# mozart and brahms requiems



## michael5150

Ofcourse mozart is the superior composer and it is my view that both mozart and brahms produced requiems which offer us their very best music. Nevertheless brahms always seems to appear as an exceptionally gifted amateur even if the comparison with mozart is not drawn.
Brahms hesitates in his creation. These pauses seem to convey a lack of skill and imagination. The same lack of imagination can be found in bruckner yet brucker instead of pausing simply reinstates repeats of impressive passages. Brahms however does not use this scapegoat to cover up his lack of skill. He instead fumbles and fills his bars with progressions which although relative seem to lead nowhere. Chordal progression involves at least in the classical sense a promise of destination. An inevitability. This can be criticized it is true because music then becomes very predictable . Mozart is much more predictable than brahms yet brahms seems to musically waffle and ramble. The opening of brahms is very inspired yet how quickly it loses this inspiration. Mozart is more inspired even in the sections he didn't actually write. The brevity of some of mozart gives force and powerful conclusion to the sections. The confutatis and rex are good examples. Yet at the same time brahms is more personal and warmer and because of these qualities we can find his requiem more human. The fact that it is so flawed emphasises the humanity.


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## Xaltotun

michael5150 said:


> Mozart is more inspired even in the sections he didn't actually write.


That is true! Also, Sibelius is very very inspired in the finale of Mozart's 41th symphony, even though he didn't actually write it.


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## EDaddy

michael5150 said:


> Nevertheless brahms always seems to appear as an exceptionally gifted amateur even if the comparison with mozart is not drawn. Brahms hesitates in his creation. These pauses seem to convey a lack of skill and imagination.


Wow. I so can't relate to this argument that I almost don't know where to begin. Brahms, an amateur? Let's just pass that one over, shall we?

As for pauses being "hesitations" and conveying a "lack of skill", might I suggest that sometimes it is those moments in a piece of music where notes are not played, i.e. a rest or pause, that some of the great magic resides? Used correctly (which I would vehemently argue Brahms does), it is these very silences that often contain or add nuance and profundity. Depending on the musical context, duration, etc., they can range from being the musical equivalent of a coma, to the pause between breaths or heartbeats. Or like the intentional long pause a public speaker might make in order to let what proceeded it sink in. If anything, the use of such rests are indicative of great skill, sensitivity and maturity as a composer.

These moments of silence in B's Requiem were very intentional. They are effective and musical. Moments that work in harmony with the mood of the of the piece as a whole, like the stillness found at the center of a meditation.


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