Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)

[Purusha]

I thought the authorship of the A major trio was still highly doubtful, does anyone know what the state of research is here?

How can it not be by Brahms? I'm started to get annoyed by all those claims of doubtful authorship for music who's authorship is basically unequivocal (unless you happen to be tone death).

[Jo498]

I do not know the piece well enough (have it as a filler somewhere) but how CAN it be by Brahms if he took great care to burn everything he did not see fit for publication?

[Madiel]

How can it not be by Brahms? I'm started to get annoyed by all those claims of doubtful authorship for music who's authorship is basically unequivocal (unless you happen to be tone death).

Tone deaf.

I don't think it's that simple to say that authorship of music is unequivocal, because there are numerous cases of authorship that was considered known until someone came along many years later and showed that the composer was someone else. There are also cases of claimed 'discoverers' of works who were actually the composers of their discoveries. It's simply not true that the personality of a composer, especially in the earlier part of their career is SO distinctive that a mistake is impossible.

You basically have a choice between something being inferior Brahms or something being by a Brahms imitator/contemporary. This is hardly unique. There are doubtful pieces for nearly every 18th or 19th century composer I can think of. The trio is a relatively large piece to be in that category, but last I heard it was still the case that scholars were uncertain whether it's actually an early Brahms work or a work by someone else.

[Jo498]

One of the most famous "inauthentic" pieces are the string quartets op.3 formerly attributed to Haydn. Apparently Haydn himself claimed them as his own when he was old, but in the 60s it became established that they were composed by Hoffstetter (a musical monk from Amorbach). The evidence is apparently philologically as sound as these things can be.
I do not know about the Brahms. My impression is that the case is dubious enough that the A major piece is recorded far less frequently than the published trios.

What's puzzling in the Brahms case is that apparently there is no good alternative candidate for authorship of the trio.

[Purusha]

Tone deaf.

Yes, thank you. Bloody autocorrect.

I don't think it's that simple to say that authorship of music is unequivocal, because there are numerous cases of authorship that was considered known until someone came along many years later and showed that the composer was someone else.

Depends on the composition in question. Case in point:

One of the most famous "inauthentic" pieces are the string quartets op.3 formerly attributed to Haydn. Apparently Haydn himself claimed them as his own when he was old, but in the 60s it became established that they were composed by Hoffstetter (a musical monk from Amorbach). The evidence is apparently philologically as sound as these things can be.

This does not say much though because Haydn's early quartets have nothing distinctive about them. They could all easily been written by anyone at that time. It would be a very different situation if we were talking about, say, the opus 76, or the London symphonies. 

There are also cases of claimed 'discoverers' of works who were actually the composers of their discoveries. It's simply not true that the personality of a composer, especially in the earlier part of their career is SO distinctive that a mistake is impossible.

Like i said, it depends. What is actually not true is the idea one cannot establish authorship simply by examining the work in question, which i think is the underlying suggestion here. It is the idea that knowledge is the purview of science alone, that physical "evidence" is all that matters, and that one could actually seriously entertain the possibility of things which seem to fly against all sense and reason.

You basically have a choice between something being inferior Brahms or something being by a Brahms imitator/contemporary. This is hardly unique. There are doubtful pieces for nearly every 18th or 19th century composer I can think of. The trio is a relatively large piece to be in that category, but last I heard it was still the case that scholars were uncertain whether it's actually an early Brahms work or a work by someone else.

Well, to me the piece is quite clearly by Brahms. Absence of evidence in this case does not mean i can just dismiss what my hears tell me.

And the same goes for the cello suites of Bach for instance, which some are now trying to claim were not his. To even entertain such a thing is absurd as far as i'm concerned. The music itself in this case IS evidence, as concrete as any scrap of parchment or whatever it is researchers rely upon to make those type of claims.

[Madiel]

Sorry, I just don't think ears are very objective. What your ears tell you is influenced by many things.

There's nothing wrong with taking the view that Brahms wrote the piece, but being so dismissive about the opposite view isn't helpful. Unlike some other views, there is nothing fringe about those scholars who doubt Brahms' authorship. It's not something made up by one scholar to get a bit of attention. It's a view that has successfully hung around for as long as the piece has been known.

[Purusha]

Sorry, I just don't think ears are very objective.

Well, let's just say i disagree with that.

There's nothing wrong with taking the view that Brahms wrote the piece, but being so dismissive about the opposite view isn't helpful. Unlike some other views, there is nothing fringe about those scholars who doubt Brahms' authorship. It's not something made up by one scholar to get a bit of attention. It's a view that has successfully hung around for as long as the piece has been known.

But where does this doubt stem from. Lack of evidence alone?

[Madiel]

I assume it mostly stems from the piece sounding distinctly like second-rate Brahms.

[amw]

The manuscript's been dated to the early 1850s, and some of the ideas bear a strong resemblance to things Brahms would later do in the Serenades and the A major piano quartet (and the D major symphony, I suppose). That's the only real evidence suggesting the piece is by Brahms; no good alternative candidates have been put forth, and he was not yet well known enough to imitate. On my entirely subjective judgment as a composer and pianist, it sounds like Brahms to me, and it sounds like he was right to bin it as it's nothing special.

I kind of want to hear the E-flat major trio he started to compose in tandem with the C major one Op. 87, but later abandoned and destroyed. That would be a bit more interesting since it's a piece he initially thought highly enough of to show to Joachim. We know he folded some of its ideas into the C major trio when he decided to scrap it, so it would provide very clear insights into his composing process. And would also be a much better piece than the A major trio, being written in the 1870s/1880s when Brahms was at the height of his powers. But oh well.

(Another notable example of a reused composition: Brahms's planned 5th symphony eventually became the String Quintet Op. 111)

[Jaakko Keskinen]

Wow. I am absolutely loving the 2nd string quartet. So different from the 1st, even though they're both in minor keys. Op.51/1 was all tension and propulsion in the outer movements, but Op.51/2 is so lyrical!

A minor quartet was one of the first chamber music works I heard from Brahms. A capital work, but my favorite quartet from him is still no. 3.

[Karl Henning]

The manuscript's been dated to the early 1850s, and some of the ideas bear a strong resemblance to things Brahms would later do in the Serenades and the A major piano quartet (and the D major symphony, I suppose). That's the only real evidence suggesting the piece is by Brahms; no good alternative candidates have been put forth, and he was not yet well known enough to imitate. On my entirely subjective judgment as a composer and pianist, it sounds like Brahms to me, and it sounds like he was right to bin it as it's nothing special.

Another purely hypothetical angle (as I do not know the example), or rather, neutral consideration.

Granted both that there is some musical element similar to what Brahms would use later, and that Brahms at the date of the MS. was too young or little-known to be imitated.  Perhaps it is musical material which we, because of Brahms's later work, associate closely with him;  but at the time, it may have been "in the air," more like a common bit of sonic currency.

An example based on music we know (and the example may or may not be serviceable in the present instance).  There is a passage in Berlioz's Roméo et Juliette with a melodic gesture which we all (at this point) associate irrevocably with Wagner's Tristan und Isolde.  Now, suppose we didn't know who the composer was of the Roméo et Juliette example, and we find it as an anonymous musical scrap.  Might we be inclined to consider it an early Wagner squib?

[Madiel]

A capital work, but my favorite quartet from him is still no. 3.

I'll have to let you know once I hear no. 3! At my current rate of progress through the chamber works, that'll probably be in only a week or less.

[Jo498]

A minor quartet was one of the first chamber music works I heard from Brahms. A capital work, but my favorite quartet from him is still no. 3.

My favorite is probably the a minor but I like all three (although some movements less than others). It sometimes seems to me as if the c minor was a hommage to Beethoven, the a minor to Schubert and the B flat major to Mozart and Haydn...

[Jaakko Keskinen]

It sometimes seems to me as if the c minor was a hommage to Beethoven, the a minor to Schubert and the B flat major to Mozart and Haydn...

Agreed about c minor and B flat major but A minor brings Bach in my mind more than Schubert. Yes, I know, he didn't compose string quartets, the genre didn't even exist back then but it for some reason reminds me of Bach (while still sounding pure Brahms). It has been some months since I last listened to A minor quartet, maybe if I relisten it I may notice the Schubert homage as well. Of course, homage isn't same thing as "sounds exactly the same". And Brahms's quartets all have that distinct Brahms feeling in musical language.

[Jo498]

The mood of the A minor, especially the first movement seems rather close to Schubert's great A minor "Rosamunde" quartet. Of course, Bach is often lurking around the corner in many Brahms pieces with all their little canons and other kinds of polyphonic devices. And all this is not meant to deny Brahms originality. I completely agree that they all feel predominantly Brahmsian.

[Madiel]

Next cab on the chamber music rank is the super-morose Piano Quartet No.3, op.60.

Okay, so the whole thing doesn't answer that description, but gee the 1st movement really is gun-to-the-head stuff. And the 2nd isn't a reduction in intensity. Whereas the Andante is just an endless stream of beautiful melody.

I find it interesting that the 3rd piano quartet actually started life about the same time as the 1st and 2nd, it just took a far longer time for Brahms to arrive at a complete composition he was satisfied with.

[San Antone]

Next cab on the chamber music rank is the super-morose Piano Quartet No.3, op.60.

Okay, so the whole thing doesn't answer that description, but gee the 1st movement really is gun-to-the-head stuff. And the 2nd isn't a reduction in intensity. Whereas the Andante is just an endless stream of beautiful melody.

I find it interesting that the 3rd piano quartet actually started life about the same time as the 1st and 2nd, it just took a far longer time for Brahms to arrive at a complete composition he was satisfied with.

Speaking of, this recording of the three quartets is very fine, IMO.

[Jaakko Keskinen]

Wow. I am absolutely loving the 2nd string quartet. So different from the 1st, even though they're both in minor keys. Op.51/1 was all tension and propulsion in the outer movements, but Op.51/2 is so lyrical!

I think op. 51/1 and 51/2 are quite similar pair to Brahms's piano quartets op. 25 and 26. Dramatic and full of tension vs calm and lyrical.

[Madiel]

Yes, most definitely. I had exactly the same reaction.

[Madiel]

Well, the String Quartet No.3 is not having the same degree of immediate impact as the first two did.

I do like it. And in fact, as I'm giving it another spin (3rd at least over the last 24 hours) I'm finding I like it more this time around than at first. It does somehow seem quite 'busy' to me at times, with perhaps a bit too much bright activity for my personal tastes.