# What distinguishes Brahms and Beethoven from each other in just a few measures?



## LAS (Dec 12, 2014)

Hubby and I like to try to identify the composer when we turn on the radio in the middle of a piece we don't recognize. In a high number of cases we can identify Brahms, Beethoven, Bach and Mozart/Haydn. The game is only "fair" if the passages we hear don't include identifiable tunes. And, of course, structure is irrelevant. So my question is, what is it that let's us know it's Beethoven, not Brahms and vice versa? It must have something to do with orchestration. (Does Brahms depend more on brass and woodwinds while Beethoven depends more on strings???) Perhaps one is fond of one chord structure and the other of a different one?

If I were musically educated, or had a better musical memory, I could probably answer these questions myself, but I'm not and I don't. Hoping you all can help.

A related question that I've asked here before. Are there books that talk about different composers' "sound?" Their orchestration? I've heard that Peter Schickele had his students write pieces "in the style of." Had they been taught what those styles were? Or could they just do it because they were good enough for Juilliard?

Thanks,

LAS


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

Beethoven's comprehensive form sounds inseparable from his subconscious, as though he had to struggle pushing beyond it in order to finally peer outside the walls of the establishment. While Brahms's form sounds more like an adopted convention, always working so vigorously and passionately to stay intact, he feels like a tendency to break away is his constant weakness. The former thought it immensely difficult to break away from the trappings of current music. That's the largest difference I always hear.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Beethoven also had a keen sense of drama, he wrote one opera whereas Brahms did not write any operas.


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## cheregi (Jul 16, 2020)

I'm not an experienced enough listener to be of much help (Brahms' chamber music, at least, loves dense and complex bass lines?) but I want to say I think that's an extremely sweet and adorable game to play with your partner!!


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

I think the OP wasn't talking about the form. There are certain motifs in Brahms, a language which it would be easier for me to convey to you if I could hum something, and likewise Beethoven has his motifs, little bits of musical thought that were their own and come from a common language. Brahms does have a certain way he writes for winds, as does Beethoven. In early Brahms you can hear more echoes of Beethoven. He likes leaps of major and minor 6th intervals too, I've noticed.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

LAS said:


> Mozart/Haydn.


Btw, I recently wrote that Mozart is actually more linguistically similar to Michael Haydn (in another thread):

https://www.talkclassical.com/54405-haydn-muscular-mozart-24.html#post2038819


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## GraemeG (Jun 30, 2009)

We play this game a bit, too. Turn on radio; "who's the composer?" Usually it's not too hard to pick (sometimes recognising it outright, of course), but other times you have to narrow it down.
'This sounds like Schumann' etc, is the approach. Or start by ruling our what it's not. You just work your way through the possibilities. I got into the car one night, turned the radio on and listed for a while to a chamber work I didn't recognise. In the end I settled on an early Shostakovich string quartet. Announcer came on - bingo - Quartet No 1. I'd never heard the piece before to my knowledge, but just went with 'who it sounded like.'


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Rhythm is often more important in Beethoven and drama, often contrasted with sublimely flowing fluidity. There is not music like it. Brahms has a sort of classical rigour (perhaps contrasted with Beethoven's greater willingness to follow his inspiration) and a very distinctive sound but for me it is the warmth that distinguished his music - and again there is no other music like it.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

Beethoven's principal trait is rhythm -- tempo or drive. Take that away and he is not Beethoven.

Brahms' principal trait is lyricism - hummable tunes. Try to find something of his you like that doesn't have one.


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## LAS (Dec 12, 2014)

"In just a few measures...The game is only "fair" if the passages we hear don't include identifiable tunes. And, of course, structure is irrelevant."

Thanks. Several interesting replies, but do you have thoughts about the sound of just a few measures?

LAS


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## LAS (Dec 12, 2014)

Clavichorder: "I think the OP wasn't talking about the form."

Thanks. I'll pay attention to early vs late Brahms re winds and think of Beethoven. Are you able to articulate what that "certain way" is? Just exactly the sort of thing I'm looking for. Humming wouldn't work for my purposes because I'm concentrating, in particular, on the kinds of passages that are recognizable as being by the composer even without a tune.

Thanks for pointing out that I wasn't talking about form. An awful lot of the replies here go straight to form (haven't counted, but it felt that way.) I've posted similar questions over the years and I haven't yet found a way to confine replies to "just a few measures."

Thanks again!


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

Ethereality said:


> Beethoven's comprehensive form sounds inseparable from his subconscious, as though *he had to struggle pushing beyond it* in order to finally peer outside the walls of the establishment. While Brahms's form sounds more like an adopted convention, always working so vigorously and passionately to stay intact, he feels like a tendency to break away is his constant weakness. The former thought it immensely difficult to break away from the trappings of current music. That's the largest difference I always hear.


I think that the struggling of Beethoven while composing is often exaggerated. Did you know that his entire output is bigger (in playing time) than that of Brahms? Or that it's of comparable size to those of Chopin, Debussy, Ravel and Mahler put _together_? If he struggled, then so did all these composers and many others.


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## chu42 (Aug 14, 2018)

Allerius said:


> I think that the struggling of Beethoven while composing is often exaggerated. Did you know that his entire output is bigger (in playing time) than that of Brahms? Or that it's of comparable size to those of Chopin, Debussy, Ravel and Mahler put _together_? If he struggled, so did all these composers and many others.


I suppose that the counterargument would be that a vast portion of Beethoven's oeuvre hardly sees the light of day. From one of my previous posts:



chu42 said:


> Out of 18 overtures/incidental works, only 2 of them are performed regularly and none of them are highly acclaimed.
> 
> Out of 31 solo chamber works, only several violin and cello sonatas receive regular performance.
> 
> ...


While there are certainly works by Brahms and Bach that do not see much performance, critical evaluation of their overall body of work seems to be much more uniform than that of Beethoven.


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

chu42 said:


> I suppose that the counterargument would be that a vast portion of Beethoven's oeuvre hardly sees the light of day. From one of my previous posts:
> 
> While there are certainly works by Brahms and Bach that do not see much performance, critical evaluation of their overall body of work seems to be much more uniform than that of Beethoven.


My point was that he was able to create so many works, not that his overall body of works is consistently played nowadays. Telemann is supposed to have created more than 3000 compositions, of which only a few receive attention today. Would anyone say that Telemann struggled to compose due to this?


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## chu42 (Aug 14, 2018)

Allerius said:


> My point was that he was able to create so many works, not that his overall body of works is consistently played nowadays. Telemann is supposed to have created more than 3000 compositions, of which only a few receive attention today. Would anyone say that Telemann struggled to compose due to this?


Yeah, I guess not. I personally am not one of those who believe Beethoven "struggled" to compose, but perhaps some things did not come as naturally to him as they did for Bach. Which doesn't say much because Bach is known especially for his combination of quality and prolificity.

Beethoven still has far more works considered "masterpieces" than the vast majority of composers in the repertoire.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Allerius said:


> My point was that he was able to create so many works, not that his overall body of works is consistently played nowadays. Telemann is supposed to have created more than 3000 compositions, of which only a few receive attention today. Would anyone say that Telemann struggled to compose due to this?


We should also consider the periods in which Telemann, Bach for example operated compared to Beethoven. The former were employees who were paid to write a new church cantata every Sunday or a new concerto for chamber evenings every two weeks. The Romantics had far less commissions/formal employment to churn out new compositions on a regular calendar. "When next week came, the ruler wanted to play/hear a new concerto/symphony", which obviously no longer applied to Beethoven.

I am nearly sure that if Beethoven was born in 1685 and Bach was born in 1800, both would have been equally prolific and masterful in their production by the period and its social requirements and norms of the day.


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## Axter (Jan 15, 2020)

I would say in Beethoven’s music motifs were distinguishely pronounced, and also daring. Eroica’s first mvmt was outright shocking the Vienniese audience with its vigor same as 5th first mvmt, and 9th first and second mvmt. And that combined with a distinctive tone.
Brahms on the other hand was more melodic and more consistent with the norms of music during the period he composed.


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

ArtMusic said:


> We should also consider the periods in which Telemann, Bach for example operated compared to Beethoven. The former were employees who were paid to write a new church cantata every Sunday or a new concerto for chamber evenings every two weeks. The Romantics had far less commissions/formal employment to churn out new compositions on a regular calendar. "When next week came, the ruler wanted to play/hear a new concerto/symphony", which obviously no longer applied to Beethoven.


Agreed. And this is one more argument against the idea of the struggling Beethoven.



chu42 said:


> Yeah, I guess not. I personally am not one of those who believe Beethoven "struggled" to compose, but perhaps some things did not come as naturally to him as they did for Bach. Which doesn't say much because Bach is known especially for his combination of quality and prolificity.


Yet Bach also has his quota of works that aren't so well known by the public today. BWV 250 to 500 for example fall in this category.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Allerius said:


> Yet Bach also has his quota of works that aren't so well known by the public today. BWV 250 to 500 for example fall in this category.


Yes, indeed. Bach was prolific but there were many more Baroque composers who wrote significantly more works than Bach did. Again this is simply an idiom of the Baroque, when composers were musical servants, literally.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

LAS said:


> Clavichorder: "I think the OP wasn't talking about the form."
> 
> Thanks. I'll pay attention to early vs late Brahms re winds and think of Beethoven. Are you able to articulate what that "certain way" is? Just exactly the sort of thing I'm looking for. Humming wouldn't work for my purposes because I'm concentrating, in particular, on the kinds of passages that are recognizable as being by the composer even without a tune.
> 
> ...


I wish I could help, but it really is an intuition thing for me as it probably is for you. Using that intuition I could hum what me and another poster here have called "isms," which while a given "ism" can be found in many composers, it tends to be used most frequently or distinctly by the composer in question. One of Brahms that I can describe verbally is a motif of a sort of running long 1(quarter note) 2 +(8th notes) (or conversely 8th and 2 16ths or half and 2 quarters) and so on in succession but the 1 is the central note, and the 2 is most often a half step, sometimes a whole step down, and then the + is same as 1, but the next note in the sequence could be a half step up, or even leap another interval, anything from a 3rd to a 6th or so, on which note the 1 2 + pattern starts again. Think the Finale of Brahms 3 and how it begins with the winds. You can find this motif all over Brahms, and his buddy Dvorak even adopted it sometimes, reflecting heavily that influence with his own touches and being a most sincere and personal copycat at times.

Maybe what I've described of Brahms can be heard in many composers, some even before him, but there is a way he does it which I guess I have to cop out of describing further and impute to a "you'll know it."

Look for those types of things in Brahms and Beethoven. For Beethoven the one always cited is the rhythm of the 5th symphony 1st mvt and anything at all resembling it, but there are plenty of subtler ones that make up his musical canvas.

It's a lot easier to describe a motif "ism" like that, than it is to describe a textural one, or just a "flow".


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

It's not always obvious, but other than "Brahms sounds like Brahms," the best I can do is that Brahms almost obsessively composes through the bar line.


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