Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)

[op.110]

Oistrakh and Brahms; I need not to say anything more.

[not edward]

Oistrakh and Brahms; I need not to say anything more.

These are indeed excellent. Have you heard the 2nd sonata with Richter on this live Orfeo? I think it's on an even higher plane.

[greg]

Goddamn, Furtwangler's Brahms 1 is one high-voltage performance. I just got shocked by it.

It would be fun to hear you try to pronounce the name "Furtwängler". Could you record a clip of that and post it here?

fart-wiggler?

I have no idea how that is pronounced.

I only know very little about Chinese culture. But I don't imagine I do either. That's why I don't post nonsense about it on internet forums.

Just like you know very little about German culture. But you imagine you do. That's why you shouldn't post nonsense about it on internet forums.

That's amusing.

I need to know about German culture to listen to German music? And when did I post any nonsense about German culture? I make posts against you, not your culture, if you want to be a hero and defend your people.

ah, good times.......

[op.110]

These are indeed excellent. Have you heard the 2nd sonata with Richter on this live Orfeo? I think it's on an even higher plane.

I WANT IT!

[BachQ]

BRAHMS FESTIVAL PART II: 'Requiem' with gentle strength
Joshua Kosman, Chronicle Music Critic
Friday, May 23, 2008



If the San Francisco Symphony's three-week Brahms Festival could be said to have a goal or an end point, it must surely have been the composer's "German Requiem," which wound things up in splendid fashion in Davies Symphony Hall on Wednesday night.  A showcase for the Symphony Chorus and a natural culmination of the preceding programs of symphonies, serenades and piano concertos, "A German Requiem" offered a performance that was at once expansively robust and gentle. That turns out to have been the approach to Brahms' music that Michael Tilson Thomas has favored all month long.  On this occasion, he had particularly fine assistance from the chorus, which seems to be flowering under the leadership of its new director, Ragnar Bohlin.  The challenge in much of this work, which synthesizes Brahms' late-Romantic voice with his longtime interest in the sacred music of the Renaissance and Baroque, is to build blocks of choral sound that are weighty without being immobile. Brahms' writing, here as so often in his large-scale works, has both the patina of age and the fluency of immediate expressiveness, and both aspects need to find voice in a performance.  The program repeats at 8 p.m today and Saturday in Davies Symphony Hall. Audio sample of the program is available at links.sfgate.com/ZDLW. 

[Bonehelm]

ah, good times.......

You know what's even better? If 71dB chimed in the discussion and started producing multidimensional longitudunal maxillary-aural circumferantial astoundingly hexagonic pentagonal hermaphroditic vibrational gravity sound waves.

[Harry]

You know what's even better? If 71dB chimed in the discussion and started producing multidimensional longitudunal maxillary-aural circumferantial astoundingly hexagonic pentagonal hermaphroditic vibrational gravity sound waves.

O, you have done your homework.......

[greg]

You know what's even better? If 71dB chimed in the discussion and started producing multidimensional longitudunal maxillary-aural circumferantial astoundingly hexagonic pentagonal hermaphroditic vibrational gravity sound waves.

No, those types of waves aren't multidimensional enough for this discussion......
you'd have to add seasoning..... like the ashes/remains of Sir Edward Elgar.

[mn dave]

I read somewhere that Brahms "played" with toy soldiers. Is this true? Or was he merely a collector? Or perhaps he had his friends over for some war games? 

[M forever]

Yes, Brahms collected tin soldiers for a long time. Apparently, he also liked to play with them.

[Greta]

I had a friend with too much money that liked to collect toy soldiers, the high end kind, incredibly detailed with the little scenery and amazing paint work, cannons to boot, reenacting specific scenes from the Civil War, he was a huge history buff. Not allowed to touch them, no, no, just for pretty in a case - cost up to $500 per set...   

[BachQ]

CLASSICAL: REVIEW

All Brahms Program: Orchestra rose to Angelich's challenge
KEN WINTERS

Special to The Globe and Mail
May 31, 2008
Toronto Symphony Orchestra / Nicholas Angelich, piano / Yannick Nézet-Séguin, conductor


Angelich, 38, not widely known this side of the Atlantic, is a formidable artist, with every note of Brahms's daunting piano part in this concerto thoroughly within his musical and technical grasp. His was a big performance, strong, incisive, spacious yet always lyrical, too.  ***. The flying chords and scintillating trills of the opening, the gossamer rapid-fire double octaves of the scherzo, and the major fireworks of the finale were all perfectly judged and timed. The orchestra rose to Angelich's challenge with a mercurially adroit accompaniment under the dynamic young conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin, who seemed to be working without a score and who followed Angelich like his own shadow. Nézet-Séguin is a climactic sort of conductor, given to extreme contrasts and seismic crescendos, perhaps too frequently hitting the top of the orchestra's dynamic range. But his vitality, his complete awareness of what's in Brahms's grand musical scheme and his musical talent are unmistakable, infectious when they do not overwhelm.

*** After intermission, in Brahms's Fourth Symphony, which the legendary Brahmsian Herbert von Karajan said was one of the four most difficult symphonies in the repertoire, Nézet-Séguin exhibited the same super-exploitive tendencies in the dynamic layout of his concept of the piece as he did in the concerto, along with a tendency to speed up in the loud passages and slow down in the soft ones.

[BachQ]

ALL BRAHMS CONCERT
Guest's tinkering makes Brahms burn brighter 
May 30, 2008
JOHN TERAUDS
CLASSICAL MUSIC CRITIC

*** This week's program is all Johannes Brahms: the weighty Symphony No. 4, from 1885, and the Piano Concerto No. 2, which is four years older. At the piano sits 30-something Nicholas Angelich, making his Toronto debut as a replacement for veteran keyboard master Stephen Kovacevich, who had to cancel. It's an opportunity to glory in the richness of late-Romantic writing full of drama, pathos and, frequently, sweet melody. The orchestra can show off its balance and nimbleness, while the pianist can also make a nice show of virtuoso passages. *** Nezet-Seguin's tinkering is like the musical equivalent of turning the colour saturation up on a digital photograph: everything burns just a little bit brighter. It's a heady feeling - as the enthusiastic ovations at the end of both pieces confirmed. But it can also feel like a bit much, sometimes.

[greg]

Yes, Brahms collected tin soldiers for a long time. Apparently, he also liked to play with them.

I can just imagine watching him sit in a room by himself, playing with his tin soldiers......

ah, so he WAS human! 

[ChamberNut]

Lately, I can't get enough listens to Brahms' Cello Sonata in E minor, Op. 38

I have the Rostropovich/Serkin DG recording, and I just love the tone of Rostropovich's cello on this one! 

[BachQ]

Lately, I can't get enough listens to Brahms' Cello Sonata in E minor, Op. 38

Yeah, love the cello sonatas.

[BachQ]

Brahms PC 1 in D Minor Zimerman / Bernstein / VPO

mvt 1 pt 1 http://www.youtube.com/v/r7nN5C0v7X0

mvt 1 pt 2 http://www.youtube.com/v/YXtjFbQ63yg&feature=related

mvt 1 pt 3 http://www.youtube.com/v/p38l2hTaCh8&feature=related

[BachQ]

Brahms PC 1 Ashkenazy / Giulini

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xc9QMV6J-AQ

[BachQ]

Brahms PC 1 in d minor Freire

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NN5yYjXOTPY

[BachQ]

Brahms PC 1 in d minor  Rubinstein / Haitink

1/3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4g3v_h3_sU

2/3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3VOHnpxVBM

3/3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mt4UHjQMaHU