How do you play Brahms’s most EXPRESSIVE phrase? 🥲 |
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- Опубліковано 26 вер 2023
- Robert Fleitz enlists Garrick Ohlsson, Seymour Bernstein, and Glenn Gould to help decode one of Brahms's most beautiful phrases in his Intermezzo in A Major, Op. 118 No. 2.
Watch Ohlsson and Bernstein teach Brahms and more on Tonebase! app.tonebase.co/piano/home?tb...
"I love you but I can't have you." (Defiant)
"I love you, but I can't have you." (Quietly with more self-realization)
😢
Love this verbalization of this phrase. That gives me new ideas! I've been playing this piece since 1977!
The intellectual challenge of interpretation is so rewarding. It is a shame many students stop learning after they have finished their formal exams where they are very much instructed on how to interpret sections of the music, and never experience this very personal and intricate part of music performance.
When I played this, my professor told me to think of it as two people in love singing to each other. It’s not necessarily one is more important than the other, but it’s a back-and-forth conversation.
Why are (probably mediocre) professors obsessed with ridiculous metaphors?
@@bazingacurta2567Every masterclass, or almost every master class, by accomplished musicians giving guidance to other accomplished musicians that no longer need much instruction on technique tend to steer the discussion toward interpretation. And interpretation is often communicated through metaphor. Vengerov or Perlman often describe elaborate scenes about royal courts or romantic conversation that communicate to the student a whole attitude about a piece that will inform their artistic choices while playing. “Lesser” musicians or teachers adopt the same pedagogical technique of using metaphor to illustrate an attitude. But the point is that master musicians do it too. In fact, I argue that they do it more often in pedagogical contexts when they don’t want or need to talk about technique.
@@Chris.4345 I know all that, thank you. The thing is that there are thoughtful, productive and intelligent metaphors, and then there are metaphors of the sort that OP described, which are pathetic, unproductive, banal and childish.
@@bazingacurta2567 “Two people in love singing to each other” is a premise for a scene that can be fleshed out with more detail. It is, by itself, none of the things you accuse it of being. It’s an artistic base, waiting for more ingredients. It’s not the kind of thing that can be pathetic, childish, or banal. If it’s left unrefined, sure whatever. But as a premise, it’s hardly what you accuse it of being. Find a renowned composer or writer that _hasn’t_ used this theme to great effect.
you sound quite snobby@@bazingacurta2567
I came here reading "Brahms most EXPENSIVE phrase"
Experiment with different dynamic of those voices until it reaches a state where you can choose to hear either of them clearly enough, rather than having one of them submerged into the harmonic background
I researched what kind of piano Brahms used, and the evidence is that it was an older-style piano with straight-strung bass strings. On those pianos the bass tone is clearer and cleaner than modern pianos. So this passage would be much easier to voice for Brahms than it is for us.
Great anecdote! As a kid we had a very old Chickering upright, and I have not found an equivalent piano in the 60 years since, of any form, scale or maker, with a bass range so majestic and a median range so tender.
This has been my favorite piano piece, since the 1970s. There are many good performances, but I particularly like Arthur Rubinstein's.
The first passage that he's asking us about has an echo of the melody but not the actual melody It's more like a motiv and it deserves second status. It will be heard distinctly but it doesn't need to be prominent. The appoggiatura in the right hand is where the emotion is and so I believe it deserves prominence. It's on the top and won't need to be over emphasized, just played with a lot of empathy.
Listen to Lupu's interpretation.
Just play it beautifully! It doesn't matter which voice you bring out, as long as it's beautiful❤
I feel the poly rhythm of the second part is even more emotional… especially in its final reiteration.
Though it is an echo of the opening motif, you needn't always spell such things out to the listener. It's poetry, not a cookbook.
I’d play the piece in the spirit of Kate Liu.
If you’d like to hear her version, enter _Kate Liu Brahms Intermezzo_ in the search bar and it will appear. (You can no longer link to another UA-cam video from a UA-cam short.) 😎🎹
I disagree with the premise! Clearly Brahms’s most expressive phrase is what immediately follows these measures, G# A F#…G# A B! OMG, rips my heart out every time.
I don't wholly agree, but the interplay between the melody and the mid voice definitely solidifies the call and response, or conversation, taking place in both of these sections. It is quite heartbreaking.
What about the whole middle section? Seriously, this piece is a such a gem, from start to finish. Melody and counterpoint at their finest
@@robertoprevosto totally agree!
@@robertoprevosto right, there's a mini chorale smack dab in the middle of the song. I don't think it's the best part but it's beautiful... unless that isn't the section you're referring to? It's technically written in ABCBA form with the chorale being C.
I would play that lower register as background since it was already commonly played earlier. I would play the uncommon notes a little louder than the lower register notes.
Rhythmic dislocation helps Sooooo much on this piece....
Those late opus works -- 117 thru 120 -- are a challenge for every pianist. I've always liked the Glen Gould approach there, bringing out the the lower voice in that section. My teacher at the time insisted that I see the markings like calando, which I had not seen prior to Brahms.
I've also been practising this piece!! One of my favourite pieces :)) Personally I would not emphasise the bass notes too much like Gould - I prefer bringing out the middle register instead.
I met that guy at Lagrasse Festival🎉wonderfull pianist
When Brahms has us repeat that impossibly lyrical sentiment, but in a lower harmony through naturaling the G, F and C, even as the melody itself is descending--with a decrescendo!--then we realize how close to the autumnal edge of good will humanity has pushed our tenure in this reality, and rather suddenly we are gently informed by the dear master that a graceful exit is best for all concerned: for the composition, of course, for our sacred moment with the audience, and finally for our long and loving relationship with Johannes himself. Thus is it ordered by Destiny now to collapse at the keyboard, fling our weary corpus across the black & white moments of a chaotic universe, struggle to pull ourselves to a standing comportment one last time and shout, with all the raspy, agony-worn power in our passion-wracked soul, to a bitter, cadaverous old man who from the center middle Loge looks down on Harmony itself, "Wagner, you suck at resolutions because you skipped that week in class and paid Liszt to take your test, you anti-Semitic little asshole, not because unresolved dissonance is suddenly cool!"
Then we casually stroll off the stage, mumbling to the front row that we're buying drinks for everyone who sings "The Alto Rhapsody" on Kara-oke at Bernie's down the block.
I would gently put it off my piano and play Liszt arrangement of his Gretchen movement
Poorly. I would play it poorly.
That’s called counterpoint, and Brahms does a lot of it. You want to hear both lines.
Casually asks Garrick Ohlsson
The bass replication of the openings melody is more a distant memory of what once was. Gould's is slightly pedantic, but it should certainly be present... I tend to think of the bass melody but play the descending r.h. melody. That should be enough... just my 2¢
I like the upper line more
I think to emphasise the bass line is to miss the point entirely. The thematic/motivic reference is part of the fabric, but for me it’s clearly not the melody at this point.
Also consider the effect of temperament: ua-cam.com/video/M1diKq-Avk0/v-deo.html -- not sure if this is the temperament Brahms would have used, but it definitely makes a difference.
Play it based on how you feel in the moment. No need to copy someone who is copying someone else, covering someone else’s music ……
This is the way.
The entire A section repeats, bring out the different voices on the repeat. You do the same thing for the contrapuntal section in f sharp minor right before the hymnal section
I’m treating that section like a little duet where the parts are about equal. Maybe favoring the soprano a bit.
Dude has massive hands
I'm a flutist, so I can dodge the issue. However, ideally I'd try to emphasize the duo. But that's entirely theoretical.
Who is this person?
who is this guy, and where are his tonebase videos on youtube? 🤷♂️
He's Robert Fleitz
good to know!
incidentally, the cutest pianist i've ever seen.. 🙈❤
Any goys on Tonebase? Well, besides Brahms
There´s no such thing like Brahms´ most expressive phrase as he wrote numerous expressive phrases. Why do you write this BS?
You're so right. Just another example of UA-cam idiocy calling something or someone the "greatest", or the "most" whatever.
@@RD3D-1 Exactly!
I would suggest not thinking to hard into it as everything is done in service to the algorithm
@@dennisdeez123 That contradicts two of the main elements of classical music: Honesty and Truth.
@@anonymusum says who? An opinion is void of neither even if those are legitimate pillars of classical music morals.
Toooooo gaaaaaaaay
dumb overly sappy piece
Shut
Pogorelich and gilels uber alles