# Brahms Chamber vs. Orchestral



## ORigel (May 7, 2020)

*It is 1897 and Brahms has become disillusioned with his skills as a composer. He is ready to consign all his works to the flame, but you can convince him to spare either all his orchestral works (symphonies, concerti, overtures, Serenades, and Haydn Variations) or all his chamber works (chamber works for strings, piano, and other instruments including sonatas.* You cannot choose both. Unfortunately, Herr Brahms has already destroyed his lieder, choral, piano, and organ works, so you cannot save them.

*Which would you choose to save?*


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Fortunately, by 1897 both his chamber and orchestral works have been dispersed safely over Europe, so we don't have to worry about whatever he consigns to the flames.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

I'd take the third choice: Beat him about the head until he either died or agreed to let it all survive. That would be a pretty clear case of justifiable homicide.


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## Gray Bean (May 13, 2020)

I’m sorry, but I can’t even pretend to have to make such a choice! Life without either is unimaginable!


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## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

Gray Bean said:


> I'm sorry, but I can't even pretend to have to make such a choice! Life without either is unimaginable!


Me too, but I've always thought that if I were stuck on that desert island with Bach's WTC and the complete chamber works of Brahms (probably the two things that get the most consistent playing time on my streaming service) it wouldn't be a bad way to go. I absolutely adore Brahms's symphonies, but I would trade in those four works for his much larger chamber output. Plus, his concerti and other orchestral works are not necessarily my favorite works of his.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Trash them all.
This is all I need from the _talentless *******_:






jjk


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

Definitely burn it all. And then throw Brahms himself on the fire for having written it at all. :devil:


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Couchie said:


> Definitely burn it all. And then throw Brahms himself on the fire for having written it at all. :devil:


Yeah. Do not let him rot peacefully in a grave like Rott. Don't let his compositions decompose peacefully on a landfill. It's not like I'm hating Brahms personally, it's more a problem of "raisin cereal VS pizza". For some, one of them tastes definitely better than the other, so the other must be immediately, utterly eradicated without a trace.


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## Animal the Drummer (Nov 14, 2015)

I'd save the orchestral music. The chamber music is something I've got into much more over the years, but I've loved the concertos in particular almost from the beginning of my love for classical music when I was knee-high to a grasshopper.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

The chamber works. I'm not saying they are better, but I prefer Brahms' soundworld in more intimate surroundings.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

It is an impossible question, of course. I voted orchestral partly because all of it is great. I do have some reservations about some of the most noted chamber works - finding them a little too much of a good thing, too rich - and can't take too many of them at the same time. I suppose that is mostly down to the way they are usually played. For me Brahms the orchestral composer is as great as any (Beethoven, Mozart etc.) while I would not say quite the same about Brahms the chamber composer.


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## BenG (Aug 28, 2018)

I think most of Brahms symphonies could be improved by arranging them for piano quintet or quartet. It suits Brahms well.


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## Animal the Drummer (Nov 14, 2015)

By contrast I'd point to a series of piano duet and two-piano reductions of Brahms' chamber music issued by Naxos some time back, many of which give me at least much enjoyment as the originals!


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

BenG said:


> I think most of Brahms symphonies could be improved by arranging them for piano quintet or quartet. It suits Brahms well.


They could be improved by transcribing them for piano. And then transcribing that transcription for tumbleweed blowing in the wind.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

This sounds like much Brahms bashing going on.

I didn't vote in the poll, but I could only select "Let it all burn" with the understanding that that includes the immolation of everything else in the world, including the world -- and all of us, too. For what is the use of living in a world bereft of the music of Johannes Brahms? Yes, I love Brahms: the symphonic works, the chamber music, the solo piano music, the songs, chorales, and anything the old bearded fellow ever hummed while strolling down a street in Hamburg or Vienna, hands behind his back, head down and eyes on the paving bricks at his feet, mind in the stars.

And I refuse to vote for an action that removes any of the music from our consciousness.


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## Gray Bean (May 13, 2020)

Hear! Hear! Spot on!


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