Late Brahms and Second Viennese School

[Despina41]

This should be in the Brahms listening group, but starting with Late Brahms is a little wrong.


Anyway, the intermezzi are a good starting place because they're short and have a limited range. (Harder to focus on the clarinet stuff..too many instruments and pretty colors. PS: the plural of opus is opera.)

All righty, let me point out some things to listen for. You have to attune your ears to what Schoenberg would have heard and wanted to develop. You can't go in listening like it's Romantic Piano Greatest Hits ala Chopin, or you'll hear Chopin. (That is, indeed, what most people hear.)

Here's one played by Mr. Richter (S.).

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gD-HHR4Ixso"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gD-HHR4Ixso[/ame]

The main idea of the entire piece is just a half step. Up, then down, then expanded. Things move in contrary motion to each other. This is the sort of motivic development that Schoenberg heard in Brahms. In his article/radio talk "Brahms the Progressive," Schoenberg used a string quartet slow movement as his example, and he argued that a major second was the motivic cell for that movement (it's more subtle there too). This is classic late Brahms: economy of materials -- to the point where it's quite severe; strict ABA form, but within that, plenty of play. You can hear even in the major key section that the rhythmic/pitch material from the opening.
You could argue, and surely Schoenberg would, that the entire piece is based on the first 4 bars. This is GOOD composition to Schoenberg. Webern took it to new levels too, but he's another story.

Here's the famous one! 119/1. Actually, all of opus 119 is here.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDHXjbD3s1g&feature=related"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDHXjbD3s1g&feature=related[/ame]

The harmony is about as far out as Brahms gets, but the dissonances resolve, and it's still functional (compare to Debussy). Once again, chains of falling thirds are the very limited basic material here. You have a canon that's very hard to hear, between RH and LH starting round :35. Sort of music games that the Second Viennese School put in their music. Brahms keeps it all within a tonal framework, although here he is pushing the boundaries -- note the ascending fourths (top voice) around 2:12. F#-B-E-A..a circle of fifths, but upsidedown it sounds a little out there. Schoenberg loves this stuff.

Hope that helps. Early Schoenberg is tonal and sounds JUST like Brahms anyway. See if you can find any of the early songs, op 2, or some unpublished piano music.

[Philidor]

Despina’s above post copied from A Newbie Question About Modern Music

[Despina41]

Don't be advertising in my Brahms thread. GEH RAUS!!

There is only one possible ad appropriate for this thread:

[Felix]

Despina, I have been thinking of your comment above ever since I first read it It's very illuminating. Even as a life-long Brahms lover your remarks have opened my ears in a new way to these pieces. It's not that I didn't appreciate the passages you decribe, but one takes them too easily for granted. One hears a Brahms influenced by Schönberg I used to think there was no signifcant change in Brahms style as he grew older, but I have revised my opinion.

I used to think more of the (related) density of the development of material. Schönberg did talk about being less interested in the beginnings and endings of pieces than in what happens between them and he certainly strove to emancipate such developments from their classical frame works. He took, as it were, the entrails out of traditional music to take them further in the direction of atonality. He was a tru inheritor of Classicisim.

Forgive me, great Beethoven with your stupendous developments, but I don't think anyone developed material so intensively as Brahms. This has to to do with Romanticism. From the great works of Schubert, the first subjects tend to be whole lyrical episodes, the second subjects often too. (Schumann was the exception, but that is another story) Brahms took the lyrical strands and their developments much further, intertwined them elogated them seemingly endlessly. He discussed this drawing melodies beyond the 8 bar phrases with Clara. I think Schönberg learnt as much from this.

Your Url refused to work for me and you don't identify the first piece but I'm pretty certain it is the the E minor Intermezzo, op.116, no. 5.
As for the first piece in 119 which you singled out it is certainly encrusted with jewel-like dissonance resulting from the both lyrical and formal construction. He wrote a letter to Clara about this Intermezzo almost apologising that it went from dissonance to the next. Cklara said of the late Intermezzi that one listerner was almost too many, emphasizing, I suppose their intimate character