This is the last day of listening to Johaness Brahms, and the end of the first year of my three-year journey.

Tomorrow starts a new leg: the 11th century novel The Tale of Genji, noblewoman and lady-in-waiting Murasaki Shikibu, and Enrico Caruso CD 1.

A strange pairing, perhaps. But it’s time for me to read some of the classics of literature I haven’t gotten around to reading.

And I’ve always wanted to hear the great Caruso.

But, that’s tomorrow.

Today, this morning, is Organ Music.

I’ve always liked organ music. Brahms’ organ music is no exception.

But it’s a tough sell because Brahms doesn’t seem to recognize a melody to save his soul. Like most of his orchestral music, concertos, and vocal music, this is just a collection of notes to my ears. There’s nothing for me to grab onto, nothing that touches my soul in a deep and meaningful way.

I know there are Brahms experts out there who argue with me about my opinion, and that’s okay. As I’ve stated all along, I’m no music expert. I hold no Ph.D. in Musicology. I’m just a fan of music from a wide spectrum of genres. I know what I like, and what I don’t.

I flipped out over Beethoven. Discovering his music was life-changing for me.

I was ho-hum, even negative regarding Haydn’s music. That bored me to tears.

Brahms falls somewhere in between flipped out and ho-hum. He’s not clever or meaningful enough to be a composer I’ll listen to again (with few exceptions along the way, noted in my blog as Favorites). But he’s not so ghastly that I’ll tell others to avoid him. He’s just, as they say, “Meh.”

Today’s music is interesting, because I like the sound of a big ol’ organ in an echo-y church, but it’s hardly memorable. The only composition that made me sit up straight and take notice was Prelude in Fugue in G minor Wo010 (Tracks 4 and 5). The lively fugue caught my attention. Everything else is of the same meandering tempo.

The Compositions:

Organ Prelude and Fugue on ‘O Traurigkeit’ Wo07

Fugue in A flat minior Wo08

Prelude and Fugue in G minor Wo010

11 Chorale Preludes Op. 122

The Performers:

Christian Schmitt organ (tracks 1-5)

Nicholas Danby organ (tracks 6-16)

The organists were adequate for the tasks at hand, which is to say they didn’t have to stretch their talents to play Brahms’ organ music. The recordings were adequate, although I heard a bit of tape hiss in the second half of the recordings.

All in all, Brahms CD 58 – the last in the Brilliant Classics Brahms Complete Edition set – ended this leg of my three-year journey with a whimper rather than a bang. I would have preferred to end with what I heard yesterday – remarkable female choruses.

But I don’t work for Brilliant Classics. So I wasn’t asked how I’d order the CDs in their box set.

I’m glad I took the past 58 days to listening to Brahms’ music. I learned a lot from it, mostly that Brahms was no Beethoven. I also got the feeling that Brahms was detached from his audience. Beethoven seemed to write heart to heart, in a powerful, memorable way. Brahms seemed to write head to head, in an intellectual, almost academic way.

Even Haydn, whose music I loathed, seemed to have more heart than Brahms’ music does.

But, again, that’s just my opinion. It’s no reflection on the performers or the record label. Everything Brilliant Classics does is top notch, first rate, high quality.

I won’t listen to much of Brahms in the future. Why bother? There are many more composers to hear before I die. I have no need to return to one that didn’t totally wow me the first time through.

However, that’s not to say you – whomever you are – wouldn’t find something to enjoy in Brahms’ music.

What really freaks me out is that a year has past, one full year, since I started this project.

Tempus fugit, eh?