# Beethoven and Brahms Inquiry



## Guest (Mar 15, 2015)

Salutations, 

I've been experiencing some profound inner strife lately that has genuinely managed to rattle some of my most deep-seated musical beliefs and loyalties. As a brief and unimportant background about myself, I am a college student in a field completely unrelated to music but I've been a passionate music fan and pianist for many years and volunteer every weekend as a pianist in the lobby of a couple of different hospitals where I primarily play early sonatas by Beethoven. 


Beethoven's music has long served as a source of serious inspiration and rumination for me. Between the symphonies, string quartets, sonatas, concerti, etc I thought Beethoven’s output was sublime and represented the pinnacle of their respective genres. Even compared to works by later composers such as Liszt, Chopin, and Schumann, I still felt that Beethoven’s pieces demonstrated a superior degree of craftsmanship and vehemence, and I continued to turn to them when looking to experience what I viewed as the benchmark in human artistic achievement. Beethoven’s music cemented itself as the standard which I weighed all other music against, and Beethoven himself even became a sort of empyreal-like figure to me who embodied the purest and most noble of artistic pursuits. 


Embarrassingly enough, I had been utterly unfamiliar with anything written by Johannes Brahms until approximately one year ago. I think a very long time ago I might have had a bad experience with one of Brahms’ pieces and hastily wrote him off as a composer before giving him his due chance, but this is no excuse and it genuinely baffles me how I managed to make it so long throughout life completely ignorant of Brahms. Nonetheless, when I finally endeavored to explore Brahms’ works again I started with his piano concerti and I was absolutely overwhelmed. There was no hesitancy – I fell in love with both of these pieces immediately upon first listening, yet at the same time I was experiencing some intense cognitive dissonance because Beethoven’s 4th Piano Concerto had represented to me the greatest composition conceivable for piano and orchestra. Beethoven’s concerto is spirited and expressive and remains one of my favorites, yet to my ears it sounded almost lightweight and flimsy compared to Brahms’ 1st Piano Concerto, a titanic masterwork Brahms had completed at the mere age of 25. Not only was Brahms’ concerto fiery and tumultuous; it also sounded to me considerably denser and more fascinating contrapuntally, and I still awe at how brilliantly Brahms managed to integrate and elaborate upon that iconic “b-flat f d…d! f!” motive which commands the listener’s attention right out of the gates. And this is simply one example, as I further explored Brahms’ works, I continued finding myself begrudgingly ceding that yes, the German Requiem is greater than the Missa Solemnis, and that comparing the two composers’ violin sonatas would be an unjust endeavor akin to pitting a professional sports team against a high school one. Beethoven legitimately has a Brahms beat with regards to string quartets, however, Brahms counters this with three piano quartets and a quintet of such transcendent caliber as to match and stand alongside Beethoven’s preeminent late string quartets as egalitarian peers. While I do feel the best of Beethoven’s symphonic output compares amiably with Brahms’ four symphonies, Brahms’ Violin Concerto, Multi-Instrument Concerto, and chamber music in general appears ostensibly to be greater than Beethoven’s own attempts at the genre. 


It is with a genuinely heavy heart that I type out all of the aforementioned opinions, but it’s taken me all of one year to finally face the music (har har) and concede that my longtime musical hero Ludwig van Beethoven, whose piano sonatas I have played for years and acquired a treasured familiarity and intimacy with, might actually be outclassed in terms of compositional genius by Mr. Brahms. However, as I have been exploring old threads here on TalkClassical, as well as soliciting the opinions of fellow music enthusiasts, I’ve gathered that the vast majority of people actually don’t agree with me here – and that restores in me a glimmering modicum of hope. Bizarrely enough, there’s nothing I’d like more than to discover that my ears have been wrong all this time and that Beethoven really is the greatest composer ever to walk on this earth. I know this sort of favoritism paints me as a complete child and I more than warrant whatever judgment and vituperation you might have for me based on my admitted irrationality, yet I’m genuinely curious: why do the vast majority of people prefer Beethoven to Brahms? My mind is certainly open and I’m hoping that I’ll be able to fine-tune my listening to hear what most people seem to be like so much in Beethoven. I’ve heard some people remark that Beethoven’s music is more dithyrambic than Brahms’ yet I candidly feel like Brahms’ works are not “restrained” or “contrived” but perfervid to Beethoven’s great masterpieces(examples include the two piano concerti, the 3rd piano quartet, the 3rd violin sonata, etc). And every note with Brahms seems so purposeful and contributes to a strikingly rich texture and precision that I think is unique amongst all composers. I acknowledge that Beethoven appears to have captured the affections of a far more extensive audience, ranging from the most educated of musical scholars to your typical casual classical music fan, and one need only look to the plethora of Beethoven recordings and how frequently his works are programmed to see the popular opinion appears to be on his side. Yet I was hoping that I could appeal to the esteemed erudition of the TalkClassical community for guidance as to what most people prefer about Beethoven over Brahms, and perhaps some specific comparisons between pieces to help me right my ship and achieve maximal enjoyment once again with Beethoven’s works. Thanks for all of your help and patience and for trudging through this bloviating wall of text. 


PS: This is probably irrelevant, but when I play Beethoven’s pieces I primarily play sonatas one through eleven (sans four, nine, and ten) and I have never played any composition by Brahms. I have played the 1st movement of Hammerklavier and even as a mediocre pianist it wasn’t that bad, but looking at the sheet music of some of Brahms pieces (the Handel fugue comes first to mind), Brahms’ pieces look incredibly dense and difficult to handle but again I’ve never attempted them. Regardless, I’m basing my opinions on the two composers on listening as opposed to actual personal performances of their pieces.


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

Brahms is new to you. Give yourself time. Things will level off.

No prob loving them both.


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

I flat-out don't believe that there's any such thing as "the greatest composer". There's only "the most popular composer" (which depends entirely on what group of people you ask) and "my favourite composer". For reasons of statistics, the two will be the same for many people, but they won't be for others.

So, my two cents: If you think Brahms is the greatest composer, then he is. For you, who I assume is the person whose opinion on music is the most important to you! There's zero reason to feel like you _should_ prefer any one composer over another.

As to why _I_ prefer Beethoven to Brahms, that's I think fundamentally impossible to answer. I just like Beethoven's music more, and any attempt to point out features of their music to explain this is really just after-the-fact rationalisation. For instance, your statement "every note with Brahms seems so purposeful and contributes to a strikingly rich texture and precision" is a good description of what I _don't_ think about Brahms; we can all listen to the same music and hear completely different things.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Its largely subjective. I can't fathom how anyone could think either Beethoven or Brahms even approach J.S. Bach in "greatness". 

Brahms himself more or less admitted this when he was speaking of the Chaconne. But as stated above those composers whose music we prefer will obviously be who we lean towards when estimating "greatness". 

I like Beethoven and Brahms. Brahms music interests me more, mostly because I find it more interesting harmonically.


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## Giordano (Aug 10, 2014)

Haha, this popped into my head:

Brahms waxes lyrical. Beethoven speaks straight.



Seriously, I think you should just listen and get lost in the music. Go where your "heart" appears to take you. Keep doing it as long as you feel like it. Your mind needs time to integrate changes that are happening in you now (as evidenced by what you wrote) and the new information (music) you are absorbing. Turn your mind way down. Try not to compare, especially in the way you say you are doing now, ranking who is better, who is greatest,... And why not try other great composers preceding Beethoven, too?

The kind of intellectualizing you appear to be doing now will not reveal any mysteries of music, or science.

There is a thread in the Community Forum which might interest you:

http://www.talkclassical.com/37101-you-cant-believe-they.html


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

There's certainly nothing wrong with loving Brahms! Welcome to the forum, OrthoPhosphate.

Here's an interesting essay on Brahms by Charles Rosen:

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/1998/oct/22/aimez-vous-brahms/

It gets a bit too bogged down in details for my taste, but the whole thing still gives a great overview of what makes Brahms unique and difficult despite his apparent (to many) conservatism.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

OrthoPhosphate said:


> Salutations,
> 
> I've been experiencing some profound inner strife lately that has genuinely managed to rattle some of my most deep-seated musical beliefs and loyalties. As a brief and unimportant background about myself, I am a college student in a field completely unrelated to music but I've been a passionate music fan and pianist for many years and volunteer every weekend as a pianist in the lobby of a couple of different hospitals where I primarily play early sonatas by Beethoven.
> 
> ...


Can you say a bit more about why you prefer The Brahms Requiem to the Missa Solemnis? Which performances are you listening to? That could be really effecting your judgement.

I like Brahms's chamber music too, though there are two or three Beethoven quartets which are really outstanding for me. I don't know the concertos as well as you, I do think that Beethoven PC 3 is a very great classical piano concerto, and the fourth does some intetesting things - but I feel less confident to comment on the Brahms.

Where I think things really are interesting is with the solo piano music. I don't like the earlier Brahms pieces at all, the music sounds banal at best, hectoring or over effusive at worst; I quite like the middle period variations (but I think they were dwarfed by the Diabelli Variations); those late solo piano pieces are so very different from anything Beethoven was doing that I'm tempted to say that you can't compare, they're incommensurable. And anyway, it sounds as though you're mostly not so familiar with the best of Beethoven's piano music, if you're focussing on the first dozen sonatas.

If you think the Handel Variations look hard, wait till you try the Paganini ones!


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Brahms' late piano pieces are mostly introverted and not dense at all. Some of his best work there!


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

The fact that many classical music lovers prefer Beethoven over Brahms does in no way imply that you (or anybody else) must do so as well. It all comes down to personal taste. I much prefer Brahms myself.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

You can't really compare the two even though Brahms was clearly channeling Beethoven at times. The orchestral forces are very different, the techniques are from different time periods. Even the pianos available were different. 

I still tend to revere Beethoven over Brahms, but only just barely. I don't feel Brahms wrote anything quite as profound as Beethoven's late works., especially the late piano sonatas and quartets, but this could also be a very slight aversion I have to some of the excesses of the romantic period. Brahms did not suffer much from that, but he did work within that idiom.

Thank goodness no one has to choose one or the other. They're both here for all of us to enjoy, as are many hundreds upon hundreds of other worthy composers.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

I don't want to play the greatness game, but I can tell you some of the reasons I spend more time with Beethoven:

The boldness of his opening movements, especially their unprecedented juxtaposition of opposing elements within their themes. Think of the opening of the Sonata Op. 57 ("Appassionata") with its immediate move to G-flat, the threatening motive from D-flat to C like a fateful knelling in the bass, and then its insane outbursts after the first sentence—and, more important, the way these initial contrasts and juxtapositions are intensified throughout without any loss of coherence. The same is true of the Sonata's Op. 31, #2 and #3, The "Eroica," the Quartets Op 59, #3 and Op. 95 and numerous other works. Brahms principal themes are melodies, Beethoven's are metaphysical conflicts.

Those idiosyncratic, formally elusive movements like the "Largo e mesto" from the Sonata Op. 10 #3 — completely unhinged, passionate, and unique. The late quartets and sonatas are full of such one of a kind statements. 

His finales are usually completely satisfying in their resolution of the tensions of his earlier movements. I rarely feel that with Brahms ("the finale problem"), in part because he doesn't have Beethoven's inclination (ability?) to leave tensions unresolved in the first place. From this follows the greater overall dramatic drive (in general) at the cyclic level in Beethoven. 

Brahms was formally too much by the book. Beethoven wrote the book before discarding it.

In sum: Look what Beethoven did to the forms he inherited, variously expanding, exploding, stretching, and transcending them without ever being held by them. Brahms often used them as convenient molds rather than seeing them as notional embodiments of fluid principles, as Beethoven did.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

To me, Brahms is at his weakest precisely when he's trying to be Beethovenian.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

People often bring up Beethoven's influence on Brahms, but I think Beethoven took an equal amount of influence from Haydn.


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## DiesIraeCX (Jul 21, 2014)

tdc said:


> People often bring up Beethoven's influence on Brahms, but I think Beethoven took an equal amount of influence from Haydn.


That's correct, Beethoven had influences (many of them). As did every other composer, right?


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

I must conclude, then, from the OP, that Brahms must be more fun to play than to listen to.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

isorhythm said:


> To me, Brahms is at his weakest precisely when he's trying to be Beethovenian.


I'm not sure. One of my favorite works of Brahms is the Piano Quartet Op. 60, whose first movement is about as Beethovenian as Brahms gets. Strangely enough, Brahms seems to have agreed with you. He thought Op. 60 was a poor effort and not worth much. Go figure.


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

There really is no such thing as "greatest" composer... other than Brahms. And I admire your realization of his supremacy.

I'm not sure if you've mention this in your original short story, but listen to his String Sextets, and tell me that they don't blow your head clean off. Just listen to the first one, at least....


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

I'll push this a little further. Here's an excellent interpretation of his sextets by the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields Chamber Ensemble. Enjoy:


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

EdwardBast said:


> I'm not sure. One of my favorite works of Brahms is the Piano Quartet Op. 60, whose first movement is about as Beethovenian as Brahms gets. Strangely enough, Brahms seems to have agreed with you. He thought Op. 60 was a poor effort and not worth much. Go figure.


Even "weak" Brahms is more than good enough for me, but I kinda agree with him on that one. Not my favorite.

I like his melancholy, lyrical side - the violin sonatas, 2nd and 3rd symphonies, clarinet quintet, late piano works...of course there are similarities there with late Beethoven. I was thinking of middle Beethoven.

Beethoven is certainly the greater composer, but I think I like Brahms more, personally.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

EdwardBast said:


> Brahms was formally too much by the book. Beethoven wrote the book before discarding it.
> 
> In sum: Look what Beethoven did to the forms he inherited, variously expanding, exploding, stretching, and transcending them without ever being held by them. Brahms often used them as convenient molds rather than seeing them as notional embodiments of fluid principles, as Beethoven did.


Wagner said of Brahms: "One sees what can still be done with the old forms by one who knows how to handle them." It's my favorite backhanded compliment in the history of music.

I love Brahms, and feel a personal kind of affection for him that I don't feel for Beethoven, who seems a little too big, too universal, too awe-inspiring for a personal relationship. I suppose that's a way of saying that I do consider Beethoven the greater genius. While Beethoven was always trekking among the stars, going boldly where no one had gone before, Brahms trod a more terrestrial path; he had the peculiar problem of expressing his Romantic sensibilites within a Classical mold, just at the time those wild men Berlioz, Liszt and Wagner were charting their own new constellations. He solved his problem with brilliance but with considerable effort, evidently keeping his stove stoked with many a reject, and sometimes that effort shows in subtle ways: the sense that "every note with Brahms seems so purposeful and contributes to a strikingly rich texture and precision that I think is unique amongst all composers" can come with a price, a slight sense of deliberation, of calculation even, which we do not find in the works of Beethoven, whose herculean efforts to find just the right note to follow note miraculously leave us feeling that all those notes simply found themselves. I can forgive Brahms that sense of strenuous workmanship because I also admire it, and because it is part and parcel of a complex, paradoxical nature, poised between Classical and Romantic, discipline and effusiveness, and suffused with the melancholy of a man for whom the orgasmic dance of Dionysus was forbidden but the Apollonian ideal remained just out of reach.


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> Wagner said of Brahms: "One sees what can still be done with the old forms by one who knows how to handle them." It's my favorite backhanded compliment in the history of music.
> 
> I love Brahms, and feel a personal kind of affection for him that I don't feel for Beethoven, who seems a little too big, too universal, too awe-inspiring for a personal relationship. I suppose that's a way of saying that I do consider Beethoven the greater genius. While Beethoven was always trekking among the stars, going boldly where no one had gone before, Brahms trod a more terrestrial path; he had the peculiar problem of expressing his Romantic sensibilites within a Classical mold, just at the time those wild men Berlioz, Liszt and Wagner were charting their own new constellations. He solved his problem with brilliance but with considerable effort, evidently keeping his stove stoked with many a reject, and sometimes that effort shows in subtle ways: the sense that "every note with Brahms seems so purposeful and contributes to a strikingly rich texture and precision that I think is unique amongst all composers" can come with a price, a slight sense of deliberation, of calculation even, which we do not find in the works of Beethoven, whose herculean efforts to find just the right note to follow note miraculously leave us feeling that all those notes simply found themselves. I can forgive Brahms that sense of strenuous workmanship because I also admire it, and because it is part and parcel of a complex, paradoxical nature, poised between Classical and Romantic, discipline and effusiveness, and suffused with the melancholy of a man for whom the orgasmic dance of Dionysus was forbidden but the Apollonian ideal remained just out of reach.


I quite enjoy your writing.

... However, Beethoven was known to obsess and obsess over phrases and notes for some time. He was no Mozart. But, he was extraordinary.

In a similar sense, I consider Brahms. Moreover, he kept the clean precision of classicism and molded it with the sentimentalism of the romantic era... truly making him something unique. It's expressive and emotional, yet potently noble... as compared to his more ostentatious contemporaries.


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## Guest (Mar 16, 2015)

Thanks a ton for all of your patience and helpful replies. I suppose to some degree I was worried that my Brahms enthusiasm was tantamount to walking around with shoes on my hands when everyone else was wearing them on their feet. I'm not exactly sure what sort of answer I was truly hoping for to my initial question, I guess perhaps somebody pointing out an imaginary double fugue that Beethoven hid in the bass line of all of his compositions that I had somehow missed and would enlighten me as to his unequivocal paramountcy. Ultimately, however, I think it best to simply listen to music that sounds to me the most copacetic regardless of who composed it, and for me that consists of a healthy serving of both Beethoven and Brahms.



Mandryka said:


> Can you say a bit more about why you prefer The Brahms Requiem to the Missa Solemnis? Which performances are you listening to? That could be really effecting your judgement.
> 
> I like Brahms's chamber music too, though there are two or three Beethoven quartets which are really outstanding for me. I don't know the concertos as well as you, I do think that Beethoven PC 3 is a very great classical piano concerto, and the fourth does some intetesting things - but I feel less confident to comment on the Brahms.
> 
> ...


Beethoven's String Quartets 13 through 15 are some of my favorite compositions spanning all branches of music, and conclusively superior to Brahms' attempts at this genre. Beethoven's 3rd Piano Concerto is an excellent one and used to be a favorite of mine though over time I began to began to feel that the 4th was more daring and ambitious in its scope. If you like the 3rd Piano Concerto, however, I emphatically recommend Brahms' 1st in D Minor. Brahms fashioned the 3rd Movement Rondo of this concerto with Beethoven's 3rd Piano Concerto as the archetype, much as Beethoven modeled the 1st movement of his 3rd Piano Concerto after Mozart's 24th Piano Concerto. I think you will find the similarities salient, though admittedly I feel that Brahms improved on Beethoven's ideas by a significant measure in this piece and listening to his 3rd Movement Rondo always reminds me of a thrilling roller coaster ride.



EdwardBlast said:


> I don't want to play the greatness game, but I can tell you some of the reasons I spend more time with Beethoven:
> 
> The boldness of his opening movements, especially their unprecedented juxtaposition of opposing elements within their themes. Think of the opening of the Sonata Op. 57 ("Appassionata") with its immediate move to G-flat, the threatening motive from D-flat to C like a fateful knelling in the bass, and then its insane outbursts after the first sentence-and, more important, the way these initial contrasts and juxtapositions are intensified throughout without any loss of coherence. The same is true of the Sonata's Op. 31, #2 and #3, The "Eroica," the Quartets Op 59, #3 and Op. 95 and numerous other works. Brahms principal themes are melodies, Beethoven's are metaphysical conflicts.
> 
> ...


I'm glad you mentioned the slow movement from Beethoven's 7th Piano Sonata because that's a piece that I really enjoy and have also played on many, many occasions. The second movement in particular is my favorite of the piece because, in my opinion, it's "blocky" and dense and recondite and brooding and kind of reminds me a lot like a Brahms composition though I've come to realize that my tastes are idiosyncratic and most people probably don't see that at all. If I could have a second to whine about something completed unrelated, though, I've never found the 4th movement of this sonata very satisfying to play even though it sounds nice. I think it just starts and stops too much for me to really feel like I'm carrying any momentum. The very end of the 1st movement is always exciting, however, and I appreciate that the 7th Piano Sonata is perhaps a notch more challenging than most of Beethoven's early sonatas though I've never played the 4th.

Also all of your examples of Beethoven's pieces are outstanding ones and compel me to give those pieces another listen because its been some time, but I urge you to give some of Brahms' finales another chance because he truly composed some gems. All of his concerti, with his 2nd Piano Concerto prominently on my mind, have incredible final movements of towering artistic pulchitrude. Additionally, I think that the 4th movements from his 1st and 3rd Piano Quartets are both magnificent. And I apologize for perseverating, but I must also recommend the 4th movement of his 4th Symphony, and for perhaps a lesser known example, the frenetic 3rd movement of his 3rd Violin Sonata.



bLAKE said:


> There really is no such thing as "greatest" composer... other than Brahms. And I admire your realization of his supremacy.
> 
> I'm not sure if you've mention this in your original short story, but listen to his String Sextets, and tell me that they don't blow your head clean off. Just listen to the first one, at least....


Both of his Sextets are superb works that regrettably I haven't listened to in some time so my memory of that has somewhat attenuated. I recall that I thoroughly enjoyed the second one, especially the 1st movement which was so hauntingly esoteric and moving in a way that Beethoven achieved only at the very twilight of his career. I will check out both of these pieces again tomorrow when I have the time to sit down and devote my full attention.


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

OrthoPhosphate said:


> Both of his Sextets are superb works that regrettably I haven't listened to in some time so my memory of that has somewhat attenuated. I recall that I thoroughly enjoyed the second one, especially the 1st movement which was so hauntingly esoteric and moving in a way that Beethoven achieved only at the very twilight of his career. I will check out both of these pieces again tomorrow when I have the time to sit down and devote my full attention.


I would say his first is a bit more melodic in it's folk inclusion, where his second is more intellectually impressive. Both great works.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Blake said:


> I quite enjoy your writing.
> 
> ... However, Beethoven was known to obsess and obsess over phrases and notes for some time. He was no Mozart. But, he was extraordinary.
> 
> In a similar sense, I consider Brahms. Moreover, he kept the clean precision of classicism and molded it with the sentimentalism of the romantic era... truly making him something unique. It's expressive and emotional, yet potently noble... as compared to his more ostentatious contemporaries.


I think I share your feeling for Brahms. The way you speak of him rings true for me.

I didn't mean to imply that I thought composition was easy for Beethoven, but that after all the sweat the result sounded as if it did. I don't have this sense of spontaneity with Brahms. At one time this was disturbing to me, but I came to accept it as part of his personality. He himself was aware of it, and envied the audible fluency of Mozart (his "Apollonian ideal" of which I spoke).


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## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> I think I share your feeling for Brahms. The way you speak of him rings true for me.
> 
> I didn't mean to imply that I thought composition was easy for Beethoven, but that after all the sweat the result sounded as if it did. I don't have this sense of spontaneity with Brahms. At one time this was disturbing to me, but I came to accept it as part of his personality. He himself was aware of it, and envied the audible fluency of Mozart (his "Apollonian ideal" of which I spoke).


Agreed. But there's such a sincerity to Brahms' work that I don't mind feeling the strain a bit. It's almost a vicarious recognition of what it takes to make music of this caliber. There's an honesty to it.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

EdwardBast said:


> I don't want to play the greatness game, but I can tell you some of the reasons I spend more time with Beethoven:
> 
> The boldness of his opening movements, especially their unprecedented juxtaposition of opposing elements within their themes. Think of the opening of the Sonata Op. 57 ("Appassionata") with its immediate move to G-flat, the threatening motive from D-flat to C like a fateful knelling in the bass, and then its insane outbursts after the first sentence-and, more important, the way these initial contrasts and juxtapositions are intensified throughout without any loss of coherence. The same is true of the Sonata's Op. 31, #2 and #3, The "Eroica," the Quartets Op 59, #3 and Op. 95 and numerous other works. Brahms principal themes are melodies, Beethoven's are metaphysical conflicts.
> 
> ...


Re op 10/3 largo, I know Schnabel makes it sound like a pre-echo of a late adagio. But that's not the only way to do it - just think about Gulda and Gould and Jacobs. There also a movement of one of the op 18s which is a bit like that. (Forget which!)


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## DiesIraeCX (Jul 21, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> Wagner said of Brahms: "One sees what can still be done with the old forms by one who knows how to handle them." It's my favorite backhanded compliment in the history of music.
> 
> I love Brahms, and feel a personal kind of affection for him that I don't feel for Beethoven, who seems a little too big, too universal, too awe-inspiring for a personal relationship. I suppose that's a way of saying that I do consider Beethoven the greater genius. While Beethoven was always trekking among the stars, going boldly where no one had gone before, Brahms trod a more terrestrial path; he had the peculiar problem of expressing his Romantic sensibilites within a Classical mold, just at the time those wild men Berlioz, Liszt and Wagner were charting their own new constellations. He solved his problem with brilliance but with considerable effort, evidently keeping his stove stoked with many a reject, and sometimes that effort shows in subtle ways: the sense that "every note with Brahms seems so purposeful and contributes to a strikingly rich texture and precision that I think is unique amongst all composers" can come with a price, a slight sense of deliberation, of calculation even, which we do not find in the works of Beethoven, whose herculean efforts to find just the right note to follow note miraculously leave us feeling that all those notes simply found themselves. I can forgive Brahms that sense of strenuous workmanship because I also admire it, and because it is part and parcel of a complex, paradoxical nature, poised between Classical and Romantic, discipline and effusiveness, and suffused with the melancholy of a man for whom the orgasmic dance of Dionysus was forbidden but the Apollonian ideal remained just out of reach.


Wonderful thoughts on both of these composers, both favorites of mine (if that wasn't clear already!). I'm with you on pretty much all of it, only that I differ on how I personally respond to Beethoven's music in one aspect. I do agree that Beethoven was big, universal, and awe-inspiring. I feel that these adjectives, especially "big" and "universal", are mainly applicable to Beethoven's Middle Period works, whereas his Late Period, he truly was trekking among the stars, in the sense that the level of inspiration of these works truly reach unheard-of heights. My difference than your response is that I find Beethoven's late period works to be the most personal, intimate, and touching music I've ever heard. Anthony Tommasini wrote, "_in his late phase, Beethoven entered a realm that transcended eras and periods. By then completely deaf, Beethoven touched the mystical._". To use and modify EdwardBast's words, it seems that each late period work was a personal "_one of a kind statement_".

In the _Beethoven Quartet Companion_ (pg. 107), speaking about both radical and conservative factions of the 19th century Romantics, one thing they shared in common was their reverence for Beethoven and both groups considered him "_the central figure in music history... both groups celebrated the romantic dimensions of Beethoven's late works - the subjective, extreme, and personal._". For me, Beethoven's (late) music reaches the stars while remaining the most intimate of personal statements. Speaking the late quartets, "_Beethoven seemed to have created these last quartets "without any listener in mind but himself"... [they] were no longer designed to be comprehensible in terms of classical conventions. They required a romantic appreciation and a self-conscious probing of emotional memory by composer, player, and listener..._" (_Quartet Companion_, Introduction)

EdwardBast writes, "_Brahms was formally too much by the book. Beethoven wrote the book before discarding it.

In sum: Look what Beethoven did to the forms he inherited, variously expanding, exploding, stretching, and transcending them without ever being held by them. Brahms often used them as convenient molds rather than seeing them as notional embodiments of fluid principles, as Beethoven did._"

Yup, and as Jan Swafford puts it, he was more of a "_radical evolutionary, not a revolutionary_". Furthermore, the idea that Beethoven was some kind of radical or disrupter was not some posthumously and postscribed myth, "_it follows that during his own time Beethoven was widely regarded as a radical modernist, whose modernism was seen to distinguish him sharply from the Classical standards established, in the main, by Mozart and Haydn... His contemporaries - including many of his advocates - saw him as subverting Classical principles and procedures, as radical, iconoclastic, and eccentric. They did not regard him as an eighteenth century composer_" (_Beyond Classicism_, Maynard Solomon)

Woodduck, I also share your thoughts on Brahms, there is a "_sense of deliberation, even calculation_", a "_strenuous workmanship_" that I sense in Brahms' music, yet for some reason, his music often transcends this and comes off sounding as genuine (and even personal sometimes). I rarely doubt the authenticity of Brahms' often extroverted joy, as well as the most melancholy of lows. As Blake excellently put it, there's an _honesty _to Brahms' music.

As usual, please forgive all of the tangents.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Mandryka said:


> Re op 10/3 largo, I know Schnabel makes it sound like a pre-echo of a late adagio. But that's not the only way to do it - just think about Gulda and Gould and Jacobs. There also a movement of one of the op 18s which is a bit like that. (Forget which!)


I wasn't thinking of any particular performance; I've heard many, and have played it myself. I think the passion and the unhinged quality is inherent in the work and, given the extreme dynamic, textural, and registral contrasts and extended crescendos, Beethoven seems to have wanted it front and center.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> *Wagner said of Brahms: "One sees what can still be done with the* *old forms by one who knows how to handle them."* It's my favorite backhanded compliment in the history of music.
> 
> I love Brahms, and feel a personal kind of affection for him that I don't feel for Beethoven, who seems a little too big, too universal, too awe-inspiring for a personal relationship. I suppose that's a way of saying that I do consider Beethoven the greater genius. While Beethoven was always trekking among the stars, going boldly where no one had gone before, Brahms trod a more terrestrial path; he had the peculiar problem of expressing his Romantic sensibilites within a Classical mold, just at the time those wild men Berlioz, Liszt and Wagner were charting their own new constellations. He solved his problem with brilliance but with considerable effort, evidently keeping his stove stoked with many a reject, and sometimes that effort shows in subtle ways: the sense that "every note with Brahms seems so purposeful and contributes to a strikingly rich texture and precision that I think is unique amongst all composers" can come with a price, a slight sense of deliberation, of calculation even, which we do not find in the works of Beethoven, whose herculean efforts to find just the right note to follow note miraculously leave us feeling that all those notes simply found themselves. I can forgive Brahms that sense of strenuous workmanship because I also admire it, and because it is part and parcel of a complex, paradoxical nature, poised between Classical and Romantic, discipline and effusiveness, and suffused with the melancholy of a man for whom the orgasmic dance of Dionysus was forbidden but the Apollonian ideal remained just out of reach.


Sheet...I coulda said the same thing of Brahms on TC, one of my least favorite composers, and a flood of complaints would have reached the mods, with a campaign to have me banned!!

Good to know Wagner's lukewarm assessment of Brahms is in tune (pun intended) with my own.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

hpowders said:


> Sheet...I coulda said the same thing of Brahms on TC, one of my least favorite composers, and a flood of complaints would have reached the mods, with a campaign to have me banned!!
> 
> Good to know Wagner's lukewarm assessment of Brahms is in tune (pun intended) with my own.


Don't worry, h. Far more lukewarm (to say the least) things have been said about Wagner and the perpetrators are still here. It's objecting to the insults that can get you into trouble.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

DiesIraeVIX said:


> EdwardBast writes, "_Brahms was formally too much by the book. Beethoven wrote the book before discarding it.
> 
> In sum: Look what Beethoven did to the forms he inherited, variously expanding, exploding, stretching, and transcending them without ever being held by them. Brahms often used them as convenient molds rather than seeing them as notional embodiments of fluid principles, as Beethoven did._"


I don't know...these statements seem interesting but the fact is (as far as I know) Beethoven (like Brahms) used old forms. Making them longer is not the same thing as inventing something new. Are there any new forms that Beethoven created?

EdwardBast claims "Beethoven wrote _the_ book" What book exactly is this? Did Beethoven literally write a book, or is this just a symbolic statement of some kind?


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

tdc said:


> Are there any new forms that Beethoven created?


Beethoven was quite a conservative in some ways. However, he did "invent" the modern cello sonata with his Op. 5, and (some say) the song cycle with his An Die Ferne Geliebte, Op. 96. For the most part, he was happy to reshape some of the old bottles and make some really good new wine to put in them.

Added: I think he was also the first to write a concerto for piano trio, and his Choral Fantasy was in a form perhaps not used before. Neither was a very startling development.


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## trazom (Apr 13, 2009)

EdwardBast said:


> Brahms principal themes are melodies, Beethoven's are* metaphysical conflicts*.


Is that a term used often in musicology? I only asked because you use it in the same sentence as "themes" and "melodies."


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> Don't worry, h. Far more lukewarm (to say the least) things have been said about Wagner and the perpetrators are still here. *It's objecting to the insults that can get you into trouble.*


No worse than pulling a sword out of a tree that's supposed to stay in the tree.

_Notung _worse than that!!


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

hpowders said:


> No worse than pulling a sword out of a tree that's supposed to stay in the tree.
> 
> _Notung _worse than that!!


Well, they told me the pen was mightier than the sword.

But not when the mods wield the sword.

Ho ho ho ho ho jo to ho.


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## DiesIraeCX (Jul 21, 2014)

tdc said:


> I don't know...these statements seem interesting but the fact is (as far as I know) Beethoven (like Brahms) used old forms. Making them longer is not the same thing as inventing something new. Are there any new forms that Beethoven created?
> 
> EdwardBast claims "Beethoven wrote _the_ book" What book exactly is this? Did Beethoven literally write a book, or is this just a symbolic statement of some kind?


I enjoy EdwardBast's musical analysis. I'm glad you found them interesting, like I did.

One thing that confuses me about your post is the over-simplification of "Beethoven used old forms. So did Brahms". I don't believe it's that easy. Richard Wagner, for example, he used the opera form which is much older than the symphony or the string quartet, etc. *It's what you do with that form that's important, right?*. It's not as easy as "Wagner wrote operas. So did Handel". Of course not. Wagner invented and innovated plenty. Ditto for Beethoven. This particular issue is beyond debate, two hundred years of music history seems to back that up.

- The first prototypical Romantic symphony, as well as the first programmatic symphony (or tone-poem, if you will), the Sixth "Pastoral" (plenty of academia on the subject, a quick google search will bring something up). 
- The first (Romantic) song-cycle, "An Die Ferne Geliebte". An entirely new form.
- The symphony with human voice, the Ninth. Perhaps the most consequential innovation for the 19th century (regarding the symphony, that is)
- Paul Bekker called the Seventh symphony a "new form [in which] the principle of rhythm rules the form in every detail" (Late Beethoven, Maynard Solomon, pg. 102). 
- The late piano sonatas and string quartets, which kind of speak for themselves with regards to invention and innovation. The Finale of the 32nd piano sonata and Große Fuge being key examples.

This is of course, to name *just a few* innovations, inventions, subversions, and upturnings.

On EdwardBast saying that Beethoven "wrote the book", well here's this from _The First Four Notes_ (Guerrieri). I can't speak for Edward, of course, but I found this interesting. I think he meant that _mostly_ figuratively, but I'm not sure.

"A.B. Marx is today primarily remembered for codifying and naming what we now call sonata-allegro (or just sonata) form. The pattern goes like this:

A movement starts with a *first theme* in the overall key of the piece - the tonic.

Followed by the *second theme* in contrasting key, usually the interval of a perfect fifth up from the tonic - the dominant, if the movement is in a major key - or a third away - the _relative major_, if it is in a minor key.

A *third theme* brings the opening section to a close in either the dominant key or its relative major.

There follows a freer *development *section.

After which there comes a *recapitulation *of the three themes, this time all in the tonic key.

The opening movement of Beethoven's Fifth fits this pattern to a tee. As it should:* sonata form was explicitly modeled on Beethoven's practice*, an after-the-fact attempt to systematize what the next generation regarded as the apex of Classical composition."

I don't see any problems with EdwardBast's statement, "Brahms was formally too much by the book" as opposed to Beethoven, who really wasn't. Beethoven in his own time was viewed as a "radical modernist" (see my last post where I quote from multiple books on the subject, let me know if you need more quotes, I have much more literature on this). His music upset his contemporaries, even those who were in awe of him. In his own time, he was "not regarded as an eighteenth-century composer" (Maynard Solomon). Haydn had an "inability to appreciate Beethoven's post-1800 works", Weber felt certain that Beethoven could rise to true greatness "if he would only rein in his exuberant fantasy" (Solomon). Schubert (before he came to worship him later in life) thought Beethoven rejected the Classical unity and restraint, in private papers Schubert wrote that he disowned the "eccentricities which joins and confuses the tragic with the comic, the agreeable with the repulsive, heroism with howlings and the holiest with the harlequinades, without distinction". The quotes are nearly endless, "trangressions of all conception of musical order and unity" and his "frequent infractions of the rules" and the "subordination of beauty to the "powerful, violent, and intoxicating"" (Beyond Classicism, Solomon).

It can even be argued that Beethoven was consciously a "modernist", "Beethoven placed great value on the idea of progress in music... He was skeptical about the ability of broad audiences to grasp his innovations". He wrote music for a small circle of connoisseurs, never to be played in public (Op. 95, Quartett Serioso). With J.S. Bach and Handel in mind, Beethoven wrote to Archduke Rudolph, "the older composers render us double service, since there is generally real artistic value in their works... But in the world of art, as in the whole of creation, _freedom and progress_ are the main objectives" (Reason and Imagination). For the record, I don't even know if I _entirely_ agree with Beethoven on that one.

With regards to the contemporary classicist critiques, I've never read anything even _remotely_ like that about Brahms, because he was considered a conservative, especially in his own lifetime (not without some innovation, of course). To use a Seinfeld quote, "not that there's anything wrong with that", Brahms is one part of my own personal trinity of favorite composers, I couldn't be without his music.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> Well, they told me the pen was mightier than the sword.
> 
> But not when the mods wield the sword.
> 
> Ho ho ho ho ho jo to ho.


Be patient. Immolation to follow. Bring marshmallows. Dancing in Nibelung at midnight. Wear shoes.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Yeah, immolations have their place. But I'll settle for nothing less than "Erlosung dem Erloser," complete with overhead dove.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Just a note: A "Pastoral Symphony" was published in Beethoven's youth, with a program almost identical to LvB's effort, even including the storm. He know of it, since it was advertised on the same page as the notice of his first published work, the still juvenile Dressler Variations. Also, Peter von Winter's Schlacht-Sinfonie, with a concluding chorus, dates from 1814, ten years before LvB's 9th.


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## DiesIraeCX (Jul 21, 2014)

KenOC said:


> Just a note: A "Pastoral Symphony" was published in Beethoven's youth, with a program almost identical to LvB's effort, even including the storm. He know of it, since it was advertised on the same page as the notice of his first published work, the still juvenile Dressler Variations. Also, Peter von Winter's Schlacht-Sinfonie, with a concluding chorus, dates from 1814, ten years before LvB's 9th.


That is interesting, I had never heard of Peter von Winter. For further information, on Wiki, it says, "Peter von Winter's Schlacht-Sinfonie also uses a concluding chorus. Written in 1814, it predates Beethoven's Ninth by a decade. However, as an occasional work written in one movement, the Schlacht-Sinfonie "stands outside the generic tradition of the symphony". Bonds, New Grove (2001).

Schlachtsinfonie means "battle symphony". Beethoven's Wellington's Victory was also known as a Schlachtsinfonie or a Siegessinfonie. Neither are considered actual symphonies as we know them.

Edit: Also, could you provide a link to the "Pastoral Symphony"? I'd like to hear it. Who is it by?


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

tdc said:


> I don't know...these statements seem interesting but the fact is (as far as I know) Beethoven (like Brahms) used old forms. …
> 
> EdwardBast claims "Beethoven wrote _the_ book" What book exactly is this? Did Beethoven literally write a book, or is this just a symbolic statement of some kind?


Beethoven did not literally write a book (unless you want to count his collected correspondence ) He wrote music which was analyzed, charted and codified for (and sometimes by) the instrumental composers who later felt "the footsteps of a giant" behind them, as Brahms put it. Textbook sonata form, which is essentially a codification of an important part of Beethoven's formal practice (with an assist by Mozart), appeared in numerous books in the early to mid-19thc, including some of the most important didactic texts, like Antoine Reicha's Traité de haute composition musicale (1824-26) and A.B. Marx's Die Lehre von der musikalischen Komposition, praktisch-theoretisch (1837-38). These books were translated into numerous languages within years of their publication and used around the world wherever aspiring composers studied, from the U.S. to Russia and all of Europe between. Marx's Ludwig van Beethoven: Leben und Schaffen (1859), which included a lot of in depth discussion of particular works, might have exerted an even greater influence on composers than his didactic writing (It seems, for example, to have inspired an overhaul in Tchaikovsky's symphonic writing). So, Beethoven didn't literally write "the book," but he provided a lot of the content for a number of the most important books on form and compositional practice in the 19thc. Of course the direct influence of his music probably far outstrips that mediated by books, impressive as his later academic footprint was, and this influence is part of what I was getting at when I said that he (metaphorically) "wrote the book."



tdc said:


> Making them longer is not the same thing as inventing something new.


Sometimes it is! Beethoven didn't just make sonata form longer. Those enormous developmental codas (Eroica/i, 5th/i, Appassionata/i) ratchet up dramatic tension long after the tonal resolutions at the beginning of the recaps, thus motivating broader dramatic arcs at the cyclic level.



tdc said:


> Are there any new forms that Beethoven created?


You mean other than the choral symphony? Taking the concept of form in the most literal and concrete sense: Yes, many of them! He wrote a lot of movements with idiosyncratic and unclassifiable forms. I mentioned the Largo e mesto from Op. 10, #3, someone else (DiesIraeVIX?) cited the numerous examples in his late works. Now, I know you probably meant specific new formal types that got their own names and chapters in books on form, but I would suggest that his example of creating idiosyncratic, fluid, self-generating forms is even more influential for Romantic and Post-Romantic music than new textbooks forms might have been.

To really do justice to Beethoven's formal invention, however, we have to get away from the literal and concrete sense of the term form and focus on principles and processes. If we do, it becomes clear that Beethoven invented nearly every notable procedure or process for unity at the cyclic level, including the dramaticized overall progression from minor mode to major mode, the unification of multimovement structures by recurring mottos and motives, the parade of earlier themes at the beginning of a finale (the 9th), the reprise of prominent early themes in the development section of the finale (the 5th), fugal finales based on earlier material (as in the Sonata Op. 110), and rhapsodic penultimate movements proceeding attacca into the finale (Sonata Op. 53, "Waldstein," Fourth Piano Concerto). All of these procedures were copiously imitated by later composers, and even though some were anticipated by obscure earlier works, Beethoven's examples were the archetypal works known and imitated; Sometimes, showing how to do it right is more important than doing it first.

In sum, Beethoven's contribution of new formal ideas to western musical culture is impossible to overestimate.

Edit: I see that DiesIraeVIX has anticipated and done a better job on some of the above points while I was furiously typing away.:tiphat:


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

trazom said:


> Is that a term used often in musicology? I only asked because you use it in the same sentence as "themes" and "melodies."


Not that I'm aware. That sort of thing slips out when I'm waxing rhetorical.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

DiesIraeVIX said:


> That is interesting, I had never heard of Peter von Winter. For further information, on Wiki, it says, "Peter von Winter's Schlacht-Sinfonie also uses a concluding chorus. Written in 1814, it predates Beethoven's Ninth by a decade. However, as an occasional work written in one movement, the Schlacht-Sinfonie "stands outside the generic tradition of the symphony". Bonds, New Grove (2001).
> 
> Edit: Also, could you provide a link to the "Pastoral Symphony"? I'd like to hear it. Who is it by?


Regarding von Winter, I don't think anybody's ever heard of him, probably with good reason. His Schlact-Symphonie (Battle Symphony) was written about the same time as Beethoven's own Wellington's Victory, which was also sometimes called the Battle Symphony, so it may also have had to do with the Congress of Vienna a and those goings-on. It's likely right that we wouldn't consider it a true symphony, regardless of its title.

The information on Justin Heinrich Knecht's 1784 Symphony "The Musical Portrait of Nature" comes from Sir George Grove's "Beethoven and his Nine Symphonies" 3rd edition 1898, p.191-192 of the Dover reprint. Its five movements are described there. It was advertised on the same page as the advertisement for Beethoven's juvenile Electoral Sonatas, not the Dressler Variations as I misremembered. As Grove points out, Beethoven was hardly likely to miss it!

Grove examined the score and said there was no resemblance, beyond the titles, between this and Beethoven's own Pastoral. So far as I know, it has never been recorded.

Ha! I found it, on Naxos! Maybe it's on NML. (Yes it is! I'm going to listen later.)

http://www.amazon.com/Knecht-Philid...ie=UTF8&qid=1426555483&sr=1-1&keywords=knecht

Added: Knecht's symphony is also available on YouTube:


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

(01) J.S. Bach
(02) Ludwig van Beethoven
(03) Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

I just want to pop in and thank some people who have put some really interesting insights into this thread. I didn't expect much from the title, but then I really enjoyed reading it!


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## Nereffid (Feb 6, 2013)

KenOC said:


> Regarding von Winter, I don't think anybody's ever heard of him, probably with good reason.


Those who know Beethoven's more obscure piano works will have heard of him: in 1799 Beethoven wrote a set of variations (WoO 75) on "Kind, willst du ruhig schlafen" from Winter's "Das unterbrochene Opferfest".


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

I have several compositions of von Winter in my CD collection. OK, a minor master, but fun to listen to once in a while.


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## Guest (Mar 18, 2015)

Wow, I sincerely appreciate all of this insightful dialogue in response to my humble question because I've really managed to glean tremendous amounts of wisdom simply by quietly reading your discussion. All of this discourse, however, did bring one new question to my mind.

Do you think that perhaps in Classical Music too much emphasis is placed on which pieces or composers are the most "ground-breaking" or "innovative" as opposed to celebrating works based purely on their aesthetic, musical merits. For example, I am of the opinion that Beethoven essentially established the prototypical standard for the large-scale, dramatic Violin Concerto of the Romantic Era that inspired many subsequent great works of that genre. Brahms' own Violin Concerto was published 72 years later, and borrows prodigiously from Beethoven's work -- for example, the first movement is of similarly massive length and the violin soloist enters to Timpani. No one would argue that Brahms' Concerto is the more revolutionary work; in fact, its form was actually becoming antiquated for the late 19th Century (Tchaikovsky's was published the same year in 1878 I think). However, no matter how many times I listen to both great works, I still find Brahms' piece to be ever so slightly superior. I personally feel that Beethoven brought the scope and profundity of the Violin Concerto as an artistic medium up miles from where it lay in the Classical Era, yet if we were to entertain the hypothetical that perhaps Brahms fine-tuned Beethoven's model ever-so-slightly and composed the minutely superior work, we'd still have to concede that in a vacuum Brahms' Violin Concerto simply sounds better than Beethoven's.

I suppose to offer an allegory: the first video game, Pong, was designed in 1972 by a highly inventive and intelligent Computer Science Engineer from UC Berkeley and looked to be approximately the size of a refrigerator. Nowadays, you could train any run-of-the-mill highschool student to code a considerably more advanced, polished version of Pong that could be played on an iPhone. I think that innovation and the advancement of our understanding of things allows less talented individuals to still achieve commensurate or even greater success than their predecessors because as Isaac Newton once said, "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." It's simply a matter of some other individual placing a cherry on top of the cake after the chef had performed all of the legwork in baking it in the first place. I still feel that Beethoven is the greater genius and posterity owes him immeasurably for his unprecedented contributions that propelled music to hitherto unimaginable heights, yet music is still a constantly evolving field and I don't think it's inconceivable that Brahms, as the subsequent composer, managed to improve on many of Beethoven's models by utilizing a more expansive musical vocabulary than was available in Beethoven's own time. But again, these are simply my jumbled, incoherent opinions, and I find it refreshing that most disagree with me and celebrate Beethoven as the greatest composer because he was such an unparalleled, innovative visionary whose influence profoundly inspired the next century of western musical thought. I just can't shake this troublesome sentiment when I listen to later composers such as Brahms that they managed to pick up and improve on the ideas that Beethoven left behind.



Edward Blast said:


> I'm not sure. One of my favorite works of Brahms is the Piano Quartet Op. 60, whose first movement is about as Beethovenian as Brahms gets. Strangely enough, Brahms seems to have agreed with you. He thought Op. 60 was a poor effort and not worth much. Go figure.


I had forgotten to reply to this message earlier, but this genuinely shocks me that Brahms' was not a fan of his 3rd Piano Quartet. I know that he had composed it partially back in 1861 along with the first two quartets and continued working on it piecemeal before finally finishing it in 1875 I think, but his final product is a true masterpiece and probably my favorite of the chamber works by Brahms. Alas, maybe working on the same piece for so long simply soured it for him.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Not to change the subject, but which of his own works did Brahms admit to admiring?


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> Well, they told me the pen was mightier than the sword.
> 
> But not when the mods wield the sword.
> 
> Ho ho ho ho ho jo to ho.


Ironically, some people see a pencil with an eraser at both ends as the pen-ultimate truth.


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

Marschallin Blair said:


> Ironically, some people see a pencil with an eraser at both ends as the pen-ultimate truth.




Even more ironically, I'm afraid I felt obliged to report your post to the mods, Marschallin Blair!

There have been far too many "pointless" puns around here lately!


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Blancrocher said:


> Even more ironically, I'm afraid I felt obliged to report your post to the mods, Marschallin Blair!
> 
> There have been far too many "pointless" puns around here lately!


I'm sorry. . . 'what' was your point?

_;D_


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## Blancrocher (Jul 6, 2013)

Marschallin Blair said:


> I'm sorry. . . 'what' was your point?
> 
> _;D_




Nothing--sorry, MB. I withdraw my anti-penultimate post.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Blancrocher said:


> Nothing--sorry, MB. I withdraw my anti-penultimate post.


Then perhaps this will be my 'ante'-anti-penultimate post- depending on whether you reply to me or not.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

OrthoPhosphate said:


> I had forgotten to reply to this message earlier, but this genuinely shocks me that Brahms' was not a fan of his 3rd Piano Quartet. I know that he had composed it partially back in 1861 along with the first two quartets and continued working on it piecemeal before finally finishing it in 1875 I think, but his final product is a true masterpiece and probably my favorite of the chamber works by Brahms. Alas, maybe working on the same piece for so long simply soured it for him.


Not only was he not a fan, but in offering it to his publisher, Simrock, he specifically said it isn't worth much but that perhaps he might want to publish it anyway. To his friend Billroth he described the result of his revisions (to an earlier version in C# minor) as "a curiosity - perhaps an illustration for the last chapter about the man in the blue coat and the yellow waistcoat." Here he was referring to Werther, from Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther. In fact, he made this comparison on several occasions, including these lines to Simrock:

"On the cover you must have a picture, namely a head with a pistol to it. Now you can form some conception of the music! I'll send you my photograph for the purpose. You can use blue coat, yellow breeches and top-boots, since you seem to like color printing."

Brahms's drift here is obvious: In the last chapter of the novel, Werther blows his brains out because he is hopelessly in love with his friend's wife. When Brahms wrote the initial version of the Quartet he was in exactly the same situation: in love with Clara Schumann while Robert was still alive and institutionalized. At the very end of the finale, after the main melody in augmentation stretches out in hopeless yearning, there is a perfunctory cadence, the first chord representing the gunshot, the second representing the protagonist hitting the ground. That is my interpretation anyway; haven't heard anyone else say it. Seems obvious though, in light of Brahms's comments.

Why he thought the piece was of little value is anyone's guess, although the fact that it ends with a tasteless and macabre joke might have had something to do with it. In any case, almost everyone thinks he was wrong. Was he embarrassed at its unbridled passion? Did he see it as inorganic and cobbled together because he knew the disjointed history of its composition and revision? And if he really thought it was bad, why did he not destroy it as he allegedly did with other substandard work? Could it be because it was too deeply tied to his personal experience and his feelings for Clara? Plenty of room for speculation here.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

OrthoPhosphate said:


> Do you think that perhaps in Classical Music too much emphasis is placed on which pieces or composers are the most "ground-breaking" or "innovative" as opposed to celebrating works based purely on their aesthetic, musical merits.


Yes, I do. But my citations above of Beethoven's formal innovations, at least, were not offered as a reason for preferring his music over that of Brahms, they were in response to a specific question about whether Beethoven invented new forms. In my first post, however, I did imply that I found Brahms too conservative formally, because he too often used inherited forms as ready made molds.


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## Guest (Mar 18, 2015)

EdwardBast said:


> Not only was he not a fan, but in offering it to his publisher, Simrock, he specifically said it isn't worth much but that perhaps he might want to publish it anyway. To his friend Billroth he described the result of his revisions (to an earlier version in C# minor) as "a curiosity - perhaps an illustration for the last chapter about the man in the blue coat and the yellow waistcoat." Here he was referring to Werther, from Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther. In fact, he made this comparison on several occasions, including these lines to Simrock:
> 
> "On the cover you must have a picture, namely a head with a pistol to it. Now you can form some conception of the music! I'll send you my photograph for the purpose. You can use blue coat, yellow breeches and top-boots, since you seem to like color printing."
> 
> ...


Thanks a bunch for imparting your wisdom - I have actually heard Op 60 referred to as the "Werther" Quartet somewhat infrequently and surmised that there was some connection to Goethe's early novel but I'd never heard the backstory behind the nickname. That certainly offers me an entirely new, almost programmatic angle from which to approach this masterpiece. Having some perspective on Brahms' inner-turmoil while composing the work certainly gives me a better perspective on the profound emotional depth interwoven in the fabric of each movement - I honestly can't pick a favorite, although I think the Andante might be the greatest amongst all of Brahms' slow movements.

Nonetheless, there's a part of me that thinks that Brahms' often chose to recognize his greatest compositions not in the pompously grandiose manner of someone like Wagner, but rather through a snarky, self-deprecating sense of humor. When referencing his newly completed 4th Symphony in a letter to a friend (I forget who), he demurely referred to his recent composition as _"a few entr'actes are lying here ready - the thing one usually calls a symphony."_ Also, to announce the completion of his 2nd Piano Concerto, one of my all-time favorite works by Brahms, he wrote in a manner that can hardly be read with a straight face: _"I have written a tiny little piano concerto with a little wisp of a scherzo."_ Now, I don't think Brahms is this exceptionally modest saint whose humility knows no bounds, rather, I think he recognized these works as masterpieces, including his 3rd Piano Quartet, and was boasting about his accomplishments through a false bashfulness. I completely agree that Brahms no doubt experienced intense frustrations with regards to the enormous length of time it was taking him to finish the Quartet, and likely was having ambivalent feeling about the piece's inextricable link to Clara Schumann, but at the end of the day it wouldn't shock me if Brahms finally saw something uniquely marvelous and profound in his finished product which would explain why it was not destroyed like so many others.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

EdwardBast said:


> Not only was he not a fan, but in offering it to his publisher, Simrock, he specifically said it isn't worth much but that perhaps he might want to publish it anyway. To his friend Billroth he described the result of his revisions (to an earlier version in C# minor) as "a curiosity - perhaps an illustration for the last chapter about the man in the blue coat and the yellow waistcoat." Here he was referring to Werther, from Goethe's The Sorrows of Young Werther. In fact, he made this comparison on several occasions, including these lines to Simrock:
> 
> "On the cover you must have a picture, namely a head with a pistol to it. Now you can form some conception of the music! I'll send you my photograph for the purpose. You can use blue coat, yellow breeches and top-boots, since you seem to like color printing."
> 
> ...


My sense of Brahms' self-esteem is that he rarely if ever thought a work he'd composed was really good. Some of it, though, wasn't (in his opinion) as bad as the rest of it, and that's what he released to the world.


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## leroy (Nov 23, 2014)

This is a nice thread to read through, and for any of you who want to get some really good insights into the classical style I would highly recommend reading Charles Rosens' "The Classical Style: Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven" (expanded Edition) not only will it help you understand what they did but you will probably enjoy the music even more, I know I do.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

OrthoPhosphate said:


> Thanks a bunch for imparting your wisdom - I have actually heard Op 60 referred to as the "Werther" Quartet somewhat infrequently and surmised that there was some connection to Goethe's early novel but I'd never heard the backstory behind the nickname. That certainly offers me an entirely new, almost programmatic angle from which to approach this masterpiece. Having some perspective on Brahms' inner-turmoil while composing the work certainly gives me a better perspective on the profound emotional depth interwoven in the fabric of each movement - I honestly can't pick a favorite, although I think the Andante might be the greatest amongst all of Brahms' slow movements.


A modern biographer, Ian MacDonald, suggests a literal programmatic interpretation for the heavy sighing motive in the first movement. He hears it moaning Cla-ra, Cla-ra  Yes, the Andante is wonderful.



OrthoPhosphate said:


> Nonetheless, there's a part of me that thinks that Brahms' often chose to recognize his greatest compositions not in the pompously grandiose manner of someone like Wagner, but rather through a snarky, self-deprecating sense of humor. When referencing his newly completed 4th Symphony in a letter to a friend (I forget who), he demurely referred to his recent composition as _"a few entr'actes are lying here ready - the thing one usually calls a symphony."_ Also, to announce the completion of his 2nd Piano Concerto, one of my all-time favorite works by Brahms, he wrote in a manner that can hardly be read with a straight face: _"I have written a tiny little piano concerto with a little wisp of a scherzo."_ Now, I don't think Brahms is this exceptionally modest saint whose humility knows no bounds, rather, I think he recognized these works as masterpieces, including his 3rd Piano Quartet, and was boasting about his accomplishments through a false bashfulness. I completely agree that Brahms no doubt experienced intense frustrations with regards to the enormous length of time it was taking him to finish the Quartet, and likely was having ambivalent feeling about the piece's inextricable link to Clara Schumann, but at the end of the day it wouldn't shock me if Brahms finally saw something uniquely marvelous and profound in his finished product which would explain why it was not destroyed like so many others.


To me Brahms's comments about Opus 60 seem thoroughly different in character than the ones you have quoted. What he said about the Fourth Symphony and Second Piano Concerto sounds like false modesty in the first case and a joke about inordinate length in the latter. In neither case does he criticize the character and expressive qualities of the work. The Piano Quartet, however, he cited at least three times for its excessively dark and passionate nature. More important, he made deprecating remarks about its value to his publisher, against his own financial interests. If he didn't really have a low opinion of it, the only other explanation of his comments that seems credible to me is that he was embarrassed by its youthful passion and angst. I think it is a great work and wish he had written more like it.


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