Day 325: Piano Quartet No. 3, Piano Quintet

BrahmsCD19What a minute.

To whom am I listening?

It can’t be Brahms.

Can it?

This is bold music, with an edge to it that I haven’t yet heard from Mrs. Brahms’ boy Johannes.

I was drawn in from the first chord of the piano, which rang out and then decayed. A few instruments played softly. Then another crashing piano chord. Then other instruments.

Movement II (“Scherzo: Allegro”) proved Movement I (“Allegro non troppo”) wasn’t a fluke. The music continues to be bold, unexpected, surprising, compelling.

This can’t be Brahms!

This piano concerto is dramatically different from other Brahms compositions that I’ve heard to date.

I like this.

A lot.

So much so that I award this Favorite Brahms Composition.

In the grand scheme, that doesn’t mean a whole lot. I realize that. Who cares what I think about Brahms, right?

I care. I want to remember that this particular CD was outstanding and that Piano Quartet No. 3 in C minor Op. 60 impressed the hell out of me.

Piano Quartet No. 3 in C minor Op. 60
According to its entry on Wikipedia:

The Piano Quartet in C minor, Op. 60, completed by Johannes Brahms in 1875, sometimes called the “Werther” Quartet, is scored for piano, violin, viola and cello.

Composer Russell Steinberg had this to say about Brahms’ piano quartet:

The great C minor Piano Quartet, op. 60 shows the art of a lion tamer and is easily one of Brahms’ finest achievements. He began the piece while living with Clara Schumann and helping run the Schumann household while Robert was in the mental asylum. Brahms was candid that the brooding quality of the piece was a direct reference to Werther, Goethe’s Romantic hero of unrequited love who eventually commits suicide. To his publisher he wrote, “On the cover you must have a picture, namely a head with a pistol to it. Now you can form some conception of the music! I’ll send you my photograph for the purpose. Since you seem to like color printing, you can use blue coat, yellow breeches, and top-boots.” That was the exact description of Werther and 20 years later Brahms was able to joke about his hyper-passionate feelings.

This may seem overly technical, but there is a poetic idea behind it. C# minor was the key that represented for Brahms the suicidal unrequited lover. C minor was the key of Beethoven that represents heroic struggle. Brahms used the fusion of these two harmonic centers as a device to represent the powerful music drama of this piano quartet.

Brahms was 42 when he composed this brilliant piece of music, which is – to date – my favorite Brahms composition. I mean it. This composition is much more adventuresome and bold than anything I’ve yet heard from Brahms.

These are the musicians who performed Piano Quartet No. 3:

Derek Han piano
Isabelle Faust violin (Stradivari, 1704)
Bruno Giuranna viola
Alain Meunier cello

The other piece of music on today’s CD is:

Piano Quintet in F minor Op. 34

Performed by:

The Nash Ensemble
Marcia Crayford, Elizabeth Layton violins
Roger Chase viola
Christopher van Kampen cello
Ian Brown piano

According to its entry on Wiki:

The Piano Quintet in F minor, Op. 34, by Johannes Brahms was completed during the summer of 1864 and published in 1865. t was dedicated to Her Royal Highness Princess Anna of Hesse. Like most piano quintets composed after Robert Schumann’s Piano Quintet (1842), it is written for piano and string quartet (two violins, viola and cello).

The work began life as a string quintet (completed in 1862 and scored for two violins, viola and two cellos). Brahms transcribed the quintet into a sonata for two pianos (in which form Brahms and Carl Tausig performed it) before giving it its final form. Brahms destroyed the original version for string quintet, but published the Sonata as opus 34 bis. The outer movements are more adventurous than usual in terms of harmony and are unsettling in effect. The introduction to the finale, with its rising figure in semitones, is especially remarkable. Both piano and strings play an equally important role throughout this work.

Brahms was 31 when he composed this piece of music, which – by the way – is nearly adventuresome as the first composition on today’s CD. I’m still only hearing snippets of melody in Brahms’ music. But I’m starting to hear more balls, more boldness. So I’m becoming more intrigued. He doesn’t seem so diffuse or timid. I’m starting to hear that the guy can rock out now and then.

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