Day 14: Brahms Symphony no. 4

Day 14: Brahms Symphony no. 4

Yet another one I studied for music A level: Beginning to wonder if I did any studying for the others! Haven’t listened to this in absolutely ages, but it all came flooding back as soon as I heard the opening notes! This is just such fantastic stuff! It’s rousing, emotional, evocative, and tuneful!

Apparently, Brahms delayed writing any symphonies until quite late in his career for fear that he wouldn’t measure up well against classical composers like Beethoven, Haydn and Mozart. Well, perhaps if he hadn’t waited so long he might have been able to create more; his music is great stuff and 4 symphonies really isn’t enough! That’s my opinion, anyway!

It’s divided into the fairly typical four movements and is scored for the standard orchestra of the time, which now includes trombones – three of them to be precise! The final movement is a bit of an innovation in that he takes a theme by Bach (possibly from the Cantata no.150) and creates numerous variations, done in a passacaglia, a sort of ostinato, but slightly different in that the theme doesn’t only appear in the bass parts. You really do have to listen to it to understand what I mean; I’m not good with words!

Anyway, the recording I listened to was of the Berlin Phil (ooops, again!) conducted by Karajan!

Day 6: Beethoven Pastoral Symphony

Day 6: Beethoven Symphony no. 6, The Pastoral

What a perfect day to be listening to Beethoven’s 6^th symphony – The Pastoral! Fabulous sunshine interrupted by rain storms!

This is significant because this symphony was really the first of its type. Although Beethoven is a classical composer, he pushed the boundaries of classical music, so this symphony has 5 movements, unlike a more traditional classical symphony that would have 3 or 4. Also, this is one of the first pieces of music that isn’t just music to listen to: This symphony tells a story, the story of a day in the countryside.

Beethoven actually gave some indication of the story behind the music in the directions for each movement:

1^st movement - Awakening of cheerful feelings upon arrival in the country

2^nd movement – Scene at the brook

3^rd movement - Happy gathering of country folk

4^th movement – Thunderstorm and storm

5^th movement - Shepherds' song; cheerful and thankful feelings after the storm

This really is the first example of what we now call programme music. And, it’s so lovely! You can really hear the countryside in the melodies and you really feel you want to rush indoors when you hear the approaching storm! This stuff makes you want to listen to it carefully; definitely not background music!

I’ve always had a bit of a soft spot for a Beethoven symphony as when I was a child we had a black boxed set of the complete symphonies on vinyl - The Klemperer ones (with Otto, I think he was conducting the Berlin Phil) which were regularly on the turntable. The version I listened to today was the von Karajan (Herbert, conductor of the Berlin Phil!) interpretation, which is also rather good!

Just out of interest, Klemperer also did a fantastic recording of Mozart 38.

Look out for the final recording of this week and recommendations for listening based on this week's pieces!