It's a gift: This week we have a Brahms "Rückblick" ("Lookback") -- yup, still Brahms, but this time all (or mostly) in slow(er) motion

And we start with four Brahms slow movements --
two we've heard before and two we haven't

ii. Andante sostenuto (1876)


Staatskapelle Dresden, Kurt Sanderling, cond. Eurodisc, recorded in the Lukaskirche, 1971

New York Philharmonic, Kurt Masur, cond. Teldec, recorded live in Avery Fisher Hall, May 1994

Cleveland Orchestra, George Szell, cond. Columbia-CBS-Sony, recorded in Severance Hall, Oct. 7, 1966
[UPDATE: Szell performance added early Sunday afternoon]

ii. Adagio (1858)


Clifford Curzon, piano; London Symphony Orchestra, George Szell, cond. Decca, recorded in Kingsway Hall, May 1962

Arthur Rubinstein, piano; Boston Symphony Orchestra, Erich Leinsdorf, cond. RCA, recorded in Symphony Hall, Apr. 21-22, 1964

ii. Andante espressivo (1853)


Arthur Rubinstein, piano. RCA, recorded at the American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York City, December 17, 1959

Clifford Curzon, piano. Decca, recorded in the Sofiensaal, Vienna, December 1962

iv. Intermezzo (Rückblick): Andante molto (1853)


Arthur Rubinstein, piano. RCA, recorded at the American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York City, December 17, 1959

Clifford Curzon, piano. Decca, recorded in the Sofiensaal, Vienna, December 1962


TROUBLE LOADING THE AUDIO FILES?

I'm sure having trouble today, but hey, it's Sunday at Internet Archive, which means heavy traffic. It's funny how this once made me crazy -- ah, the good old days! Trust me, the files are all there, so if need be just keep refreshing. I say the music is worth it.

Of course there's more -- a whole lot more -- to come. Which of course will include proper identification of the music we've heard so far.-- Ken

#

No, for all of Brahms's admiration of Chopin, his ballades really aren't much like Chopin's

Ballade is also a typeface -- or, more precisely, a font: Ballade-Bold.

ballad  n  1. a.  A narrative poem, often of folk origin and intended to be sung, consisting of simple stanzas and usually having a recurring refrain.  b.  The music for such a poem.  2.  Music  A popular song especially of a romantic or sentimental nature.

ballade  n.  1.  A verse form usually consisting of three stanzas of eight or ten lines each along with a brief envoy, with all three stanzas and the envoy ending in the same one-line refrain.  2.  Music  A composition, usually for the piano, having the romantic or dramatic quality of a ballad.

-- The American Heritage Dictionary of the
English Language, Third Edition (1992)

A BALLADE BY CHOPIN -- No. 1 in G minor, Op. 23


Alfred Cortot, piano. Victor, recorded in New York City, Dec. 27, 1926

Josef Hofmann, piano. Live recording from the Metropolitan Opera House, New York City, Nov. 28, 1937

AND ONE BY BRAHMS -- in D minor, Op. 10, No. 1


Wilhelm Kempff, piano. DG, recorded in the Beethovensaal, Hannover (Germany), February 1972

Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, piano. Live performance from Lugano, 1981

[Now, having heard in yesterday's pre-post ("This jolly Brahms duet really isn't part of our 'work unit,' but we kind of have to hear it about now") the vocal-duet setting Brahms did a couple of decades later of the Herder ballad that inspired this ballade, we can appreciate more fully the grimness of the setting.]

by Ken

We've been peeking at the fascinating process by which Brahms acquired mastery of musical forms. Our view of the process, we should note, is seriously hampered by the fiercely high standards the composer maintained, which caused him to destroy so much music which in his view didn't meet his standards, which he tended to think, especially when he looked back at his younger years, were rather too low than too high. So we really don't get to hear him experimenting much. What we hear are the results of experiments that he considered to have had a satisfactory outcome.

We came to this line of inquiry, for those who may still be wondering, by working backwards through Brahms's long, arduous path to the creation of a symphony, a goal he thought early on would be the achievement that really put him on the international compositional map. Luckily for him and us, he managed to fashion a rather spectacularly successful career even without managing the symphonic feat, which didn't come till his Op. 60.


WHY IS BRAHMS'S EARLIEST SURVIVING WORK HIS 'OP. 4'?

This jolly Brahms duet really isn't part of our "work unit," but we kind of have to hear it about now

Brigitte Fassbaender, mezzo-soprano; Peter Schreier, tenor; Karl Engel, piano. DG, recorded in Studio Lankwitz, Berlin, June 1982
Iris Vermillion, mezzo-soprano; Christoph Prégardien, tenor; Helmut Deutsch, piano. CPO, from Brahms Complete Duets & Quartets, recorded in the Kleiner Sendesaal of RBB (Berlin-Brandenburg Radio), Berlin-Charlottenburg, 1997-2003, released 2017


AND WE HAVE TO HEAR IT BECAUSE --

Of course it was possible for the young Brahms to be aware of Chopin's scherzos and ballades without in any way imitating them

[With assorted strategic Monday-morning touching up]

Plus, we get to have some fun with Weber's Oberon Overture
and Mendelssohn's Midsummer Night's Dream music (than
which musical wonderfulness doesn't come any wonderfuller)

Given Brahms's reverance for the great masters who preceded him, and in particular one who had revolutionized the way composers could think about the piano, how could he not have been keenly aware of Chopin?

"Johannes Brahms began his musical life studying the piano, and his earliest, truly great compositions were solo piano works, both presented here. The Scherzo in E-flat minor, Op. 4, is the earliest surviving composition by Brahms. He wrote it in November 1851 when he was 18 and published it as Op. 4, rather than Op. 1, because, he explained to a friend, “when one shows one's self for the first time, people must first see the head and not the feet.” Musical scholars feel that, despite the composer’s denial, it obviously shows a “dependence” on Chopin’s scherzi, and quotes from Heinrich Marschner’s Hans Heiling at bar 46 as well."

-- from an online note accompanying a listing for Yefim Bronfman's early recording of Op. 4 (the Scherzo) and Op. 5 (the F minor Piano Sonata)

SO, HERE AGAIN IS HOW BRAHMS'S SCHERZO GOES
(in two performances we haven't heard before and one we have)

BRAHMS: Scherzo for Piano in E-flat minor, Op. 4


Yefim Bronfman, piano. MusicMasters, recorded c1986

Julius Katchen, piano. Decca, recorded in Decca Studio No. 3, West Hampstead (London), 1964

Wilhelm Kempff, piano. DG, recorded in the Beethovensaal, Hannover (Germany), March 1958

I'll have something to say about the performances farther down. For now, I suggest keeping in mind the ages of the pianists at the time of recording -- roughly 28, 38, and 62. Turns out, it seems to matter.

by Ken

In a moment we're going to hear how a Chopin scherzo goes. But first let me say that it's been a good week for me, musically and in other ways as well, I guess. (Funny how the two often go together!) After a couple of years in which it was all but impossible for me to listen to music on my aging computer, which I imagined was suffering from some likely fatal hardware or at least heart-stoppingly expensive malady whose repair would likely cost almost as much as replacing the poor old computer, well --

Long story short (I actually started writing the whole story before just chucking it, since what interest could it have for anybody but me?), like magic I managed to solve all the problems, and then some, and suddenly I found myself with wonderful music pouring forth from both my computers. It used to be that even when I was most depressed about the purposelessness of these posts, the music revived me. So lately I've been allowing myself to wallow a bit in the pleasure of all this music, and later in this post we're going to allow it ourselves the luxury of some pleasurable musical wallowing.


NOW HERE'S HOW A CHOPIN SCHERZO GOES
(via a Czech, a Hungarian, and of course the Pole -- thrice over!)