Classical Corner Classical Music Corner (thread #30)

Listening to New York Counterpoint by Steve Reich.

From this set.

 

Except for maybe the Second Piano Concerto and Violin Concerto, I have been struggling with why I don't like Brahms. I think some of his work lacks human singing type qualities. I force myself to sit thru his symphonies and I still do not get much enjoyment from them. I need to really listen closely in the future but it is tough. A lot of his music sounds forced and repetitive to me.

 

Try the chamber music. The first sextet Op. 18 is a good start. The piano quintet is Brahms at his most romantic. The clarinet quintet is unadulterated, autumnal beauty.

 

I agree with that last part. But have you heard any of Brahms late piano works (Op. 116-119) and the Ballades? That's the Brahms I couldn't live without. Not saying you have to like it, as no one has to like anything IMO, just asking. Lupu's late Brahms is wonderful, as is Gould's.

Schumann's Kinderszenen was and remains my favorite. Moravec has a lovely set on Supraphon.

How about the late piano works (Op. 116-119)? And the Ballades?

 

Oops. Brain lapse on those. I love them and own a few recordings of them. THey are also my favorite works by him but the rest I am lukewarm.

 

Jay I was curious if you have heard the Schumann Symphonies that Mahler re orchestrated and edited.

 

The four chamber works for clarinet -the trio op. 114, the quintet op. 115 and the two sonatas 120, Nos. 1 and 2 - all date from the same period and have similar qualities. Start with the clarinet quintet op. 115.

 

Can you recommend a recording of those works?

 

Thanks Jay, yeah that's whom I meant, I was at the DMV posting from memory.
I will probably listen to his 5 tonight, I am curious now to see what impression will make on me.

 

For the quintet, Karl Leister has made a number of first rate recordings. His performance with the Amadeus Quartet is available as part of a box set and on Spotify.

For the others I like Martin Frost on Bis (although Spotify has those by Leister as well).

 

I've tried and really listened closely and people-pleased over the issue since 1987, and none of it mattered.

I. Don't. Like. Brahms.

There. I said it.

Everybody doesn't have to like everything. I think it's a peculiarity among classical listeners, this not-quite-unspoken expectation that every classical listener likes all classical music. I don't like Wagner, either. Nor most opera, for that matter. Nor Mendelssohn (though I at least like writing his name).

 

I don't know. I don't have it on my computer, which means I probably don't have the CDs.

I don't have anything by Schumann. I think I have heard Kinderszenen, and it did not make much of an impression, but that had to have been 19+ years ago.

 

It's possible that someone had me listen to it in the '80s, but I don't remember it specifically. I know I've heard his symphonies once, but I don't remember who was conducting. I was not driven to purchase them is what I do recall.

 

The chamber music is most of what I have liked of Brahms. I have the Clarinet Quintet on a Philips Duo set of the Complete Quintets by the Berlin Philharmonic Octet, and I think it's pretty good. It is probably the only version I've heard, though (unless it's hiding on a Takacs CD).

http://www.amazon.com/Brahms-Comple...=sr_1_3?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1318966334&sr=1-3

 

Brahms is not ones of my own faves, but I do have:

Hungarian Dances (Gardiner on DG)

Piano Works, Ops. 116, 117 and 119 (Kovacevich on Philips)

Rhapsodies, Waltzes and Piano Pieces, Ops. 79, 39 and 118 (Kovacevich on Philips)

I play them once in a while, but not very often.

As for Schumann, some of his Piano Trios and Quartets and the E-Flat Quartet are OK and I listen to the Fantasy in C and Papillons (Richter) on occasion. But when I'm messin' around in the "S" section of my classical discs, it's his alphabetical neighbor Schubert I grab the vast majority of the time.

 

That's really weird. Beethoven, yes, but Johannes? I don't see it, or at least not as certainly and obviously as the man who said it. By the way, Jay, esteemed music critic Alan Rich, who died last year in LA after a 68 year professional career writing for The New York Times, Boston Globe, LA Herald-Examiner, etc. had an infamous 'deaf spot' when it came to the music of Brahms. So you're not alone.

 

Re LA Phil Mahler Project

Gettin' paid, obviously. LA Phil has the largest budget, most expensive hall, and is the most profitable orchestra in North America. Deb Borda knows a thing or two about getting paid.

 

My room mate is a Mahler nut. He could not be more happy. Too much Mahler? not really a problem.

 

Interesting. Beethoven is probably the first composer I heard, when I was a child. My mother played piano, and liked Beethoven. Plus everybody had the Symphonies and the PCs on record, even people who, like my parents, didn't like all classical music. And there was a record of Brahms' Lullaby, too. Maybe I was disappointed nothing else he wrote sounded like it.

Alan Rich appears to have been a man of singular good taste. I wonder if Mahler was on his top ten (unlike the doofus at the Times).

 

I love Schubert. Even more than Bach.

 

Likewise. My own top two are Schubert and Haydn.

Then comes Beethoven, Bach, Rach, Prokofiev, Chopin, Marais, etc.

 

There is an old tale that came out of the Avery Hall...on two of the exit signs someone taped a note below which read" in case of Brahms".

I know many lovers of classical that do not like Brahms at all. Even Brahms said he could not write a good melody if his life depended on it. However, I do like a few of his works.

 

I agree it's foolish to think classical listeners should like all of "classical music" (or even all of classical music before serialism and atonality, which is probably a more common thought). For one thing, "classical music" is something of a contrived, bogus label, covering nearly a thousand years of music created for all manner of different purposes and occasions, with much more variation in form and scope than there is in twentieth-century popular music -- and nobody assumes that because you like AC/DC you're also going to like the Paul Whiteman Orchestra.

That said I'm flummoxed nonplussed bewildered perplexed Jay that you don't like Schumann or Brahms. It's so funny to me because I know there's a lot of stuff we both like . . . And those two gents I like so much . . . There's just no way of knowing what music someone will like or not, and why.

 

If it makes you feel better Brahms didn't like Wagner. And Wagner didn't like Brahms.

 

It took me a long time to get into Schumann. I sense that his music is an acquired taste. Cortot was the one who finally unlocked the door for me. Since then, Moiseiwitsch, Richter, Arrau and Natan Brand have deepened my appreciation for his work.

Brahms I enjoyed from the start, though with him I am generally selective of his stuff. I really love the PCs, symphonies 2 and 3 and much of the solo piano (esp late works and the Ballades.) Beyond that, I have enjoyed some things, but not nearly as much as the ones I just mentioned.