the incredible use of a tiny motif in a brahms intermezzo
Вставка
- Опубліковано 1 вер 2023
- a short harmonic and motivic analysis of brahms' famous intermezzo in A major op.118 no.2, where he gets incredible mileage out of a simple motif of longing and tenderness.
my favourite rendition (freire): • Brahms: 6 Piano Pieces...
more in-depth version of this video: • brahms intermezzo op11...
Funny, I'm practicing this piece right now. This must be a sign from the universe telling me to dig deeper. By the way, lovely work as always!
thank you! hope it helped
I love the color change at 1:15 when the inverted motif comes in. It sounds so delicate. Such a good performance and so much attention to detail.
i love seeing how different performers manage that bit
one of my favourite piano compositions from brahms (as well as his waltzes)
opus 117 & 118 they are my preference between the works of brahms ! also the 2 concertos for Piano !
one of my favourite Brahms pieces
it's simple and moving at the same time
Love the content! You really opened my eyes up to Brahms, absolutely beautiful!
thanks for the kind comment!
There's a wondersome recording of this Intermezzo performed by Glenn Gould in which he brings out the inner undulating material from 1:26 to 1:35.
I've heard nothing like it since.
especially love when the voicing goes to the right hand to bring out D-C# at the end of the phrase
Beautiful intermezzo.
Wowwwww this is so perfect and time went by so fast
beautiful
ive been bingeing your short analysis vids. id love to see one from ernest bloch! his first concerto grosso is one of my favorite works, and the prelude is a short but very sweet piece of music
1:17 in the right hand, there are multiple initial motifs, on the soprano register, but also in the alto register.
You didn't write it, but I think the right hand splits up and makes some real good counterpoint with the initial motif
Yes definitely! At the time I didn't include it because I'd thought it would have cluttered the video too much but I really should have!
thank you!
Your site is brilliant!!
Thank you!
1:02 that minor 10th leap sounds so satisfying
minor 7th you mean?
@@skylarlimex no between the alto and the melody
@@davidemoretti4325ah i see that's interesting because i hadn't even thought of that melodically since they're two separate voices but yes pianistically speaking
@@skylarlimexthe arpeggiated harmonic interval
Nice analysis
What is your favourite piece of all time?
probably bruckner 8
@@skylarlimex Brahms is spinning in his grave!!!
@@theoldar why
Bach ! we can hear it every day and discover it every time
Sometimes classical composers insert "puzzles" into their works. Chopin often did this. A number of examples exist, as in Chopin's First Scherzo. If you try to follow his published configuration, the music becomes "separated" and choppy. Perhaps he intended this.
But Horowitz follows the choppy configuration, that occurs even despite his towering technique. Arthur Rubinstein picked it up and transposes his thumbs in order to avoid the choppy sound.
I didn't have the technical abilities of either, so I figured the puzzle out myself. Then, it was quite smooth. I often think that Chopin had a sense of humor and deliberately installed these puzzles to see if pianists could identify them. I can see him saying, if I responded in Polish: "Maestro, I figured it out. How many pianists do you think get it?" To which he would respond: "Very few."
I am certainly thinking that Brahms also had the same ideas about "puzzles" in his own works. Most of the puzzles require exchanges of thumbs between the hands.
Sanjosemike (no longer in CA)
No STOP this piece is literally mocking me, the more I try to play the more difficult the counterpoint gets LMAO and now it’s literally on my recommended
Nice analysis! But you've missed that the second phrase is actually built from the initial motive, the first two notes are a rhythmically altered inversion, followed by an intervallic expansion of this. Furthermore the concluding four notes are actually just rhythmic augmentations of the initial motive. This constant development of motives in themes was a process called "Developing Variation" and lots of Brahms's music is full of it.
i think it's a bit far-fetched - using an interval of a second as the basis of a motif is too generic and can lead to all sorts of arguments. the real defining element of the main motif is a step downwards into a leap upwards. but of course it's a bit of a gray area, i personally think it's a case of over analysis.
@@skylarlimex Fair enough, lots of people would probably agree with you! However, Schoenberg makes quite a good case for this in his essay "Brahms the Progressive" and analyses two pieces by Brahms which I think personally demonstrates the method well (one analysis in particular of the theme from the second movement of Brahms's string quartet in A deals with your point about the generic nature of small motives of the second). There have been studies of Brahms's music using this technique, in particular Walter Frisch's book "Brahms and the Principle of Developing Variation" which is pretty good. At the end of the day all that really matters is that it's a beautiful piece.
@@lukasrussell5905 thanks for the recommendations!
5 stars feeling and performance
Everyone will probably expect to be in tonic 0:00. But it's a IV64. It's a piece to threaten expectations. (Sorry for the English. I'm Japanese.)
None was greater than Brahms
Nice analysis! I think you might have missed one occurrence of the motif, though: In the part from 1:16-1:22, you highlight the G#-A-F# as an inversion of the original motif, but notice that this motif is "echoed" again one octave lower immediately after, twice.
You should do some Scriabin
i just might
The motif inverted may singlehandedly make me pick up piano again after swearing I would never pick it up again for as long as I live.
I took my 2 years of it when I was getting my music degree and I hated it. I'm a guitarist. That's what I love. But this piece may make me start it up again.
Everyone's favourite from Op. 118?
The Romance in F is pretty intriguing to me. It gives me a pretty idyllic feel.
Yes, No.5 is so lovely.