GMG Classical Music Forum

Brahms is known for being against or indifferent to program music, or at least so I gather from reading about him. As far as I know, he wrote no explicit program music. Yet I get strong images and feelings of landscape, especially autumnal woods, in various passages of his four symphonies. (Not his chamber music.) Finding out if this happens to other listeners is important to me for several reasons related to aesthetics. First, it touches on the old art conundrum of what if anything the listener, viewer or reader brings to the work as (1A) opposed to, or alternatively (1B) as an adjunct to, what the artist created. Second, since I am a landscape painter who is intensely in love with my subject matter, it raises the possibility that I am projecting, imagining things that Brahms either (2A) never consciously intended or (2B) never even subconsciously created.  

Several other factors obtain here. (3) Landscape program music was common during the late Romantic era, so Brahms might have absorbed this tendency by osmosis as he absorbed other Romantic tendencies into his more or less classical musical personality. (4) He loved walking in the countryside for inspiration. (5) I can't find anything on the web or in a few biographies I have consulted which addresses this topic. (6) It has been observed by cultural historians that a fondness and longing for landscape appears in the arts and becomes intense just at the time that a society becomes strongly urbanized, e.g. early Imperial Rome. People who live nose to millstone in the countryside tend not to be nostalgic about it. The 19th Century is such an urbanizing time, the love for natural landscape is present in all the arts, and Brahms may have been as romantic and nostalgic about landscape as anyone else.

So, please, what do your ears tell you?  

There are only a few moments in Brahms' symphonies that evoke landscape for me. The slow mvt. of the 3rd makes me think of a lazy summer day in the woods or down by the river, for instance. But mostly I just hear the symphonies as abstract music.

And how would you react to such music if you didn't know the background info about Brahms and the music of his time? Maybe you'd "see" something completely different.

Yes, and that's exactly what I think of- most specifically, the opening of the 2nd would be the most obvious.

I don't much care for Brahms, but yes, his symphonies provide quite a vista of landscapes.  But the landscapes, although big and impressive, show nothing new...a bit like a standard landscape only trying to be beautiful.  I would like to say the same of Brahms as he said of Tchiakovsky..."He's a talentless bastard."   :-[ :(

Brahms is a classicist, and I interpret the bulk of his music as abstract.

I think the poll needs another option: "Sometimes."  Brahms' music is complex and subtle enough to evoke many things in different listeners.

As for me, the only strong visual image I get in his symphonies is from a passage in the First Symphony, last movement, the passage just before the famous main theme where a horn and flute play loudly over murmuring strings and timpani: I see there a brilliantly spotlit, heroic figure striding through a dark landscape, maybe a forest; sort of like a Rembrandt painting. 8)

Quote from: John on July 31, 2009, 07:47:16 AM
I would like to say the same of Brahms as he said of Tchiakovsky..."He's a talentless bastard."   :-[ :(

Well, they were both wrong.

Nope, I don't feel any "landscapes" in Brahms' symphonies.  His symphonies (although I do enjoy them) are probably my least favorite of his output.  His chamber music, piano music and concertos are the bomb for me.

Sibelius is a landscape symphony composer for me.

Quote from: DavidW on July 31, 2009, 08:17:09 AM
Brahms is a classicist, and I interpret the bulk of his music as abstract.

I do, as well.  Of course, as a composer, I am more apt to let the notes be notes, I suppose.  Which still means they can be mighty tasty notes  8)

Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on July 31, 2009, 08:58:52 AM
Which still means they can be mighty tasty notes  8)

Well I guess it depends.  Bach's notes are a cup of warm, tasty soup on a cold day, but Wagner's notes are a greasy burger on an upset stomach. ;D

Quote from: John on July 31, 2009, 07:47:16 AM
I don't much care for Brahms, but yes, his symphonies provide quite a vista of landscapes.  But the landscapes, although big and impressive, show nothing new...a bit like a standard landscape only trying to be beautiful.  I would like to say the same of Brahms as he said of Tchiakovsky..."He's a talentless bastard."   :-[ :(

Well, Tchaikowsky thought the same thing of Brahms. For one or the other or for both of them there might have been some revenge factor(s) in their comments. Have you read of the famous dinner party where they seethed silently at each other all evening? I like them both, but I absolutely adore Brahms.

Quote from: Chaszz on July 31, 2009, 09:14:40 AM
Have you read of the famous dinner party where they seethed silently at each other all evening? I like them both, but I absolutely adore Brahms.

If only Obama would have been around then......it all would have been settled nicely over a beer.  0:)

Quote from: ChamberNut on July 31, 2009, 09:19:27 AM
If only Obama would have been around then......it all would have been settled nicely over a beer.  0:)

I think they serve Molson at the White House.

Quote from: ChamberNut on July 31, 2009, 09:19:27 AM
If only Obama would have been around then......it all would have been settled nicely over a beer.  0:)

Quote from: k a rl h e nn i ng on July 31, 2009, 09:26:48 AM
I think they serve Molson at the White House.

They were understocked (http://www.xkcd.com/617/), actually.

(http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/understocked.png)

Thread duty: I voted no.

They evoke Brahms to me.

Quote from: Josquin des Prez on July 31, 2009, 10:47:25 AM
They evoke Brahms to me.

Beauty!!

(I am so jealous that I wasn't the one who said this.)

Quote from: Josquin des Prez on July 31, 2009, 10:47:25 AM
They evoke Brahms to me.

Now THERE's a line from you I agree with totally! ;D

Interpretive dance of the Akademische Festouvertüre, in the form of a response to the poll:

(http://www.abestweb.com/smilies/dancing.gif)

Quote from: Josquin des Prez on July 31, 2009, 10:47:25 AM
They evoke Brahms to me.

What he said.

I am at my best when i say the least.

Do Brahms' symphonies evoke landscape? Yes, emotional landscapes. His music may have followed classical forms but he was as Romantic as the next mid-to-late-19th century guy: Schumann (his friend) or Wagner (his enemy).

Sarge