thallo wrote:propose a piece, please :-)
since I actually hate Brahms...
Claudio... you asked for it, now don't complain.
Johannes Brahms and his four compositional periods
Johannes Brahms is, without any doubt, one of the greatest geniuses of Western art music but, despite this, especially in Latin countries, he remains difficult and far from the tastes of many listeners. The question that follows is therefore: why does so much (too much) music by this composer (despite the countless absolute masterpieces composed by him) continue to be virtually ignored even now, despite numerous authoritative musical personalities and intellectuals having intervened in his favor over the last eighty years?
I speak of the last eighty years because it was exactly in 1933, the centenary year of his birth, that Arnold Schönberg, in a lecture titled “Brahms the Progressive,” definitively laid to rest any negative controversy regarding the genius from Hamburg by demonstrating how Brahms – the classicist, the academic – was, in reality, a great innovator in the sphere of musical language. In particular, Schönberg credited Brahms with a modern musical prose, achieved by breaking the symmetries of a short-breathed schematic form and extending modulations to regions very far from the tonic. With his musical prose, Brahms can be compared in literature to Marcel Proust: «In “Du côté de chez Swann” certain people, even very cultured ones, misunderstood the rigorous, albeit veiled composition (and perhaps harder to discern because it was in wide meter and because the symmetrical part of a previous piece, cause and effect, were at a great interval from each other) and believed that my novel was a kind of anthology of memories, linked according to the fortuitous laws of the association of ideas». The analogy of procedures (Proust's distant symmetries are the equivalent in Brahms to modulations with a wide range of tonal excursion) reveals the unexpected analogy of content.
The composer did not limit himself to his personal sphere as a shy person unable to face life, an inveterate bachelor full of longing for the joys of family, but it was the solitude of man that was the true subject of his superlative art and was the intrinsic reason for his greatness. Schönberg also rightly noted how, over time, the Wagner/Brahms antithesis had increasingly diminished, making way posthumously for a convergence, where the common romantic traits of the era ended up contrasting individual positions. Finally, Schönberg noted how Brahms approached a «music for adults (…) mature people think in complex terms and the greater their intelligence, the more numerous are the elements with which they are familiar». Brahms is, undoubtedly, therefore a difficult composer and, he earned this difficulty through his confrontation with Beethoven, a composer who, whether willing or unwilling, conditioned all the history of music that followed him for at least a hundred years after his death.
But what were the reasons why many still today maintain that Brahms represented conservation in his time? Brahms, as a staunch advocate of symphonic tradition and sonata form, took sides against Franz Liszt's symphonic poem, Richard Wagner's *Wort-Ton-Drama*, and the polemical proclamations of Hector Berlioz.
Brahms was, as Massimo Mila said: «a loner, a shy person unable to face life in its fullness, an inveterate bachelor full of longing for the joys of family, a late romantic for whom every choice is configured as torment due to the deprivation of all other goods that such a choice excludes (...). Not his own solitude, but the solitude of man is the subject of Brahms' art and is the intrinsic reason for his greatness.».
And yet even someone like Massimo Mila, on the other hand, started from positions that were certainly not favorable toward this musical genius, only to later, at a second moment, candidly confess his own errors regarding it. Referring to what he himself had written in 1933, in 1966 he made complete amends for all of it but, it is regrettable to note that after almost fifty years since then, for many listeners, the thumb is still down for the composer from Hamburg.
Mila wrote: «The essay on Brahms, for the centenary of his birth, is the disastrous starting point of a long journey of approach, which through successive stages would have brought me from a state of intolerant deafness, complicit with the anti-romantic prejudices of “modernity”, to a condition of almost idolatrous affection (...). Brahms is the first and probably the greatest master of Decadentism, that is, of modern civilization. Decadentism which in music (...) means precisely the entry"
of culture as a component of artistic creation, the unavoidable necessity to deal with a past accumulated over centuries, the obligation to consciously assume one's historical responsibilities (...) Brahms as the last Verdi and then Reger, Debussy and Busoni (...) began, as Schönberg says of Brahms, «to write music for adults». (...) They were very willing to follow in the footsteps of the past and to annex historical culture among the creative forces of art; and they did so with a power of assimilation that their neoclassical successors lacked. (...) Brahms takes the bass from a Bach Cantata for the passacaglia of the Fourth Symphony, and one doesn't even notice it, because the power of his musical fantasy, nourished by culture, ensures complete homogeneity: thus the Bach quotation, similarly to what will happen in Berg's Violin Concerto, will compose itself like those little pieces of epidermis taken from a healthy part to be placed within a large burn, where they gradually sprout, restoring the entire destroyed tissue.
In the soul of the one who wrote the Fourth Symphony and the Quartet with clarinet have passed the forces that have upset the world in the last hundred years and the life experiences upon which Proust and Kafka, Freud and Joyce, Musil and Thomas Mann arise. Only that Brahms is the greatest of all, and the history of culture will never succeed in forming a complete and exhaustive picture of European Decadentism as long as it neglects to annex musical values. On the other hand, musical culture is reluctant to recognize the modernity of Brahms' art, because it still lies under the factional remnants of a polemic whose historical justifications are now exhausted. Yet Schönberg had clearly seen that when at Wagner's death «it had been a matter of profound contrast», already at Brahms' death «there appeared in its effective reality, i.e., the difference between two personalities, between two expressive styles, not so contradictory as to prevent the simultaneous presence of the qualities of both in the same composition».
If for Beethoven one can speak of "three styles," Brahms' career is divided into "four periods."
The "first period" includes, obviously, the earliest works and lasted until 1855. It was characterized on a human level by the growing friendship with the violinist József Joachim, and by affection towards Robert Schumann and his wife Clara Wieck. Love for the latter soon transformed into a true platonic love. We are therefore in the most "romantic" period par excellence for Brahms, a period in which the composer considered the content of his work more important than form. One certainly cannot speak of a masterpiece but, undoubtedly, the most significant work of this first period was the "Piano Sonata No. 3 in F major, Op. 5."
The "second period" is represented by all the works composed before the "German Requiem." Its characterization is anticipated by in-depth studies of counterpoint that led Brahms to great maturity and to turning to classical models. Here his "twilight" style began to emerge, and his works became increasingly sweet, intimate, and meditative. Countless are the masterpieces of this period, starting from the "Four Ballades for Piano, Op. 10," to the "Piano Concerto No. 1, Op. 15," originally conceived as a symphony.
But regarding this period, I want to pause for a moment on the Variations because I consider them among the greatest in all of music history.
Let us start with those I consider the most colossal: the "Twenty-five Variations on a Theme by Handel, Op. 24," which were conceived in September 1861.
In general, for Brahms, his achievement in this genre consists of the perfect balance between the classical rigor of his structure and an absolutely romantic inspiration, rich in melodies and expressive solutions. In this case, the piece to be varied is a Handel aria extracted from his "Suite No. 1 from Leçons pour le clavecin," which someone compares—from my point of view, too severely—to that of the "Diabelli Waltz." Starting from the Beethovenian lesson, Brahms creates a miracle of style, technique, and invention from this theme, while strictly observing the harmonic, rhythmic, and melodic traits of the inspiring theme.
These are twenty-five musical tiles completed and defined in their autonomy and, if the piano is not treated with gratuitous virtuosity, they reach points of extreme difficulty; one can say, quite rightly, that with them, Brahms placed a milestone in the history of the variation form, following in the footsteps of Bach's "Goldberg Variations" and Beethoven's "Diabelli Variations."
I now move on to the wonderful "Variations for Piano on an Original Theme, Op. 21 No. 1," dating back to"} ,
the summer of 1856, a period of life in which the Hamburg genius studied the counterpoint of the ancients and, naturally, Bach in particular. How can one not notice here too the fusion of his romantic subjectivity with the stylistic rigor of the ancient masters. But how can one not also notice that the technique which causes a kind of pulverization of the theme is also linked to Beethoven's amplifying variation. The differences compared to the "giant" lie in the writing processes, in the conduction, in the invention. Consider that Clara Schumann, when performing them in Leipzig, stated that the composer found himself in a «Bach-beethovenian-brahmsian» condition.
But how can one not conclude this small invasion into the field of Brahmsian variation without speaking of the "Twenty-Eight Variations on a Theme by Paganini Opus 35" of 1862/63, another cornerstone of the piano repertoire of the Hamburg genius, a true counterpart to those on a theme by Handel: two themes at antipodes, two opposite worlds, two different purposes but with a single personal language in tackling the two tasks.
Divided into two books, even in these, the union of the three great German Bs reappears and, in particular, the thought directed toward Beethoven, goes to the two finales of the two cycles.
The "third period" began with the elaboration of the "German Requiem" and was characterized by the maximum combination of Brahmsian art with the spirit of previous centuries, traversing all music from the Renaissance through the Baroque, the Classical, up to Romanticism. The Hamburg master reached the peak of progress in tonal resources, and all his orchestral and choral works (apart from, obviously, the Piano Concerto No. 1) were created in those years. Intellectual and spiritual concentration became the guiding principle of his work; his expression became dense and concise, and his compositions gained power and tragedy.
I have no doubt in stating that after the corpus of Beethoven's nine symphonies, the corpus of Brahms's four is the most important in the history of symphonic music; these compositions all belong to his "third compositional period."
"Symphony No. 1 Opus 68" had a gestation that lasted from 1855 to 1876. This symphony, which Hans von Bülow very rhetorically called the "Tenth Beethoven Symphony," caused considerable damage to Brahms and contributed to accentuating that idea which painted him as a conservative composer.
In truth, things are different. The last great symphonies composed before Brahms were the last ones made by Mendelssohn in 1842 and by Schumann in 1851, which appeared to the eyes of the Hamburg native as inadequate compared to the formal mastery and orchestral writing of the Beethoven scores, considered examples of absolute perfection. Brahms, for his part, always experienced the moment of facing a Symphony as a moment of awe toward his great predecessor. These were the reasons that induced him to imprint upon his first symphony a particular attention to thematic elements and form, which he sought to orient in the sense of "pure" music. What, however, appeared intrinsically different in it was the language, rich in new modulations and set in a completely different reality, more lyrical and more dramatic, so much so that Giacomo Manzoni, writing about this symphony and its analogies with the "Ninth," stated: «Today for us it is already more difficult to discover this immediate continuity in the work of the two musicians.»
"Symphony No. 2 Opus 73" was composed in 1877. If for the first one can speak of a Beethovenian model, for the second the models were Mozart for his elegance and Schubert for his popular freshness.
"Symphony No. 3 Opus 90," composed in 1883, represented Brahms's true turning point regarding the past and especially toward Beethoven. If the first movement is still linked to the idea of Beethovenian monumentality, the fourth is reduced to the "minor" dimension of chamber music.
Finally, "Symphony No. 4 Opus 98" of 1855. Once again, Giacomo Manzoni expressed himself on it as follows: «The Fourth is undoubtedly Brahms's symphonic masterpiece, and not without reason it is also the last symphony; since in it he had reached the maximum that was possible to obtain within the framework of romantic symphonism in that era and with those means at his disposal. It is no coincidence that with the Fourth, Brahms decisively concludes the period of musical romanticism, giving rise to new problems after having brought the traditional form of the nineteenth-century symphony to its highest degree of expression.»
It would be impossible in a Brahmsian excursus, however brief, not to speak of his two piano concertos which—the No. 1 belonging to his first period and the No. 2 to the third period.
compositional.
It was between 1854 and 1857 that the first was composed and, its genesis, was marked by many uncertainties and second thoughts. It was born first as a probable Symphony and only at a later stage was it converted into a Piano Concerto, and from this stems its very strong symphonic imprint: «(…) The importance of Opus 15 and its stormy transformation from a symphony into a piano concerto with a formidable, dramatic and tempestuous first movement, then declining into a gentle Adagio and an anachronistic Rondo, will never be sufficiently valued. (…)» (Massimo Mila)
It was then between 1878 and 1881 that Brahms composed his “Second Piano Concerto and Orchestra Opus 83” and the difference is superlative.
I think the most appropriate words on this concerto were written by Piero Rattalino: «(…) The idea that paves the way to the Brahmsian solution is of a disconcerting genius; the overall sonority (…) is shaped neither on that of the piano nor on that of the strings, but on that of the wind instruments (…). The sonority is “gray” because it possesses neither the pasty softness of the strings nor the aggressive imbalance of the piano and the brass: strings and piano converge in the intermediate term, in the vibratile delicacy of the woodwinds and horns, and the color has the translucent oiliness of a Leonardo's brushstroke. (…) it is the most beautiful and perfect of all piano and orchestra concertos, the concerto of concertos, the king of concertos. (…) Brahms had donated to pianistic literature the supreme work, Brahms was the creator from whom one had to start to read backwards through all the pianistic literature that in Opus 83 reached its climax.»
Majesty, authority, inexhaustible variety of registers, preciousness in colors and timbres, classical balance, but also poetry and more in this Concerto of which Franz Liszt – who was certainly not generous towards the Hamburgian - wrote in a letter to Brahms: «(…) It seems to me that it possesses the character of a revealing work of art, where thoughts and feelings merge in noble balance.(...)».
In 1890 Brahms considered his work with the Quintet in G+ for strings Opus 111 exhausted but, in the spring of the following year after having made his will, he resumed his compositional activity entering what was his “fourth period”. His style became even more grave, more reticent and more natural.
The protagonists of this final period were the piano and the clarinet: works that, although losing freshness compared to the past, acquired spiritual strength and formal creative power.
For these two instruments Brahms left us absolute masterpieces of beauty and greatness, starting with the “Quintet for clarinet and strings Opus 115” of 1891 which, as Claude Rostand asserted, is «a great resigned confession, immersed in an atmosphere full of tenderness».
But what to say then of the piano pieces that followed? The “Seven Fantasies Opus 116”, the “Three Intermezzi Opus 117”, the “Four Klavierstücke Opus 119”, all from 1892, the “Six Klavierstücke Opus 118” of 1893, all wonders of wonders; his “Sonata No. 1 for clarinet and piano Opus 120 No. 1” and “Sonata No. 2 for clarinet and piano Opus 120 No. 2” of 1894, a year that saw the disappearance for Brahms of many dear friends: how can one not feel his pain in these sonatas?
Pain that leaks even more into his testament-work the “Vier Ernste Gesänge Opus 121” (Four Serious Songs) taken from the Bible in 1896, the year of the death of Clara Wieck Schumann, where death is seen as «is the only way to obtain full awareness: to understand that love is the strongest feeling, the most beautiful experience for a human being». (Arnold Whittal)
