery and complex personality. And yet, one has only to play and study his music to truly know him.
I want to know some of those stories.
Wow, that's fascinating, I love stories like these, thanks for sharing
Thank you for sharing. What amazing experiences you’ve had.
A privileged viola bear you are
Perhaps you would want to publish those stories, those memories of his godson. Surely it would be a very interesting book, many of us music lovers would read it.
I had a very serious surgery about a year ago which left me in the hospital for almost two weeks recuperating. The first day I was out of surgery I had the intuition to listen to some Brahms on my iPhone. I don't know why - I liked Brahms before but it was casual. I plowed through the Brahms catalog in that hospital bed, frequently brought to tears. People would ask me why I'm crying and all I could say was that 'it's just so beautiful'. I think being that close to death (not being dramatic) unlocked a part of me that could finally be open to Brahms' language and palette. Of the things I listened to, I probably listened to the clarinet quintet the most. I grew up listening to a lot of punk rock but when the chips are down, it was Brahms who got me through this. Thank you @NahreSol
I have been a Brahms enthusiast for almost half a century. I don't get tired of his music.
Brahms saved my life after I'd listen to him as a lost 16 year old boy wanting to commit the end to my life. The D minor piano concerto 2nd movement gave me hope, built my spirit anew and showed me that even in despair we all should at least aspire to be better.
I very much understand your sentiment - to aspire to be better. There is so much brilliance created in a piece of music and in the performance too. I needed reassurance in my life when I had a health scare. Coming across a classical concert that was on the tv one evening, made me so grateful for everything. Benjamin Britten Piano Concerto I think it was. Brahms has richness power and romanticism to me. Hope you don't mind replying to your post. From 🇬🇧
@@julies2633 That's okay. I'm glad you understand it. I'll take a listen to Britten's piano concerto, never knew he wrote one. Thank you for your response, I hope your health is much better. I'm in 🇿🇦.
It’s interesting that it is that piece that reaches you so deeply - Brahms took years to work on that concerto as a way to process Robert Schumann’s suicide attempt and his own relationship with Clara in those early years (of the second movement Brahms wrote Clara: “I am painting a beautiful portrait of you , it is to be the adagio.”)
@@dovrosenschein147 I know it took a while for him to complete it. The concerto was initially started as a symphony, but you know how meticulous Brahms used to be. I figured I would share that part of my life to show that even though Brahms' music may seem intimidating, there is something profound about it.
@brandonmartin5650 Indeed there is something profound about it! The 2nd movement of the Op. 15 is my favorite movement of both the Brahms piano concerti. I am learning to play it, after all these years!
Brahms communicated and addressed grief and loss in an unusually acute and compassionate way. He could be a gruff and brusque person, but his music is some of the most massively consoling.
I can attest to Brahms growing on you. I didn't really understand what the fuzz was all about when I listened to his symphonies for the first time. But now his fourth and third symphony are among my favorite symphonies ever and I kind of get what he means by "permanent music".
This is a top class video, and a beautiful composition too. This channel is an absolute credit to classical music.
I totally agree but Ms Sol's reach is way beyond classical music. Her contributions are quintessential examples of what it means to be a cultured human being who is in touch with their emotions and intellectual understanding.
@@martifingers Very well said, and absolutely what I feel (for what that's worth of course! 🙂)
I love Brahms. IMHO, his Op. 116/117/118/119 sets are the most poignant piano works ever composed.
and Op. 76 set
@@msotil YES!! It's great.
Honestly all of Brahms piano works are incredibly good... the sonatas, ballades, rhapsodies and all the other works from op 76 to the late works... he was amazing and sometimes gets underappreciated imo.
I am obsessed with Brahms honestly... I read all his letters and reading a biography about him, learning several works of his and working on listening to all compositions he ever did
Op. 116 was a huge influence on me when I was younger. The no. 3 in g minor from that set is remarkable. It starts in a furious and dissonant g minor that unexpectedly gives way to a middle section in Eb lydian that feels like you've been lifted from the depths of hell into the heavens. It's beautiful and one of my favorite pieces of music.
@@MrPSaun Oh I love the capriccio in g minor... I was practicing it a bit a while ago and its a fun piece and incredibly beautiful in the eb lydian section... but generally all his late pieces afe incredibly well written. Simply masterpieces
It’s hard to go into Brahms’ music world. But when you do, it’s hard to going out.
Ha ha, so true. It's addictively complex and thick-chorded (beauty of sound), with interesting harmonic shifts, and wears its heart firmly on its sleeve.... while staying with the constraints of classical form. Like Bach met the Romantics (Schumann, Liszt, Chopin etc) and they decided to record together.
Absolutely correct. He is like the hunter .
I have grown into an enormous fan of Brahms, though it took time for it to really settle in.
I often find myself analogizing brahms to things of natural beauty (which is a bit ironic, in terms of how carefully and deliberately crafted his music is). The old growth forest was beautiful and ancient long before you set your eyes on it. It's not there for you, but you are there basking in its splendor. There's something timeless, inevitable, enduring, about it.
In Brahms, every little modulation or transformation is foreshadowed, prepared, fulfilled, and tied off with such elegant care that we don't even see it happening - it just happens. It's a bit more like a river and less like a road. I adore the beauty of the river, and the craftsmanship required to recreate natural beauty with so little affectation.
Brahms often lets the rhythms run against the meter, often hiding or obscuring the meter, sometimes outright ignoring it. I think of it as being rather like prose: in poetry, the text is rhythmic and metered (think of a limerick, or shakespeare's iambic pentameter for example), but in speech and in prose, the text is rhythmic but unmetered. I don't think that Brahms' music is particularly speech-like, but I like this analogy because of how much of the music we are exposed to are songs, and Brahms' melodies, even when beautiful and lyrical, often aren't song-like. He loves his five bar phrases, he scorns the use of predictable phrase structure like the period or sentence, and writes melodies that stretch over bar lines and cadences that overlap into the next phrase or next key instead of having a full stop and line break for beginning the next. When other composers imitate speech, they use recitative. Brahms never sounds like recitative, he always sounds much more natural and inevitable, rather than forced or contrived. It's a river that carries you in its current and you enjoy the journey. With his motivic and thematic brilliance he can give even the biggest surprises and quick turns, and it always feels like a smooth ride rather than a rocky one. Every beautiful sight that you see on your journey is exactly where it belongs and there's no where else it could have been, because he has so brilliantly recreated the feeling of natural and organic beauty.
Is a church more beautiful than a mountain? Is a church more beautiful because it is more symmetrical, its design more purposeful and deliberate, the lines are straighter, the points cleaner, the colours in the stain glass chosen to match? Is the poem more beautiful than the short story because of its rhymes and cadence?
Brahms builds a church with unassailable architectural skill, yet it also has the eternal beauty of the mountain. In his music, Brahms writes a beautiful paragraph of touching prose, yet when closely examined, you discover that it followed all of the rules of poetry, without even knowing that it was a poem.
Dont try to „explain“ music with words. Its useless.
@@leonardoiglesias2394 are you watching a youtube channel that talks about music with words? i am
This was really nicely said, and actually goes to my trying to understand the languages of artistic expression, and how to apply it to my own prose writing.
@@leonardoiglesias2394 Are you unintelligent?
"Brahms often lets the music run against the meter, often hiding or obscuring the meter, and sometimes outright ignoring the meter."
From my perspective as a guitarist, that reminds me of many great blues guitarists. And there is perhaps a word for that: "the pocket".
Jimi Hendrix is an excellent example of that idea, applied in extremis. Variable tempo, reverse sound, odd time signature(for polyrhythms), odd uses of delay and interesting meter and note/chord choices.
"Permanent music" indeed.
Can’t think of anything clever or erudite to post about Brahms. Just want to say I love Nahre Sol’s channel primarily for the way it/she always lifts me up. How she often shares her vulnerability as a musician and as a human being is completely disarming. Widening musical awareness, getting deep into the creative process , living vicariously as a successful classically trained pianist and enjoying her amazingly descriptive musical vocabulary are all just bonuses. ❤️
Well said!
I studied Brahms when I was in college! He IS my favorite composer and the reason why I went into composition!
Dude. I’ve never understood Brahms. I am putting on all my ([Brahms] records again. Wonderful vid.
The Brahms requiem is quite possibly my favorite choral piece. Just so many stunning passages.
Now relistening :) thanks for the inspiration.
Brahms was a big fan of making aspiring composers cry; there was the time he read a score by a student. when finished he paused and then said, "where did you get such good manuscript paper ?"
That was his friend Max Bruch.
Oh another good story is that a good friend called Hermann Levi of Brahms asked him to judge his composition... I remember reading in his letter "There are 7 heavens. One thing is for sure, you wont get into the heaven of composers"... he demolished his friend lol
Good ol German humor
My theory teacher told the story that Claude Debussy showed up at Brahms' house, and handed the servant a card which read "Claude Debussy, French Musician". Brahms looked at the card, said "There's no such thing", and didn't let him in.
@@hortehighwind8651 Aber die Amerikaner meinen, wir *haben* keinen Humor!
I also love that your ad in the video is for something literate/musical and not stupid
I agree, but not gonna lie, it would be humorous af for a Nahre Sol video to have a mid-roll sponsorship by RAID SHADOW LEGENDS. Just the tone shift would be jarring.
@@lautreamontg or like BlueChew - eww
Brahms' chamber music is truly some of my favourite music ever! Thanks for featuring him on your channel
Brahms is the sole reason I wish I had bigger hands. How much I would love to play his Ballades and other works without having to break half the chords of the piece..
Edit: congrats on getting sponsored by Henle, would be a dream for me if I was a RUclipsr
Brahms has the heartbreaking death, from all the composers I read the biography of.
The last person to see him was a women, Lady Truxa and she she told us his last moment :
"At 8.30pm, I came close to his bed. He sat and tried to say something. But he couldn't. Big tears filled his eyes and runned on his skinny cheeks. He looked at me intensely, let himself fall back and past."
The most heartbreaking death... That's debatable.
Passed!
His last words were pretty good too, to a friend who gave him a glass of wine: “Thank you, that tasted good. You’re a good man.”
Team Schumann.
@@FrankBell that was heartbreaking.
I think Brahms music is by far the most emotional music ever. And in all ways. Often just within a few seconds. No other composer has such wide span. Only Beethoven can compete.
I remember hearing Brahm's Intermezzo in A (op 118 no 2) for the first time as an adult. While most trained pianists have heard and played it, I (not a trained pianist!) had never heard it. I became obsessed with the piece and the more I heard it, the more it brought me to tears. Brahms is definitely the melody man. Wonderfully said by your friend "... it's (emotion) always beneath the surface and almost breaking through, but he uses these masterful structures to hold them in".
Brahms is not 'the melody man' and would have been insulted by that - if you listen to the first bars of his op.1 it's like he actually wrote an ugly theme on purpose to build a sonata out of, already he had more sophisticated ambitions as a composer than writing melodies. The intermezzos are all extremely beautiful agreed - Glenn Gould's recordings are as perfect as any piano playing I've heard
@@helvete_ingres4717 imo the award for "melody man" goes to Schubert for me but you cant deny that Brahms did indeed write a lot of incredible melodies....
Brahms' 4th symphony is one of the best by anyone.
14:20 It gave me chills. So good! Beautiful writing and playing!
It says on Wikipedia that Wiegenlied (the Cradle Song), "was dedicated to Brahms's friend, Bertha Faber, on the occasion of the birth of her second son. Brahms had been in love with her in her youth and constructed the melody of the 'Wiegenlied' to suggest, as a hidden counter-melody, a song she used to sing to him." He composed it when he was 35.
I have loved Brahms since the first time I played the Academic Festival Overture at band camp.
Greetings from Opole, Poland. I love everything about Brahms and yes, it took me a while to get to him. Knowing his biography is not essential, of course, but it helps. There is one bio episode that I always refer to - once, one of Brahms's friends overheard him playing alone, and it turned out that Brahms was playing and crying at the same time. This always gets me.
As a professional pianist myself, I want to Thank you for everything you do in your Channel. You're extremely good at everything you do, as a pianist, composer, RUclipsr, teacher, and probably other things I don't know.
Never doubt yourself, and Thank you once more for (although indirectly) being part of my Life as a musician as well.
Beautiful composition! I love performing and listening to Brahms. From orchestral point of view, playing his music is like the weight of Beethoven with the refinement of Mozart. And Bach is always in the air. I agree, his music grows and deepens over time.
It's true, Brahms grows on you. At first, I found it kind of difficult to enjoy his music and I couldn't understand why. Eventually, The 3rd movement of his 3rd Symphony is what drew me in. His Cello Sonata No. 1 is a masterpiece. I really enjoy is 4th Symphony as well.
I fell in love with Brahms at age 3. My parents had a 1940 recording of his 3rd Symphony by Koussevitsky/Boston Symphony. I loved the whole thing, not just the 3rd movement (which gets people often with it's stunning beauty and sadness). In this video, she says something similar to what I often say about him - that no composer rewards repeated listening better than Brahms. Whenever I read or hear someone disparaging him or merely saying they don't like his music, I want to say "Listen to his 3rd Symphony 3 times in a row and get back to me".
Plus: his Requiem is my favorite & I’m a pianist & he lived with Schumann for learning orchestration…. Clara never loved anyone butRobert Schumann.. plus she was a fabulous pianist &traved Europe with her father plus becoming pregnant every time she came home! 6or7children…..Her father was very wealthy & terribly disappointed she in love with Robert who had little money. Robert told Clara that he was much older than she& Brahms was in love with her& Robert wanted her to marry him when Robert died…she told him that she could never marry anyone else. Robert had always been depressed & finally took his own life!
Your composition was delightful, demanding of my attention, and moving. Well done!
Brahms string sextets are some of my favorite pieces of music
Watching Brahms regain his high reputation has been one of the pleasures of my music listening life over the last fifty years. In the early 70's Brahms was very lightly regarded as a pale imitation of Beethoven. Over the last decades people have rediscovered that Brahms was actually a revolutionary composer that used old forms to write wholly original music.
Absolutely. The rehabilitation of Brahms has been one of the great positive developments in music in the last half century. He is a giant.
Funny because I kinda relate to this in the sense that as a child listening and studying classical music I kept thinking ´what’s the fuss about Brahms ?’... until I started listening more and more and without any bias against him.
Honestly, I prefer Brahms greatly over Beethoven. I fell in love with him at age 3 - namely his 3rd Symphony got me. It is my favorite work of art in any medium. It sounds like no one else. No composer rewards repeated listening like Brahms. I remember hearing his Clarinet Quintet in high school for the first time. It sounded "odd" to me, but in a totally intriguing way. I became obsessed with it. Like so many other pieces, of his, there is seemingly infinite depth. Despite having become familiar with the 3rd Symphony 60+ years ago, I still discover new things in it. I recently made similar discoveries in his 4th as well, a piece which I know very well and yet I don't know everything about. I never tire of his music.
While I was in it for the Brahms, I also really enjoyed your composition!
Fantastic!!
I love these videos on specific composers. And I love The Interludes for Clarinet Quintet too. Thank you Nahre
was on a brahms kick a year ago. haven’t stopped listening since
As a classical musician, Brahms always seemed intense to me, but he never made me get emotional, more so just a pleasing sound that put a smile on my face. A composer that hits the emotional strings for me has always been Elgar, Dvorak, and Delius
Merci for this video. What I love about Nahre is that she respects the melodic qualities of those "old-school" classical musicians. Even though she lives in a world where music has gone off the rails, she still has her train on the track.
Nahre, you are the absolute best1. I love that piece you wrote to go along with Brahms. and I love your contagious enthusiasm, and the clarity with which you describe and elucidate complexity. Thank you, thank you.
I got in such a mood from your piece 🙌🏽 and somehow found myself thinking about Stravinsky in many of the phrases. Such a lovely piece, and collab! It dawned upon me how little I know about Brahms. Thanks 🙏🏼
I agree wholeheartedly! Brahms's symphonies are unsurpassed for their depth. The Fourth is of an emotional profundity that few other composers could even begin to approach.
Nahre: among all your compositions shown here, this one is probably my favorite. Thank you.
What a gorgeous piece you've created! I love the textures and melodic movement! Also, to create such a non-trivial emotional arc in such a short 'interlude' is no mean feat. Absolutely gorgeous, cheers!
Congrats on the awesome sponsorship!! And on the beautiful music you composed
Thanks! The nerdy discussion isn't necessary in order to appreciate the music, but it does help me to understand more where you and Brahms were coming from.
I agree-I came to him late, through his solo piano pieces, and it was a revelation. The complex kaleidoscope of emotions he explores through elaborate rhythms and chord changes is pure genius. One can feel his deep intelligence in all of his works. Thank you for the video!👍👍
His double concerto for violin and cello, is soooooo progressive
07:34 "pianistically". Now there is a word we don't hear every day (at least those of us never to have studied in a conservatory). What a lovely word! 🥰 Thank you for allowing us lay persons a brief glimpse into that special world.
Bro my mom sang this lullaby to me as a kid without knowing it was Brahm's music, neither have I known!!! I'M SOOOO AMAZED I FINALLY FOUND OUT (she is too), THANK YOU!
Didn't know about his life and Clara. I'm 71 now and it makes total sense that I found solace playing his music when dealing with the sturm and drang of high school. His music was dark and spoke of matters of the heart.
thank you for this video! I've never been a huge fan of Brahms and this made me hear him in a whole new light.
The camera or lighting thing you got going on is sooo good
!!! How did you know? Brahms WAS my first classical composer -- the first movement of his violin concerto with Solerno-Sonnenberg.
Amazing work, Nahre! You truly are in a league of your own, and I always enjoy your videos.
The horn trio is awesome
As a 3-year-old child I loved Brahms' double concerto and soon wore out my dad's LP, as I did with his recording of the Hindemith string trios.
I was introduced to Brahms' music in middle school by my choir conductor, and his choir music was simply amazing for me as a teenager. So many strong emotions, trying to break through the surface, but always holding slightly back, so much passion and feeling in every phrase. He will forever be my favorite composer
More like how Nahre Sol makes me cry with a single video... the memory of a memory got to me
For me, Brahm's two piano concertos (performed by Zimerman and Bernstein) where crucial during the first lock down. I listened to them on loop and they played a huge role in me staying alive during almost 10 weeks of quarantine. They also became representative of my first relationship. I felt that they include all aspects of love in such a way, no book, no movie, no picture would have been able to describe them to me. Now I'm playing the Intermezzo Op.118 No.2 as a nod to what the past three years meant to me. Brahms has actually saved me in more than one way. Thank you for this wonderful video!
Thank you for sharing your music with the world! Your quintet is awesome!
Loved your Interlude which is very Bhramsy with good textures in the strings....the Clarinetist is a bad Mamma Jamma.... great, full tone, especially in Clarion register. Looking forward to your compositions.
God imagined being sponsored by Henle, what a dream
Brahms makes me cry because his piano writing is so awkward & uncomfortable under the hands 😹. Especially the later stuff, clarinet sonatas and the 4 serious songs, etc
I was literally about to mention his polyrhythmic piano exercises, absolutely mental to practice.
His symphonic trombone writing is lovely ❤
Not awkward. Not uncomfortable. Totally wonderful.
@@jamesmitchell6925 wonderful yes, and (almost always) totally worth it, but compared to pretty much any other late romantic contemporary his piano writing specifically was much less idiomatic to the instrument, especially in later work (like the pieces I named). I appreciate that your contribution to the convo was to write "nuh-uh ur wrong" tho
Learned that from Beethoven
Soooo intriguing!!!! I love this!!!! Can't wait to explore more Brahms!
your music is a d o r a b l e. Thank you, Nahre Sol
Wow! That piece at the end was a nice treat!!!
I started classical guitar at 14 and started borrowing music from a local library, because that's how we did it in the 80s. Brahms was one of the first I fell in love with. Such powerfully moving melodies. Your complementary composition is beautiful. Love the syncopated pizzicato opening and closing reminiscent of Ravel. Stunning clarinet playing.
To me, Brahms is the greatest composer of all time. And it’s not even close.
Happy birthday Brahms! One of my favorites. His horn trio, piano works, waltzes, symphonies, and even his 51 exercises for piano are among my favorite things in existence. Thanks for this wonderful tribute Nahre!
Thank you so much Nahre for sharing this video! 😊🙏
What a wonderful start to my day.
Every singer I know hates sightsinging Brahms, but loves mastering and performing Brahms.
I just discovered your channel, all your videos are wonderful. I love Brahms and your composition is wonderful. Thank you for your generosity.
Nahre, I love your music. Please post more of it!
What a lovely video...I love being educated and delighted with new music...hardly ever happens together...thanks for this. I thought the ensemble was terrific, and I love how the clarinet comes in after the intro...really nice!
Wonderful video, Nahre. You can never get enough Brahams.
Thank you Nahre😊!
Oh, it's beautiful, Nahre.
Nahre,
as someone who has liked music all his life, but who has only in the past 8/9 years, since taking jazz guitar lessons (though I’ve ‘played’ guitar all my life) begun to learn about music, I find that the kind of statements made in this and other videos tend to raise ever more questions.
If I knew more - far more - about music, I would appreciate far more what you are doing, for example ‘hemiola’: in theory I can ‘understand’ it - after all it is defined by you - but in practice I would have to hear it several times to understand.
Basically, it comes down to bods like me can ‘appreciate - and love’ the sound music makes but for the kind of insight and appreciation you and your friends share, one needs to know more about music etc.
However, overall, thanks for you videos which are always interesting.
First time I've seen a Henle sponsorship in a youtube video lol
Awesome video Nahre!
As an amateur violinist I am so grateful to have been able to perform some Brahms music: a violin sonata, the three string quartets, the string quintets and sextets, the most exquisite clarinet quintet, the piano trios, violin and double concerto (both accomp.), and his symphonies 1, 2 and 3 (unfortunately the 4th is rarely accessible to amateur orchestras). I also love his piano works and the Requiem.
Brahms is a composer who works with deep emotions from a very intellectual point of view. This holds true for all the great three Bs. Thanks for the nice overwiew.
Your composition is stunning, thank you for this video and all your work 🥰
It's all true! Even the name Brahms can seem to imply something like beige drapes. But his music is a super food. Grows on a body hugely! Loved your piece, too, and its performance. Whole snapshot of Brahms: nicely made. Cheers, Julie Bryce
The first LP I bought as a teenager was his third symphony by Brahms, conducted by George Szell. I cannot explain why! My fascination with his music in a world so enriched by other composers like Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Chopin, Grieg, Debussy, Ravel, Tchaikowsky, Rchmaninoff, and Wagner, Richard Strauss............
Nahre Sol, I have been watching you for a little while and am one of your newest subscribers. Many of your videos are beyond, sometimes WAY beyond, my knowledge and understanding. But, back when dinosaurs walked the earth, I was, for a couple of years, the non-music-major darling of my university's music department, owing purely to my enthusiam and soaking up all I could from my courses, labs, and the free weekly concerts. My 1st year of that was when I discovered Brahms' music and life story. I was particularly struck by the fact of his beloved mother being several years older than his father, and then Brahms grew up to fall in love with Clara Schumann, who was just about that much older than Brahms. It was awhile yet before I settled on psychology for grad school, got my doctorate, and had my own practice, but it was always that psychodynamic aspect of Brahms' life that I recognized as the spark that set me on that path. I have remained in awe that someone who had horrendous experiences being abused in the taverns he played in when young, grew up to accomplish amazingly masterful, profound and evocative expressions of emotion in his music. Thank you very much for all you know and share, but just now, most especially for this episode on Brahms.
This channel is the best.
Amazing video, as always. You expressed much about Brahms more clearly than I ever could, e.g. at 7:48, unlike Liszt or Tchaikovsky, Brahms (and Mahler) composed music that's brilliantly unique -- upon first hear, you may enjoy it but don't exactly know why. That reminds me of an Itzhak Perlman (re)quote: "If you learn it slowly, then you forget it slowly." The same applies to composition; it takes time to sink in. Brahms evokes feelings of excitement and despair and joy and pensiveness but through unconventional musical means. As discussed at 9:34 and 11:05, I think Brahms's use of rhythm is especially unparalleled, e.g. hemiola everywhere, unclear downbeats, which creates a kind of uncomfortable interest and perpetual forward motion. (His symphonies especially come to mind here.) His music never stays in one place for too long. Regarding melody at 11:14, I'm not sure "memorable" is the best word, since many listeners probably dislike Brahms for his lack of "hummable" melodies. The melodic content is there, but it's not so in-your-face. Despite that, to me, Brahms still epitomizes the "German romantic composer" -- singing, yearning, reaching, expressing complex human emotions better than we ever could through words. If it were Beethoven who gave birth to German romantic music, then Brahms took it to the next level.
Beautiful composition and great insight into one of my favorites of all time. For me, Brahms' choral stuff stands out ahead of anything else he did. He's by far and away my favorite classical composer for choral works.
Try Rachmaninov! He won't displace Brahms (of course), but he had a similarly profound relationship to choral music, and to the human voice in general.
@@MathPrinceps I am a huge Rachmaninoff fan in general, he’s probably my favorite composer ever - so I’m very familiar with his choral music…it’s really powerful and beautiful stuff.
Outstanding ❤
Thank you for this instalment!! Brahms was my true gateway into classical music. I started with Bach organ music in Ottawa, then Brahms melancholic romanticism in Montreal in my late 20's, then Mahler and Satie in Toronto in my 30's and then Haydn and Handel in Ottawa again. Brahms, Mahler, Satie: mood, contemplation, meditation - the soundtrack I always return to of the beauty within. Your composition seemed to channel all three - brilliantly done!
Loved the pizacatto
I really love the piece Nahre wrote that begins at 13:11. Those gorgeous chords at 14:46 remind me of David Amram, who always reminded me of Birth of the Cool, which reminds me of Ravel! Anyway.
I loved this. Never knew anything about Brahms' life, but this makes so much sense, and enriches my appreciation of him. Thanks so much!!
Thanks!
Your additional music to the Brahms Clarinet Quintet is GREATTTT! Hope to have a CD one day.
Excellent Nahre! thank you
More of these ??? Love it.
Well done with the interlude, Nahre! It certainly has a late Brahmsian feeling, especially if it's played as a part of the last movement. The dissonance in the pizzicato reminds me of the opening of the last movement of his majestic piano quintet in F minor.
This format is very nice