Well, you know, it is many years since I've gone on about Brahms on a board like this one. I've rarely talked about him for a long time - it's possible I talked myself out, in fact. To be honest, he is about the only composer I feel as passionately personal about as I do about Janacek. For me, though, the essence of Brahms is the other way around to D minor's - chamber/solo music first (and vocal/choral too), orchestral last: the concertos and symphonies may be his biggest statements, but they are outnumbered and out-Brahmsed by the chamber pieces, whose quality is utterly staggering, from smallest detail to largest effect, and whose every bar seems to contain something awesome, intimate, cathartic, ingenious. Then again, that has to be read against the fact that, temperamentally, I tend overwhelmingly towards chamber music rather orchestral - it's only my personal inclination.
So, though I adore the orchestral music and consider it the very pinnacle of the repertoire, the Brahms I couldn't be without comprises: the late piano music, the
Schumann Variations(
- how's that for an unexpected choice?), the sets of duo sonatas (listening to op 78 right now!), the various trios (op 8 - second version - Horn, and Clarinet especially), the quartets (SQ 1+2 above all), quintets (CQ and SQ 2 above all) and sextets, the sublime
Nanie,
Gesang der Parzen and, to be quirky but honest, the
Geistliches Lied
