[Publius]

I’ve run out of British songwriters, Brill Building songwriters, Nashville and Memphis songwriters, and Motown songwriters. Starting next week, I’m going to make Brahms intelligible and enjoyable for people who don’t know classical music and who consider him a stuffy bore. That is going to be a challenge, and I anticipate it will take at least as many weeks as my Jimmy Webb retrospective.

Here’s a little bon-bon before I scoot out to Charleston for the Spoleto Music Festival where I’ll be meeting my old friends from the Seattle Chamber Music Society.

For those who watch those wonderfully slow and moody Jesse Stone TV movies on CBS with Tom Selleck, there is a classical piano piece that Jesse puts on when he is particularly depressed and is knocking back glass after glass of scotch. It’s late Brahms, written when the composer had nothing more to prove to the world and was writing just for himself. His short piano pieces are not difficult technically, but they are very tough to play with the right amount of expressiveness.

This one is contemplative and beautiful. The opening melody in A Major is graceful and is something of a love song. At 1:53 the B section changes to F# minor with a pensive little melody; it switches to F# Major briefly before resuming in the minor. At 3:29, Brahms recapitulates his A section. As always, Brahms re-composes his recapitulations, never taking the lazy way out with mere repetition. The end is utter simplicity. If your screen goes blurry, I’ll understand.

Brahms: Intermezzo in A Major, Op. 118/2, played by Arthur Rubinstein

[luvie]

That is going to be very interesting, Maestro!

Hubby didn’t recognize the piece and he watches that show. I think he just waits for the action to happen. LOL!

[ConorMacNessa]

I had the good fortune to sing, as a tenor with the Oratorio Society of Washington, Brahms' Deutsches Requiem. That was twenty years ago, and I still have the bulk of it in my memory. An embarrassment of riches for the choral singer:

Aber des Herrn Wort bleibet in Ewigkeit.

Ich hoffe auf dich.

Denn es wird die Posaune schallen.

Der Tod ist verschlungen in den Sieg

Herr, du bist würdig

Und so weiter.

Es sollte illegal sein, so viel Spaß haben!



Nos genuflectitur ad non princeps sed Princeps Pacem!

Listen, O isles, unto me; and hearken, ye people, from far; The LORD hath called me from the womb; from the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name. (Isaiah 49:1 KJV)

[Kathy in Alaska]

Good evening/good night, Publius...((HUGS))...have a wonderful time with your Seattle Chamber Music Society.

Now I am going to have to listen more closely to the music Jesse Stone puts on. d:o)

Thanks for the bon-bon.