Brahms: Six Pieces for Piano, Op. 118

For today, I have some piano pieces i was fortunate enough to hear live in paris this summer.

i love the way kempff accomplishes these. he takes slow tempi, but they are full of deliberation and conviction. i think everything brahms wanted to come through does so magnificently in his interpretations. there's just a hint of melancholy which keeps it from being virtuosic (the way it sounds when rubinstein, for example, plays them), but for me they don't sink into dirges or anything like that.



in order, the pieces are:
No. 1. Intermezzo in A minor. Allegro non assai, ma molto appassionato
No. 2. Intermezzo in A major. Andante teneramente
No. 3. Ballade in G minor. Allegro energico
No. 4. Intermezzo in F minor. Allegretto un poco agitato
No. 5. Romance in F major. Andante
No. 6. Intermezzo in E flat minor. Andante, largo e mesto
these were written in 1893 and composed for Clara Schumann. there's much to be said for performing them as a set, as the keys not only form a relationship based on the second (Am-AM-Gm-Fm-FM-Ebm), but the secondary key areas for all the middle sections of these pieces are also linked tonally in ways which i won't go into here (a reasonable link discussing these relationships).

i think kempff does a good job of bringing out some motifs that will catch your ear across all six pieces, another reason for performing/listening to these all in a group. the first is grandiose but runs the danger of getting thick. it treats its keys ambiguously in the best of brahmsian fashion, sounding in F Major for the first statement, and only in the developmental middle section does it begin to yearn for an A minor cadence - which it actually only reaches for the first time in the piece at around 1:00. and the piece actually concludes in A Major, the key of the second work.

here i think Brahms does some of his best voicing. as a result the important motifs are pretty much clear as day. my favorite moment in this respect is in the middle section which is in F minor, where you hear the descending motif in the right hand but also augmented in the top notes of the left hand, at the same time (around 1:39 and much more clearly again about 10 seconds later). the result is a lot of parallel sixths ringing out of the texture. the same thing emerges in the latter half of the development section which is more urgent and as a result compressed.

for now my personal favorite is the more lively ballade, no. 3. i enjoy the dovetailing of the left hand accompaniment with the melodic notes in the right. harmonically the most interesting thing is that while the introduction is decisively in g minor (with a second statement in e-flat major), it utilizes g major dominant chords (the V of iv) to gravitate the middle section towards B Major, which isn't really anything in G minor but found by chromatic motion. The same with the brief modulation to D-sharp minor, (enharmonically E-flat minor, but he spells it as the former).

the transition back to g minor involves a move to G Major first, and the same chromatic adjustment to a-flat major, C dominant 7 again, then V-i to minor.

the very last chords are an unusual cadence from VI-i (eb major to g minor, first inversion). 

now we find ourselves in f minor, with an unsettled set of triplets that switches from hand to hand. for me the magic happens in the middle section, which is a placid section of held chords which move over a tolling low note in the left hand. when the recap comes it is outspoken rather than muted, and never quite regains its composure until the end of the piece in glistening f major, the key of the next piece.

for me the thing that strikes me immediately about this fifth piece is that even though the tune our ears will gravitate towards is placed in the middle - he knows that we'll notice it because it is the quickest-moving voice, with the nice eighth note pattern coming in later variations - the top voice is to the letter the same as the descending theme in the middle section of the a major intermezzo (no. 2). the middle section, in d major, is fluttering and ethereal. the moment when it plummets into d minor is pretty remarkable, at about 2:33. at the moment before the recap he writes an A-Bb trill which goes up, characteristically and ambiguously, to a C-D trill which suggests C Major, the dominant to F, without ever actually stating it (both the E and G are missing). 

the beginning of the sixth piece is the most ambiguous of all, with a dislocated play on Eb-F-Gb which turns out to fit into a fully diminished A7 chord, giving pretty much no indication of where we are now. we settle uneasily into Eb minor about 20 seconds in, but series of thirds and the lack of any real cadence in the tonic key along with the murmuring in the left hand (including plenty of diminished chords) destabilize the tonality. we hit a little detour into D-flat Major/B-flat minor, which take us into the relative major of Gb for the middle section, where it stays for all of three bars before veering into the minor areas of Bb minor.

for me it seems as if the entire piece revolves around the note of Gb, but fitting it into as many different contexts as he can get to. brahms had a thing for the ambiguity of the III, and here i think he pivots around it quite characteristically.

Brahms: Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 77 - III. Allegro giocoso, ma no troppo vivace

there are some words that simply carry more heft when you see them in a tempo marking, and "giocoso" is definitely one of them. this is the only movement which is actually inclined towards virtuosic display.

milstein video for your viewing pleasure.

this is pretty standard rondo form, or sonata-rondo form if you prefer. A section those jolly double stops at the opening; this will be the refrain.

0:58 B section - crazy arpeggios, slurred, spiccato, followed by ascending octaves. this first time it hints the entire time at A major, though it never actually resolves into it. the refrain of the A section comes at 2:12.

2:27 transition begins to a C section which starts proper at about 2:48. this is more lyrical, though no less technical for it. this section starts to feel a bit developmental; the lyrical theme is taken into several key areas, revving up around 3:30 and dovetailing into the ascending octaves from the B section right at 3:43. this a bit of a recap; the B section is now in a different key and cadences in D.

an F-sharp minor statement of the A section brings us up to speed for a lead-up to a cadenza section which includes thrilling ascending chords and octave leaps.

5:18 is a remarkable section - completely new material, fresh and songlike, very much Bach-inspired. this only lasts a short while though, before a series of trills ramps it up again and brings it to the dominant chord needed to set up a short cadenza full of arpeggios.

6:31 the final statement of the main theme except now in a galloping 6/8. this adds a romping quality which is broken briefly by a section of virtuosic play on the latter half of that theme, only to return to the triplet rhythms and loud orchestral tutti descending arpeggios leading us to the wrong place a couple times (note the weird e-flat major chord at 7:15) allowing for just a bit more play on the original theme before a final declamatory statement of brilliance in the 6/8 rhythm, which sets off the coda at 7:28. from there on the movement seems to wind down before finally throwing the last surprise, three triumphant chords to finish.

Brahms: Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 77 - II. Adagio

sarasate famously refused to play this concerto because he did not want to stand idly by while the oboe played the "only tune" in the second movement. but what a tune! and it's not as if the violin doesn't get to play it.

heifetz/reiner.
soloist enters at 2:14 with a variation on the oboe's melody. it is a simple melody, and the violin part merely adds endless ornamentations onto it.
a shift at around 3:08 has us landing in the faraway key of g-flat major. this is the beginning of a development which is really more like a rhapsodic interlude; a passionate outburst at 3:50 brings out a whole new melody which is angst-filled and reaches new heights of melancholy which are explored in the rest of this middle section. this middle section is characterized by seemingly aimless meandering by the violin part alternating with returns of the passion demonstrated at 3:50. the violin part gets ever higher until the shimmering high d at 5:13. after reaching this apex, all holds still for just a moment, and then violin begins a set of downward octaves which is actually the recap: you can hear the oboe playing an abbreviated version of the exposition melody as the violin descends.
he winds up this melody to a more passionate climax this time: building it up beginning around 6:08, he uses the horn to nudge the violin up to ever-higher heights, until it ends on a high C and, after holding the harmony almost unbearably, has no choice but to wind down.

the coda is short and quiet, but listen to the diminished d chord that pops out of nowhere at 7:47 to intensify the final V7-I cadence.

Brahms: Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 77 - I. Allegro non troppo

ok for me blogging this piece is a monumental task because of the status it claims in my personal musical tastes. i am quite sorely tempted to merely post up several different recordings from youtube and compare them as a violinist, but as i will be learning it this summer from a conductor's perspective, i shall try to take a more musicological tack on it.

brahms wrote very few concerti: two piano, one violin, and one violin/cello. unfortunately he never got around to writing the cello concerto which we brahms aficionados will always long for. but this violin concerto, written in 1878, is definitely one of the greatest of the greatest.

it's very difficult and (despite lots of input from his friend joachim) not especially violinistic, and most folks attribute this to the fact that he was a pianist by nature and perhaps not as capable of writing idiomatic stuff as, say, wieniawski (who actually called this concerto "unplayable." his violin concerti are ridiculously difficult as well, but very much in the violin idiom). but the counterargument goes that he wasn't trying to produce a virtuoso showpiece (which IS what wieniawski specialized in), but rather a symphonic concerto, which is supported by the fact that originally he had wanted there to be a fourth movement (a scherzo as third movement). apparently his original two middle movements both "fell through," but he instead "substituted a feeble adagio," what we know of as his second movement. anyway, when you remember this "symphonic" characterization, think of his second piano concerto, which he completed three years later in 1881.

there is absolutely no doubt that there are at least ten fantastic recordings by the best violinists on youtube, so pick your favorite. this is milstein/jochum, 1975, totally stunning, not often heard.

the fact that this concerto was in so many ways an homage to beethoven is evidenced mainly in this first movement, with the long, long orchestral introduction which actually goes quite a ways into developmental material before circling back and allowing the violin to enter, at around 2:37.
the first subject, the rising third followed by the falling triad, is moved around until finally the violin is able to play it with the full songfulness it deserves, at 4:05. even then, the violin continues winding its way up and down arpeggios, sixths, thirds, around and over the actual melody in a very brahmsian way.
one program note writer says that there are two "markers" which provide some structural decipherability: one is the descending woodwind fourths at 6:10, which herald the entrance of the more feminine, lovely second subject. this is given in a major/minor, with the transformative modulation being quite subtle and under the radar - actually for a while the second subject sounds like it is still in d. the second subject includes a very typical brahms hemiola at 6:59, followed by a very mournful descent into a reflective lament which seems to bring the music to a standstill.
this is abruptly interrupted by the second "marker," the more aggressive, dramatic chords at 7:49. this brings the music back to its original turbulent opening (of the violin solo), and concludes the exposition, in the dominant key.

the development is all over the tonal map as usual. it opens with a bit of new material - dark, mournful chords, which soon evolve into flighty series of halfsteps, followed by aggressive trills and a very dramatic section in which wide intervals are split all over the fingerboard. an orchestral crescendo builds into a huge d major cadence at 1:32 of the second vid. this is the recap, though it doesn't act like one; actually you can hear the horns trumpeting the main theme behind all the strings' arpeggiating sixteenths. but it dovetails into material exactly from the exposition, 1:56 being analogous to 4:44 of the first vid, except now in d minor. he goes on to state the rest of the first theme as well as all of the second in the correct key, leading us up to the cadenza spot.

the coda after the cadenza is one of my favorite two minutes in all of music. it starts off dreamily, allowing the orchestra to just sneak back in hovering after the cadenza, but as the harmonic and dynamic intensity increase and the violin's arpeggios get up into the stratosphere there are some truly sublime moments, especially the one that finally brings it over the edge into a celebratory set of chords (that is incidentally probably the most difficult section in the entire movement outside the cadenza...)

enjoy!

Brahms: Capriccio in B minor, Op. 76 No. 2

i remembered this piece on a whimsy and decided to look it up since i couldn't remember what it actually was but remember having had to analyze it at some point in my beginning theory class (i think it was given us as an example of something that sort of defies analysis. there is a bunch of strange substitution, cadencing in the wrong keys... etc). 

there are 8 pieces in this Op. 76, and this is of course the second. it is marked allegretto non troppo.

this is short and there are wonderful recordings so i can afford to post a few. respectively: rubinstein, backhaus, and kempff.

when brahms wrote this in 1878 he hadn't written any solo piano music for twelve years and marked the beginning of the sort of "later" piano works which was a much smaller body. this particular capriccio has proved popular, its playful but somehow sophisticated gypsy like demeanor making the piece an immediate earworm.

the piece is in a sort of rounded binary form, where the first section is comprised of both minor and major portions (the major portion being in the relative of DM). 

the middle section, starting at 1:25 (of the rubinstein), is in G Major, a dominant to the relative major D. here is some very typical Brahms piano writing - lush, arpeggiated, lots of chromatic adjustments and lyrical melodies.

recap at 2:30, with a texturally similar but still fantastically original spin on the original theme, lots of octave jumps, etc. after a lot of chromatic uncertainty, the piece slows to a halt, and ends with a B Major chord.

for me it's important to capture a sort of shadowed grace which i think kempff does quite well - the slightly slower tempo and amount of weight he gives to all the notes (which are easy to make flippant if you take the staccato at their word) are just right, as is the curve he gives to the end of each phrase. i also like how the middle section is the same tempo - for me that's about the initial tempo he chooses, so he doesn't have to change too much upon hitting the lyrical section. i also like how the a tempo doesn't feel like a recap until he actually hits the main material of the theme.

the backhaus recording is different for sure. probably just by listening, judging from his ornamentations, his rhythm and phrasing, which are more along the lines of instinct than anything else, you can tell he is actually 70 at the time of this recording.

Brahms Symphony/Concerti Keys

1. Cm, EM, AbM, Cm/M (Cm Op. 68)
2. DM, BM, GM, DM (DM Op. 73)
3. FM, CM, Cm, FM (FM Op. 90)
4. Em, EM, CM, Em (Em Op. 98)
1876-85


Tragic Overture: Dm (Op. 81)
Academic Festival: CM (Op. 80)

PC 1: Dm (Op. 15)
PC 2: BbM (Op. 83)
VC: DM (Op. 77)
Double Concerto: Am (Op. 102)

yea this is cheating a little.

Brahms: String Sextet No. 1 in B-flat Major, Op. 18 - II. Andante ma moderato

chamber fridays, in honor of classical music hour on fridays at princeton (or because i felt like i needed to have a day dedicated to chamber music)

this sextet might be brahms's best work for a chamber group that doesn't include piano. the problem with a lot of his string quartets is that he basically tries to write a piano piece and then divide it among the four string parts - at least, this is what it sounds to me. so invariably some instrument ends up with an ostinato or half of a chord that isn't quite as fulfilling because it doesn't fill out the texture the way it would on a piano. even if he assigns double stops and the like to the string instruments, because of all the different voices/timbres, it still often sounds sort of thin or ungrounded.

this is a problem brahms solves in this piece by adding more instruments. it's easy to imagine that things might get bogged down quickly with six instruments - 150% the normal group - and it is indeed a very, very different experience playing with six people as opposed to four. but i think i would be hard-pressed to find moments in this sextet that are actually too thick the way they might be if other composers tried to tackle the same ensemble.
there aren't that many string sextets out there - the other famous one is, of course, tchaik's souvenir de florence, which also doesn't have *that* much trouble being heard clearly, but this is because it's basically a first violin concerto (and sometimes a cello concerto). the same goes for mendelssohn's string octet. it seems the bigger the ensemble, the more need for one, perhaps two parts to come out prominently by virtue of being higher or more melodic). there's something about the magic number four that makes the string quartet full enough to be gratifying, but still an "equal" partnership among the four players. i think this is still the sort of aesthetic brahms goes for even with six players, though, and i think this is actually much more successful than his string quartet endeavors.

ok, on to the actual piece.

this sextet was written in 1860, just after the first piano concerto (op. 15). during this time he was basically juggling jobs between hamburg and detmold. this was also at the height of his public "feud" against the school of wagner and liszt, who thought he was too old-fashioned. he would later withdraw from that argument entirely. he later earned more widespread popularity in 1868 with Ein Deutsche Requiem.

this movement is a set of theme and variations. brahms is one of the only composers whom i consistently "trust" to handle this form in a way that maintains my interest. i think this has something to do with his ability to fill in a plain theme with a unique contour and insert a moment (in this case, a couple variations) of absolute gorgeousness. with this movement, every variation taps something really visceral, and the soft/major variations are sublime.

fantastic, raw, and very powerful recording, especially the first major variation. for comparison's sake,

this version is much more demure - you can hear it in the first two seconds. it's got its own beauty in its cleanliness and grace, but for me there's no real comparison.
edit: after discovering the first video is no longer legal in the US (and actually not having any idea who it was), i have begrudgingly looked up a second recording which i also consider to be very powerful.

the movement has the following variations:
I. theme, which is so simple and tuneful and yet angsty and intense that it really keeps your interest from the get-go, something already unique in the realm of themes and variations - themes usually are so simple you can't wait to hear what the composer's going to do and can we please just get the theme over with. not so here.
II. a variation which passes the arpeggios between all the instruments while keeping the firm marching chords on top of them
III. triplet variation. he throws in some great harmonic changes just at the end of the first half - switching to F major just briefly before descending back.
IV. stormy harmonic minor scales with lots of surging swells
V. the first major variation: songful and broad and breathy. the transition into this variation is an awesome moment.
VI. a much more delicate gossamer variation - the melody, given to the first viola, becomes something gentle and flowing (it doesn't even really sound like a melody - more like the harmony part, if a more straightforward version of the melody were present). it's accompanied by open strings and falling open intervals in the violins.
VII. a reprise of the theme, except made more solemn, heavier, by giving the melody to the cello and accompanying that with heavy, rhythmic pizzicati. marches on to a quiet close that somehow morphs into major magically just before the end.
aaaaaahhhhh it's so good!!!