Music Monday - Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)

I'm having a black cloud day. Today I'll blame it on the nasty weather we're having--forty degrees and raining. Blech. But a perfect composer to listen to when I want to revel in melancholy is Brahms--such wonderful, passionate music carefully crafted around a sound technical structure (and often in a minor key, which fits the bill perfectly today)!

Johannes Brahms was born in Hamburg, Germany, on May 7, 1833 to a double-bass playing father and seamstress mother. At about age ten, he began formally studying piano and music theory with Eduard Marxsen, a noted pianist and composer of the day whose main claim to fame today is that he was the teacher of Brahms. In 1853, Brahms's compositions began being published, and he began a close friendship with composers Robert and Clara Schumann. From 1862 until his death 1897 from liver cancer, he lived in Vienna, working as composer, performer, and conductor.

Brahms wasn't as prolific a composer, as, say, Mozart, but he did write thirteen major orchestral compositions as well as many chamber works for various combinations of instruments. In addition, his oeuvre includes about fifty pieces for solo piano, about two hundred art songs, about sixty for vocal quartet, and some choral music.

Two of my favorite violin compositions by this composer are the Concerto for Violin, Cello, and Orchestra, Op. 102 and the Sonata in G Major for Violin and Piano, Op.78.

The sonata may be in a major key, but doesn't mean it doesn't have some real heart-breaking passages. You can hear the longing right at the opening of the piece in the first theme played by the violin:



Played here by Maxim Vengerov. Unfortunately the pianist didn't get billed (nor did the all-important page turner, for that matter) and I have no idea who it might be. The second half of the first movement is here.

To my knowledge Vengerov hasn't yet released a CD of this sonata, though he does have recordings of Brahms's second and third sonatas. The one I've heard most often is Itzahk Perlman's recording with the legendary Vladimir Ashkenazy on piano, but it's not angsty enough for my taste!

The double concerto--for violin, cello, and orchestra--now, that one has all the angst one could ask for built right in to every line from the dramatic opening bars played by the orchestra:



Young though they may be (perhaps because they are closer to those uneasy, angst-ridden teen years?), Julia Fischer and especially Daniel Müller-Schott do a stupendous job of bringing this gorgeous piece of music to life. The rest of the first movement is here, and the reflective second and fiery third movement can be found here and here, respectively.

Fischer and Müller-Schott have a recording of the concerto with the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Yakov Kreizberg.

Wishing you plenty of Brahms on any black cloud days you may have.

"It is not hard to compose, but it is wonderfully hard to let the superfluous notes fall under the table." ~Johannes Brahms

Music Monday - Felix Mendelssohn, PLUS Opera from the Met

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, 2009 is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Felix Mendelssohn, and I expect to hear and hopefully perform a lot of his music this year. The chorus I rehearse with on Monday nights is singing three works by the composer in our March concert, and I like all three, but my favorite is Verleih' uns Frieden, written in 1831, which was about the middle of Mendelssohn's heyday of composing:


As you can probably guess just by listening to that last clip, Mendelssohn was a master of melody. You can also tell by listening to the opening bars of any of the three movements of his violin concerto. The first movement's clip (chosen for where in the music the clip originates) is played by Israeli violinist and former child prodigy, Maxim Vengerov, and the last two movements are played by the incomparable Joshua Bell:


Mendelssohn was from a family with a strict work ethic--his father made Felix and his three siblings (including his older sister Fanny, a brilliant though unknown pianist and also a prolific composer in her own right) learn music, French, English, Italian, Latin, Greek, math, history, geography, politics, art, and foreign literature, among other things. Makes what we try to get done at home seem almost laughable, somehow.

Anyway, I'll save other enjoyable Mendelssohn compositions for another day. But before I post, I must tell you all about the live, HD broadcasts of Metropolitan Opera performances--live from New York, selected operas are broadcast on movie theatre screens around the U.S. and internationally! Check here to see if one is coming to a theatre near you. I'm planning to go this Wednesday night to an encore performance of Massenet's Thaïs with Renee Fleming singing the title role. The next live performance is scheduled for this Saturday at 2 p.m. EST: Puccini's La Rondine.

Bravo to the Met!