Even if Brahms's new work-in-progress was going to be a piano concerto rather than a symphony, he still had to create forms for it

aka Part 2 of "More 'pre-post' than 'tease': If our sights are set on Brahms's First Symphony, why are we listening to his First Piano Concerto? (Part 1)" -- also now variously updated

MONDAY EVENING UPDATE: The promised after-post, "As promised, here's a proper quick-sampling of the three Brahms piano quartets," is up now

TUESDAY MORNING UPDATE: Now comes with a box at the end: "(SPOILER ALERT!) THE PATH TO BRAHMS 1: The series so far"

Hungarian-born George Szell (1897-1970) was past 40 when he first recorded the Brahms D minor Concerto -- in 1938, with no less than the great Artur Schnabel! We see him here c1965, after his recordings of the concerto with Leon Fleisher and Clifford Curzon but before his second recording of it (the one we've been hearing) with Rudolf Serkin.

by Ken

I've left you hanging (from Thursday's "pre-post") with those unidentified Performances A, B, anc C -- plus two "bonus" performances -- of the enormous and enormously complex first movement of the Brahms First Piano Concerto, into which we crashed at the start of our look at the composer's enormously difficult path to the creation of his First Symphony. The young Brahms, you'll recall, flush with the excitement of his "discovery," notably via the gushing seal of approval delivered by Robert Schumann (and now enjoying the warm support of both Robert and Clara Schumann), thought he was on the way to nailing the symphony that would be expected of any touted successor to the line of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn, and of course Schumann himself.

Somewhere along the line, alas, during the hopeful repurposing-into-a-symphony of a sonata for two pianos of which he'd composed three movements, he found himself faced with an impasse: a first movement growing to supersize which his inner voices told him he couldn't make a symphony of. It doesn't seem to have taken him long, though, to conjure up a Plan C: not a sonata for two pianos, not a symphony, but . . . .

MAYBE, JUST PERHAPS, A PIANO CONCERTO?

Say, can you do this in a symphony?


Emil Gilels, piano; Berlin Philharmonic, Eugen Jochum, cond. DG, recorded in the Jesus-Christus-Kirche, June 1972

Revisiting our musical glimpse into the sublime, Part 1

If what follows looks familiar, these are the performances we heard last week -- except now with the performers identified



Leon Fleisher, piano; Cleveland Orchestra, George Szell, cond. Epic-CBS-Sony, recorded Mar. 3-4, 1961

Emil Gilels, piano; Cleveland Orchestra, George Szell, cond. EMI, recorded Mar.-Apr. 1968

Emil Gilels, piano; Philharmonia Orchestra, Leopold Ludwig, cond. EMI, recorded Apr. 30-May 1, 1957

by Ken

This was supposed to be a ridiculously easy post, before I let it grow in my head -- as I so often do -- into something larger, and something important enough to me that I despair of being able to get it right.

So just to be clear, while we're on the subject of Beethoven's one and only opera, Fidelio, I interrupted this thread last week to share a piece of music that had come at me from an unexpected direction ("Found Music Dept.: When music that pops into your path grabs hold and won't let go"). It's a piece I know about as well as I know my own name, and yet I don't think I'd ever heard it in quite this way: as a prime example of Beethoven's singular ability to give us a musical glimpse into the sublime.


MAYBE I FELT I HAD TO EXPLAIN WHAT I MEAN
BY "A MUSICAL GLIMPSE INTO THE SUBLIME"

One of these "Parsifal" performances doesn't belong in the company of the others

WAGNER: Parsifal: Prelude and Good Friday Spell

Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Eugen Jochum, cond. DG, recorded December 1957

by Ken

We first heard the Prelude and opening of Act I of Parsifal in a March 2010 post called "Wagner, master of musical motion, Part 2," in which I wrote: "Our subject this week, you'll recall, is "musical motion," how performers find -- or don't -- what makes a piece of music move forward from the inside, how they re-create it with real energy and purpose instead of just grinding out one damned note after another."

The Jochum studio recording of the frequent concert coupling of the Parsifal Prelude and "Good Friday Spell" (from Act III), by no means a speedy performance, seems to me a shining example of the "re-created with real energy and purpose" kind.


IN 2010, OUR PRINCIPAL WAGNER TESTING GROUND . . .