Brahms Early Works

[haydnguy]

Ok, Despina, To start things off I choose Seranade No. 1 in D, Opus. 11 Listening now....

EDIT: This is the only thing I could find on this piece. It's just a snip but may give you an idea:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eUlkdJQSes"]YouTube - Two Minuets from Serenade Op. 11 by Johannes Brahms[/ame]

[Herr_Direktor]

There is probably no more beautiful work by Herr Brahms than his Piano Trio Op. 8 in B major. The key alone makes this a completely different work than anything previous by anyone. I have heard both the original as well as the version that he reworked in his 50s, and the revisions take nothing away from the pure innovation and creativity of this piece by a very young man.

The scherzo is unchanged in the later version, and the ending (in a tumultuous b minor) is just amazing. I first heard this work at a relatively late age in my development (around 23) and loved it instantly. Coincidentally it was performed on the same program as his awesome f minor piano quintet op. 34 (I think).

Brahms is despite his popularity, still one of the more underrated composers of all time, along with Mendelssohn.

HD

Found a good you tube:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qj26RzWKq38"]YouTube - J.Brahms - Piano Trio No.1 in B major, 1st mov (1)[/ame]

[haydnguy]

It is very beautiful indeed!!

[Despina41]

Originally Posted by Herr_Direktor

There is probably no more beautiful work by Herr Brahms than his Piano Trio Op. 8 in B major. The key alone makes this a completely different work than anything previous by anyone. I have heard both the original as well as the version that he reworked in his 50s, and the revisions take nothing away from the pure innovation and creativity of this piece by a very young man.

The scherzo is unchanged in the later version, and the ending (in a tumultuous b minor) is just amazing. I first heard this work at a relatively late age in my development (around 23) and loved it instantly. Coincidentally it was performed on the same program as his awesome f minor piano quintet op. 34 (I think).

I also first became familiar with the revised version of op. 8, which he undertook later in the 1880s, and he joked it should be republished as "op. 88." When I did finally hear the original version, I actually laughed out loud several times during the first movement!

Brahms was trying to deal with sonata form in a new way, but... uh, it sounds like "18th-century Greatest Hits" to me. If you want to be nice to Brahms, you could call it a successful experiment in postmodernism. If you want to be nasty, you could call it a failed experiment in organic sonata form. That is, he has too many ideas and doesn't know how to tie them together (this is what his contemporaries would have expected to hear in a first movement.)
So the first theme is amazing, and you heard it pretty much unchanged in the revised version. You can also hear how the main theme is introduced by the cello and piano. Joachim, the violinist best friend, wanted the violin to have something to say sooner in the beginning, so Brahms wound up adding some little arpeggios that make NO sense. It's like the beautiful dialogue between piano and cello is interrupted with these little high-pitched interjections from some third party (I wonder if Brahms was being snarky!). Really quite funny. Obviously Brahms took them out again in the revised version.
There's some Haydnesque little minuet theme which is completely gone in the revised verion. There's also some chromatic Bach fugue subject that the solo cello introduces then leaves (also completey gone in the revised version). Brahms tries to flesh it out into more of a fugue in the recap, NOT the development, which, as far as I know, is the only example of any composer doing this!

But yeah, I searched far and wide, but could not find the original version on youtube or anywhere else for that matter. If someone CAN find it, it's a laugh riot, and comparing the two versions will give you a lot of insight into how Brahms matured as a composer.

heh...

[Despina41]

A hattrick of early songs, from opp. 3, 6, and 7:

Liebestreu, op. 3, no. 1
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iALs5ZvlCrY&feature=related"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iALs5ZvlCrY&feature=related[/ame]

Die Trauernde, op. 7, no. 5
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-Hk8pyH10k&feature=related"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-Hk8pyH10k&feature=related[/ame]

Spanisches Lied, op. 6, no. 1
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTjvgyY0jMM&watch_response"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTjvgyY0jMM&watch_response[/ame]

[Despina41]

I wanted to share one of my favorite early Brahms pieces with you guys.

It's a totally obscure piano piece from 1857, a set of Variations in D
major. But this is unique in that it's the only set of official variations that Brahms wrote on one of his own themes (he wrote plenty of variations within other genres, developing and otherwise).

This also predates the famous Variations on a Theme of Handel (op. 24), and the outrageously virtuosic Variations on a Theme of Paganini (op. 35 - yeah the same theme on which Rachmaninoff wrote the rhapsody), AND the famous Variations on a Theme of Haydn (op. 56), so yeah, you can easily argue with me that it's not Brahms's greatest technical achievement in the variations genre, but gosh darn, it's my favorite.

But it's pure Brahms: the theme has a long D pedal, and over that, strong bass-soprano counterpoint, and good suspensions. The tune is even somewhat memorable! In character, it's more contemplative and relaxed than a lot of that brooding, angsty-teenager nonsense you get in op. 15 .

The variations are pretty low-key for the first half, then the stormy D minor section hits, and how Brahms gets back to the end from there, with a long pedal-trill.... it's magic.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XF0GYQ1sQSM"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XF0GYQ1sQSM[/ame]


[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dt6SPkX1PyQ&feature=related"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dt6SPkX1PyQ&feature=related[/ame]