Page 241 - ESSENTIAL LISTENING TO MUSIC

in 1883, Brahms was considered the greatest living German composer. His own death, from liver cancer, came in the spring of 1897. He was buried in the central cemetery of Vienna, thirty feet from the graves of Beethoven and Schubert.
Vienna was (and remains) a very conservative city, fiercely protective of its rich musical heritage. That Brahms should choose it as his place of residence is not surprising—Vienna had been the home of Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert, and the conservative Brahms found inspiration in the music of these past masters. Again and again, he returned to traditional genres, such as the symphony and concerto, and to conventional forms, such as sonata–allegro and theme and variations. Most telling, Brahms composed no program music. Instead, he chose to write what is called absolute music: chamber sonatas, sym- phonies, and concertos without narrative or “storytelling” intent. The music of Brahms unfolds as patterns of pure, abstract sound within the tight confines of traditional forms. Although Brahms could write sweeping Romantic melodies, he was at heart a “developer” of smallish motives in the tradition of Bach and Beethoven. Indeed, in 1877 a music critic eternally linked Brahms to his pre- decessors by coining the expression “the three Bs” of classical music: Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms.
Violin Concerto in D major (1878)
In 1870, Brahms wrote, “I shall never compose a symphony! You have no idea how the likes of us feel when we hear the tramp of a giant like him behind us.” That “giant,” of course, was Beethoven, and Brahms, like other nineteenth- century composers, was terrified by the prospect of competing with his revered predecessor (Figure 14.5). But Brahms did go on to write a symphony—indeed, four of them, first performed, in turn, in 1876, 1877, 1883, and 1885. In the midst of this symphonic activity, Brahms also wrote his only violin concerto, which rivals the earlier violin concerto of Beethoven.
How do you write a concerto for
an instrument that you can’t play?
How do you know how to make the instrument sound good and what to avoid? Brahms, who was trained as a pianist and not a violinist, did as composers be- fore and after him: He turned to a virtuoso on the instrument—in this case, his friend Joseph Joachim (1831–1907). When the concerto was premiered in 1878, Joachim played the solo part while Brahms conducted the orchestra.
One technical “trick” that Joachim surely insisted that Brahms employ is the art of playing double stops. Usually, we think of the violin as a mono- phonic instrument, capable of playing only one string and thus only one pitch at a time. But a good violinist can hold (stop) two and sometimes more strings
Figure 14.5
Brahms’s composing room in his apartment in Vienna, where he lived from 1871 until his death
in 1897. On the wall, looking down on the piano, is a bust
of Beethoven. The spirit of Beethoven loomed large over the entire nineteenth century (see also Figure 10.1) and over Brahms in particular.
johannes brahms (1833–1897) 219 Copyright 201 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).
Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.
56797_ch14_ptg01.indd 219 29/08/14 3:37 PM
The Art Archive/Museum der Stadt Wien/Collection Dagli Orti/The Picture Desk
<