Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)

[Daverz]

How many recordings of the Violin Concerto did Oistrakh make? What's your favorite?

I personally love the Oistrakh/Konwitschny/Dresden on DG. So good, in EXCELLENT mono sound. One of the best sounding mono records I've ever heard. But it's the only Oistrakh Brahms I've heard.

The most famous ones are with Klemperer and Szell.  I do like the Klemperer one, but haven't heard the Szell enough to choose between them. 

[LKB]

Tomorrow night, ending a long (unplanned!) Brahms drought with this concert. Stutzmann is new to me, but all reports have been positive.

Philadelphia Orchestra
Nathalie Stutzmann, Conductor
Gil Shaham, Violin

Brahms Violin Concerto
Brahms Symphony No. 1

-Bruce

That's a healthy serving of vintage Johannes, it would probably hold me for several years. Enjoy! 

[brewski]

That's a healthy serving of vintage Johannes, it would probably hold me for several years. Enjoy! 

It was quite good. An all-Brahms evening wouldn't normally attract me (though I like both pieces very much), but I was entertaining a friend from out of town, and that was the menu.

Shaham was in fine form, beautifully in tune and with a lovely violin tone. (He has two rare Stradivari instruments on loan—not sure which one he was using last night.)

But Stutzmann was perhaps the bigger draw. Friends in Minneapolis have heard her with the orchestra there, with positive comments. She is a trained vocalist, which is slightly unusual in the realm of "musicians who become conductors." (I.e., most seem to be pianists.) The orchestra is sounding great these days, and the timpanist was especially on point.

-Bruce

[Ganondorf]

First listening to Brahms's Deutsche Requiem, one of the rare major works of his I hadn't yet heard. The second section, "Denn alles Fleisch, es ist wie Gras" is overwhelmingly, sublimely beautiful. I said this about Brahms's Violin Concerto too but anyone who says that Brahms's orchestral sound is not beautiful should also listen to this.

[brewski]

First listening to Brahms's Deutsche Requiem, one of the rare major works of his I hadn't yet heard. The second section, "Denn alles Fleisch, es ist wie Gras" is overwhelmingly, sublimely beautiful. I said this about Brahms's Violin Concerto too but anyone who says that Brahms's orchestral sound is not beautiful should also listen to this.

A few years ago, in an article on Brahms and his two clarinet sonatas, I wrote something to the effect of, "Every now and then I meet someone who doesn't like Brahms, and think, how is this possible?"

Seriously, of course it's possible—and no one is required to like any composer—but I enjoy virtually all of his output, including the Deutsche Requiem (which I haven't heard in years).

-Bruce

[Ganondorf]

  I may be a committed Wagnerian forever but I enjoy Brahms immensely as well. Someone might call that contradictory (because of eternal debate between lovers of Wagner's work and lovers of Brahms's work without realizing that one can like both) but there it is.

[Jo498]

The German Requiem is a piece some people love to hate. I like it but I think it is uneven or maybe better, quite difficult to get right. I have heard it only once live in concert and that was 20 or more years ago, so I don't remember much about it.
The slow and quiet movements as frame, especially the last one make it a bit anticlimactic. The soprano solo is very hard to get "comforting". Movements 2-4 are the most immediately appealing/effective, but the fourth is often taken too slow, it should be almost scherzando.
The 6th movement seems to be the culmination but doesn't quite live up to expectations. I actually like its mysterious beginning the best but I am not too fond of the "last trumpet" section and the concluding fugal section (Herr du bist würdig...) seems the most "academic", in any case a clearly prefer the conclusion of 2 (Die Erlöseten des Herrn...) and 3 (Der Gerechten Seelen sind in Gottes Hand...). According to anecdote that fugue at the end of 3 was a desaster at the premiere because the pedal point in brass and timpani was too loud and overwhelmed the choral parts.

[Brahmsian]

First listening to Brahms's Deutsche Requiem, one of the rare major works of his I hadn't yet heard. The second section, "Denn alles Fleisch, es ist wie Gras" is overwhelmingly, sublimely beautiful. I said this about Brahms's Violin Concerto too but anyone who says that Brahms's orchestral sound is not beautiful should also listen to this.

Yes, that second movement is so profound and intense!

[Maestro267]

I got a box set of the complete chamber music today. This is stunning music all the way through! So much variety here! Is there a chamber music piece of Brahms that isn't a god-tier masterwork? If there is, you're lying to me.

[Brahmsian]

I got a box set of the complete chamber music today. This is stunning music all the way through! So much variety here! Is there a chamber music piece of Brahms that isn't a god-tier masterwork? If there is, you're lying to me.

Uniformly, it is top shelf. 

[Brahmsian]

I got a box set of the complete chamber music today. This is stunning music all the way through! So much variety here! Is there a chamber music piece of Brahms that isn't a god-tier masterwork? If there is, you're lying to me.

Looking at the purchases thread, I see you bought the Brilliant set of chamber music.  I have the same set, although I have the Brilliant complete Brahms everything!  Includes the 12 CDs of chamber music.  The complete Brahms edition from Brilliant is 60 discs.  Bought it in 2009 for less than a dollar a disc (including shipping)!  From Abeilles Musique (R.I.P.).  Others here bought as well at the time (Karl, Brian and I'm sure some others).

[Maestro267]

I was trying to think yesterday of what Brahms I have yet to get. I was thinking it was just the solo piano music but then I forgot about lieder and choral works. Lieder is a genre I need a little bit more time with to get used to. I'm more used to solo voices accompanied by a full orchestra.

[Jo498]

Do you know the alto rhapsody?
The other short choral+orchestra pieces are also recommendable, Davis and Abbado have them on one disc, unless you have them as fillers anyway.
If you can find it, I'd recommend a lieder anthology with Brigitte Fassbaender from the 1980s. I admittedly don't find his only real cycle (Die schöne Magelone) not as convincing (and I don't know it very well). Jessye Norman apparently also liked Brahms lieder and recorded several discs.
I remember that I once heard a performance of the great "Von ewiger Liebe" and thought that the accompaniment was so deep and rich that it might have passed as a piano intermezzo (could also have been because the pianist was better than the singer at that occasion )

There is a lot of vocal music by Brahms, it's probably close to half his extant oeuvre. I am not as familiar with neither his lieder nor choral pieces as I should be although I have probably heard most pieces at least once. But I cannot think of a single a cappella (or with piano) choral disc to easily recommend. There is e.g. a very dark, "Schützian" motet "Warum ist das Licht gegeben" and a pseudo-celtic "Darthulas Grabgesang" as well as the folksy "Liebesliederwalzer".

[DaveF]

I got a box set of the complete chamber music today. This is stunning music all the way through! So much variety here! Is there a chamber music piece of Brahms that isn't a god-tier masterwork? If there is, you're lying to me.

The early version of the B major trio is a bit rambling and diffuse - but, like many early versions, makes you doubly appreciative of the final, revised one.

[Brahmsian]

I was trying to think yesterday of what Brahms I have yet to get. I was thinking it was just the solo piano music but then I forgot about lieder and choral works. Lieder is a genre I need a little bit more time with to get used to. I'm more used to solo voices accompanied by a full orchestra.

I'm not big on vocal music. However, my two favourite Brahms' vocal works are:

Schicksalied, Op. 54 for chorus and orchestra

Two songs with viola and piano, Op. 91

I think any person who loves Brahms would enjoy these.

[pjme]

Time to listen to two choral works by Brahms I love dearly: Nänie (chorus & orchestra) and   Ich schwing mein Horn ins Jammertal for male chorus:

Auch das Schöne muß sterben!...

https://www.lieder.net/lieder/get_text.html?TextId=4582

[Jo498]

I think the Nänie setting is a very moving and underrated piece. It's also remarkable because the poem is in elegiac couplets as Goethe, Schiller (the author of Nänie) and others were a bit obsessed with emulating Classical poetry but some of these tend to sound "stiff" in German (I think). But Brahms largely manages to avoid such stiffness in the Nänie setting.

[Luke]

It's a fantastic work, Brahms at his best. Add in the Schicksalslied and the Gesang der Parzen, along with the Alto Rhapsody, and you have as fine a selection of world weary, fate-haunted Brahms as you could wish for. I've written quite detailed analyses of certain passages of the first and last of these. They are so rich, there is so much to be said. Brahms is music at its finest, when all is said and done.

[pjme]

world weary, fate-haunted Brahms

[Luke]

....or this - go to 17.09 - the last of the op 113 canons, which is based on Schubert's Leiermann:

Still shocks me with its stark beauty.