|
tonybob
|
 |
« Reply #120 on: 11:36:32, 08-08-2007 » |
|
The fourth was actually my set work when I did music at A-Level, I found that movement decimating then, and decimating now. As long as it's performed the way I like....  me too, ian. what year did you do your a's? compared with the other 3, there is not one single movement of the 4th i don't love entirely. from 1, 2 and 3 there are movements that i can live without, but not no. 4. |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
sososo s & i.
|
|
|
|
martle
|
|
« Reply #121 on: 11:40:48, 08-08-2007 » |
|
No. 4: the thing is, I know it very well (use it for teaching a lot), and have heard loads of different performances (so it's not a 'brown performance' issue for me at all). What I think my problem is is that it seems to wear its technical brilliance a bit too much on its sleeve. No doubting that brilliance at all - the integration of third-chains with the tonal plan etc., the passacaglia-as-finale coup... But it's just a tad self-consciously clever, to my ear. As if he'd said to himself, 'RIGHT, this time I'm REALLY going to...' - rather than fit the techniques to the expressive landscape in his habitually more natural way. If that makes any sense.
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
Green. Always green.
|
|
|
|
Ian Pace
|
|
« Reply #122 on: 11:43:27, 08-08-2007 » |
|
Talking of Brahms' use of percussion, every first and every last movement of his symphonies ends with a drum roll. (At the end of the 3rd, there's a drum roll but the woodwind and brass hold the note after the timps have finished.) I like the way he uses the timps at the beginning of the 1st, though. It seems to me that that might have been quite original at the time.
Brahms also uses the timps in a most ominous way, like some harbinger of death, a funereal knell. This is well-known in the Requiem, but is also extremely striking in the following:  tonybob, I did two of my As in 1985, including music (the others the following year) - how about you? |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
'These acts of keeping politics out of music, however, do not prevent musicology from being a political act . . .they assure that every apolitical act assumes a greater political immediacy' - Philip Bohlman, 'Musicology as a Political Act'
|
|
|
|
tonybob
|
|
« Reply #123 on: 11:43:57, 08-08-2007 » |
|
it does, but i disagree entirely.  i find a lot of no.3 very self concious and heart on sleeve, but no. 4 just seems *right*. i can't explain it, it just reaches the parts that other music can't reach... btw - how many brahms symphonic mvts end with a wind chord and pizz strings? blimey... |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
sososo s & i.
|
|
|
|
Ian Pace
|
|
« Reply #124 on: 11:46:26, 08-08-2007 » |
|
I'm interested to know whether the composers here in particular (and others) think that Brahms's is in some sense a 'composer's composer'? He's one of those figures that produces very differing views, but I think it would be very hard for any composer in particular to deny the brilliance of his technique, which leaves most of his contemporaries standing?
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
'These acts of keeping politics out of music, however, do not prevent musicology from being a political act . . .they assure that every apolitical act assumes a greater political immediacy' - Philip Bohlman, 'Musicology as a Political Act'
|
|
|
|
martle
|
|
« Reply #125 on: 11:49:12, 08-08-2007 » |
|
Ian
Hear hear to that. The technique is absolutely awesome, and very forward-looking. Despite my block with the 4th, I remain a huge fan, let there be no doubt!
|
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
Green. Always green.
|
|
|
|
tonybob
|
|
« Reply #126 on: 11:50:09, 08-08-2007 » |
|
[tonybob, I did two of my As in 1985, including music (the others the following year) - how about you?
ha - 1990 for me; don't let that make you feel too old... |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
sososo s & i.
|
|
|
|
ahinton
|
|
« Reply #127 on: 11:57:08, 08-08-2007 » |
|
and as for the triangle in the scherzo... aaaargh, to paraphrase soundwave.  Give the man a chance - it's one of only three works in which he ever used percussion other than timpani (the others being the Academic Festival Overture and the orchestral version of several of the Hungarian Dances). Perhaps this very fact demonstrates at least one aspect of just how well Brahms wrote for percussion; he never used any (non-timp) percussion unless it was absolutely necessary and germane to what he was seeking to achieve... Best, Alistair |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
Tony Watson
Guest
|
|
« Reply #128 on: 12:02:31, 08-08-2007 » |
|
btw - how many brahms symphonic mvts end with a wind chord and pizz strings? blimey...
Nearly half of them, seven in fact: 1/1, 1/3, 2/1, 2/3, 3/3, 3/4, 2/4. (Sometimes the brass are playing as well, though.) |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
ahinton
|
|
« Reply #129 on: 12:04:31, 08-08-2007 » |
|
martle - I've absolutely no idea why no. 4 might not do it for you - it turns my crank damn hard. Damn shame though. Have we ruled out the possibility that it might be the performances you have ready access to? (Might they be too, well, brown?) If so we'll just have to put it down to taste.
To me no. 1 is certainly the least smooth-running of the four; you can feel the gears changing in the finale quite a bit for example. Although that obviously doesn't make it uninteresting - to an extent the reverse.
I wonder if it's Brahms's use of a relatively old-fashioned language that makes his music hard to pin down sometimes? Oooooooooooooooooooooo The focus of my attention amongst the symphonies keeps shifting - I find Nos. 2 and 4 the most consistent, and used to think 2 was really the deepest, but at the moment I'm quite infatuated by No. 3, which I used to have mixed feelings about. Does anyone know what I mean when I say that I find the third movement quite unbelievably tragic? I'd not perhaps go quite as far as you here, but I know exactly of what you write; it seems to me, however, that some performances tend to gloss over this aspect of that movement as though it was somehow inconvenient to see it that way. No. 1 is hard to fault, but it somehow seems just a bit 'too hard-worked over' at times. The fluency of No. 2 is in great contrast.
I can't sway that I'm especially conscious of 1 being "too hard-worked over", except maybe occasionally in the finale if the performance has a tendency to emphasise - or at least not to ignore - any such possible flaw. 2 I find the weakest of the four - which says more about what I feel about the other three than it does about any shortcomings in 2! 4 is in every sense the pinnacle of Brahms's symphonic achievement, yet the arresting opening of 1 most emphatically and obviously ushers in what is to be a pretty outstanding symphonic career. Best, Alistair |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
ahinton
|
|
« Reply #130 on: 12:14:58, 08-08-2007 » |
|
Talking of Brahms' use of percussion, every first and every last movement of his symphonies ends with a drum roll. (At the end of the 3rd, there's a drum roll but the woodwind and brass hold the note after the timps have finished.) I like the way he uses the timps at the beginning of the 1st, though. It seems to me that that might have been quite original at the time.
Brahms also uses the timps in a most ominous way, like some harbinger of death, a funereal knell. This is well-known in the Requiem, but is also extremely striking in the following: Thank you for quoting this! I adore that work! Why is it performed so infrequently compared to the Requiem? I have no idea. My earliest memory of it was most unfortunate, as I was actually called upon in my youth to play timps in a performance of this right at the last minute because the timpanist had had a stroke (no, not that kind of stroke!), or something; since I am not even a timpanist, let alone a pianist - and since I had at the time never even heard that piece - I agreed to fulfil this rôle very much against my better judgement, only to discover just how much I had to do! The work indeed has an opening that is as arresting - albeit in a quite different timpani-underpinned way - as the opening of the First Symphony - and it has a passage near the end (I can't just quote it here like you, Ian, I'm afraid, but I'm sure that you'll recognise immediately the bit that I mean) that seems to foreshadow something in Mahler's Second Symphony (just as, for me, the beginning of the work's opening theme seems to have a curious similarity of outline to the first big theme in that same Mahler symphony) and, furthermore, has an almost alarming likeness to the passage near the close of Shostakovich's Fourth Symphony with its long passage underpinned with oft-repeated timpani crotchet Cs... Best, Alistair |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
ahinton
|
|
« Reply #131 on: 12:23:07, 08-08-2007 » |
|
I'm interested to know whether the composers here in particular (and others) think that Brahms's is in some sense a 'composer's composer'? He's one of those figures that produces very differing views, but I think it would be very hard for any composer in particular to deny the brilliance of his technique, which leaves most of his contemporaries standing?
Indeed, Brahms's technical brilliance is beyond all doubt and it is also interesting that, rather like Chopin before him and Medtner after him, he seemed to arrive on the scene as an already mature composer - quite a rare instance, I think. As to the idea of him as a "composer's composer", it's an intriguing question, to be sure, but I'm really not certain about the extent to which such a phenomenon is actually possible - it's abit like the difficulty that I have in accepting the oft-staked claim for Godowsky as "the pianist's pianist". I think that if anyone is really going to end up as either, the resulting work will likely entail some kind of constricted approach (even if only subconsciously and unintentionally so) designed - or at least destined - to appeal principally to a specific group of listeners - composers and pianists respectively in these cases. Godowsky's listeners inevitably include a high proportion of pianists and pianophiles and always will, but that is rather more understandable since he is not known to have written anything that does not include the piano; that said, one has only to witness the extent to which Chopin appeals to non-pianists to realise that, if one has the genius of a Chopin, one's penchant for writing for one's own instrument most of the time does not have to restrict one's listener appeal. Brahms, on the other hand, embraced a wide range of compositional media and would always have stood a better chance of getting his genius across to a similarly wide range of listeners. I also don't see Brahms as merely a "composer's composer" just because his technical prowess was so great and so consistent, for there is obviously so very much more to Brahms appreciation than due recognition of that brilliance. But that's just me own two-pennarth... Best, Alistair |
|
|
|
« Last Edit: 12:29:55, 08-08-2007 by ahinton »
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
oliver sudden
|
|
« Reply #132 on: 12:42:15, 08-08-2007 » |
|
Still, one must acknowledge that plenty of composers had or have no time for him. Including some with pretty fine techniques themselves (in so far as one can quantify such as thing). I don't personally go for the 'tragic' side of the 3rd symphony 3rd movement to be too upfront - partly because there's no shortage of that in the rest of the piece, partly because that often leads to that sort of performance where you sit through the middle section drumming your fingers and thinking 'what's this doing here, come on, bring the tune back!'. If there's a little bit of restraint then not only is it for me even more poignant in itself but the movement as a whole makes much more sense... By the way, wasn't he kind to his horn player? Before the big solo the hornist gets to play the entire tune in the tutti, and in the chord just before the solo Brahms puts the first horn on the solo's first note. So no excuses! |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
Ian Pace
|
|
« Reply #133 on: 12:46:00, 08-08-2007 » |
|
I don't personally go for the 'tragic' side of the 3rd symphony 3rd movement to be too upfront - partly because there's no shortage of that in the rest of the piece, partly because that often leads to that sort of performance where you sit through the middle section drumming your fingers and thinking 'what's this doing here, come on, bring the tune back!'. If there's a little bit of restraint then not only is it for me even more poignant in itself but the movement as a whole makes much more sense... Yes, but that restraint only makes the tragic sense all the more pronounced, as I hear it! |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
'These acts of keeping politics out of music, however, do not prevent musicology from being a political act . . .they assure that every apolitical act assumes a greater political immediacy' - Philip Bohlman, 'Musicology as a Political Act'
|
|
|
|
ahinton
|
|
« Reply #134 on: 12:49:31, 08-08-2007 » |
|
I don't personally go for the 'tragic' side of the 3rd symphony 3rd movement to be too upfront - partly because there's no shortage of that in the rest of the piece, partly because that often leads to that sort of performance where you sit through the middle section drumming your fingers and thinking 'what's this doing here, come on, bring the tune back!'. If there's a little bit of restraint then not only is it for me even more poignant in itself but the movement as a whole makes much more sense... Yes, but that restraint only makes the tragic sense all the more pronounced, as I hear it! Seem as though we hear it pretty much the same way, then! Best, Alistair |
|
|
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
