"Ahhh, Bach!"
Tchaikovsky's last 3 symphonies are masterpieces, even if he occasionally mangles sonata format.
Several things are noteworthy about the 6th. The title, "Pathetique", is a French mistranslation of the Russian pateticheski, which means "passionate".
I once heard a recording by a Russian orchestra where something amazing happened in the first movement. Where the slow dark introduction yields to the first subject, the strings played that first line as though it were a question, and a rather specific question: "Why is this happening to me?" I could hear it clearly, and it brought on cold chills.
The finale's opening lament on the strings is amazing because if you play the first and second violin lines separately, you can't hear the tune. Only when you play them together can you hear it. How did he write that?
Tchaikovsky picked up where Delibes left off in ballet score writing. His 3 major ballets are magnificent even if you are just listening to them.
If you want Tckaikovsky in a purely classical vein, listen to his first string quartet (D major, Op. 11). It's as tight as any quartet by Haydn. (But stay away from the E-flat minor quartet, which never should have been published.)
What makes Brahms so much better appreciated is that he was a merciless self-critic. He only published 3 string quartets, but admitted to destroying 20 and using the scores to paper his room. He only published a piece if he thought it was good enough to bear his name, and it shows. Every one of his symphonies, concerti and chamber works is standard in the repertory. Even his songs, if not as well known as Schubert's, are worthy of being heard. (Some, like the Op. 91 songs for contralto with piano and viola accompaniment, are masterpieces.)
The whole Brahms-Wagner thing came about as a result of Europe's reaction to the romantic spirit. Following the revolutionary advances of Beethoven, the music that followed "composted", if you want to search for a word. Mendelssohn wrote some fine romantic works, while Schumann and Chopin became the German and French poets of the piano.
Wagner decided to completely rework the concept of opera, even insisting on calling it "music drama" to avoid pointing to a maligned form. (If you check the late operas of Verdi and Saint-Saens, you'll see just how thoroughly Wagner reworked the genre.) His sources were typically romantic, with the accent on the German people's great cultural heritage via myth. But the precision of sonata format was not for him.
Brahms gets tagged as "neoclasical", but in chamber music he was a revolutionary. As a musical historian, he was one of the few people in Vienna who was familiar with Palestrina and Gesualdo, even if he had no knowledge of genuine Renaissance or Baroque performance practice due to the distance of time. But he wrote a lot of good music in the forms created by Haydn and earlier composers.
Brahms was a great admirer of Wagner, and one of his prized possessions was an autographed score of Wagner's Die Meistersinger. It was Bruckner that Brahms abhored.
The Brahms-versus-Wagner argument permeated what came later. Schoenberg admired both composers and saw his atonalism as the logical progression of Wagnerian thought. Orff threw it all out and went back to pure rhythm and a kind of primitivism. ("Carmina Burana" is Latin and medieval German rap music on a grand scale.) Berg and Webern adapted the Wagner-Schoenberg traits but opted for Brahmsian brevity, while Bartok and Kodaly tried a different blend of components. Modern composers like Zimmerli -- I helped commission his Piano Trio #2 in G -- have no shame in opting for a Brahmsian approach.
Once Wagnerism mixed with German philosophy, it eventually led to Hitler. The Israelis are still very sensitive about that.
Would that be the philosophy of Nietzsche? Nietzsche and Wagner reunited under National Socialism? Talk about Hegelian Dialectic — where the thesis and anti(Christ)thesis had a big falling out — leading to Nazi synthesis. Today they would be the equivalent of Blues Brothers with a dead God in tow. Classical music has taken a beating.
I agree Tchaikovsky mangles the sonata form but the music didn’t suffer with his “music first, form later” approach. Brahms is more like a well oil and fine tuned touring machine with all the internal parts just clicking along. If you appreciate complex structure and deep relations Brahms (and Bach) is the ticket.
Berg and Webern adapted the Wagner-Schoenberg traits but opted for Brahmsian brevity, while Bartok and Kodaly tried a different blend of components.
I wonder if modern compositional practices really chuck out the baby with the bath water. The dissonance of a new language — say Schoenberg’s serialism as a new non musical means of organizing sound — really can’t be a substitute for ideas that are born from tonality. Certain qualities cannot be expressed. Unless, that is, you re-tune the human ear. Which they are trying to do but haven’t succeeded. For example, dissonance resolving to less dissonance doesn’t cut it for a modern resolution in the same way tonality resolves. If I can use an analogy, modern music is like a lover trying to express feelings of love with words that have all the vowel sounds removed. All he is left with are consonants. It’s a harsh, edgy, angular sound. It’s not a full vocabulary or language.
Today's modern music is something else. I hear of a guy writing a symphony using some bug that gave off a high pitched sound by scratching their legs. There wouldn't be anybody left in the audience... yes, cricket sounds would be all that you'd hear.
Tchaikovsky’s music was gay, but also Brahms’. He described Brahms as a bearded lady.
Is it true that Tchaikovsky danced with Saint Saiens... and at the YMCA? ;-)
"Ahhh, Bach!"
Brahms might have kicked his butt for it had he done so to his face. Anyone who played piano in a brothel to make ends meet has seen the seamy side of life. Anyway Clara Schumann thought he was hot.
That's what my Music History professor told us. Brahms wanted to preserve the classical music forms, particularly in symphonic music.
Brahms was a great admirer of Wagner, and one of his prized possessions was an autographed score of Wagner's Die Meistersinger. It was Bruckner that Brahms abhored.
I think Brahms perceived Bruckner's enthusiastic appreciation of Wagner as bordering on sycophantical. If I remember correctly, after one performance, Bruckner genuflected before Wagner.
What’s wrong with Tchaikvosky’s Third Quartet? It’s so morose! Akin to his Piano Trio. Have you heard his String Sextet (Souvenir De Florence)? It’s wonderful.