Daniel and Isabel Save Classical Music
Classical musician-turned-stand up comedian Isabel Hagen and classical pianist Daniel Anastasio explore their favorite classical pieces while discussing the creative life. Listen along for live musical excerpts paired with banter between two best friends. New episodes every Tuesday.
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Daniel and Isabel Save Classical Music
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Daniel and Isabel dive into Beethoven's Appassionata Sonata and Schubert's A-flat Major Impromptu, and Isabel joins Daniel on viola for some of Brahms' F minor Sonata. Also Daniel cries.
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I thought I would play a movement or just the opening of a movement that's really special to me. Um and it's special because of one chord. I just like I think I might have learned about this in music theory somewhere, you know, but I never really got it until I was an adult just reading through this piece and just just feeling it out for myself. That can be so important to like recontextualize the music after you've escaped your training, you know. So this is the opening of the second movement of Beethoven's Apassionata Sonata. It's a theme in variations. I'm just gonna play the theme. And whenever Beethoven writes in a kind of chorale setting, I feel like it's entering a more spiritual place. It's kind of like a hearkening back to Bach chorals, to the Baroque era or beyond that to Renaissance. And there's some there's just something sacred about that just contextually and also I don't know, in your body, just feeling a four-voiced corral is automatically satisfying. What is that?
SPEAKER_02It's like a reminder, like, oh yeah, there might be something bigger than us, you know.
SPEAKER_00Yes, yeah. And and when we come together and we unify in our voices is when we're strongest. You know, like when we have a beautiful melody on top with accompaniment, that's one thing that's expressing the soul, the individual, um, the personal. But when the voices come together, moving all together at the same time. It's like this, you know, phalanx.
SPEAKER_02That's why choirs are always like used to add emotion. Um anytime there's a pop singer doing a big show, and then they bring in a choir to sort of sing like a they sing the chorus one time around as a choir. Yeah. And you're just like, oh, like it's so cheesy, but it just always pulls at you. Yeah, but Beethoven, his chorale use is always very spiritual, like the I'm thinking of the Heiliger Donkazong movement of Opus 132 string quartet, which is a super slowed down chorale. Like it's it's almost imperceivable that it's a chorale because it's so slow. But if you play it sped up, you realize it is just these this beautiful chorale going through, and he also has the intense voice uh spacing like he does in this movement.
SPEAKER_00I was thinking also the slow, I mean, I love the slow movement of the Emperor concerto, which the piano doesn't have this, but the orchestra has it right away. Where all the voices are moving together in a kind of hymn, you know. For the piano to finally enter. Etcetera, but that is just yeah, he sets up the movement with a chorale or with a with a hymn, with something that is um making everything stand still for the piano. You know, and it's like setting up the tone uh before the piano gets to sing in a very spiritual and personal way.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I'm just always well not always, but often so much more moved by that opening section you played rather than the one voice coming in and oh oh what's this character like the singular character struggle is just a lot less emotional for me than this sort of recognition of just like we are all like connected. That's what moves me m most now.
SPEAKER_00I think that's why I love uh not to I'm immediately getting off of Beethoven here, but Schubert. Uh the Schubert uh so much of Schubert's music is this kind of texture when he goes to those intimate places. It's not I mean he has unbelievable songs. That's the irony of it. He is the leader master. You know, he created meaning of leader. Leader is uh song. LEED is the German word for song.
SPEAKER_02L-I-E-D, right?
SPEAKER_00L-I-E-D, leiter. Leiter Leder.
SPEAKER_02And um So he has a lot of these song cycles that are for like tenor and piano.
SPEAKER_00The idea that I mean I guess Beethoven had one or two technically that people don't do too much.
SPEAKER_02But um how how bad does it feel if someone refers to you having a certain work of art technically?
SPEAKER_00Ouch. Well, Beethoven's got a lot of good. That's how I would describe it. We technically have a podcast. Um if you'd like to check it out. Hey, I do these videos. You know, Isabel's got stand-up and we technically we have a podcast. We don't really we're not really talking about it very much yet. Uh we'll see what happens, we'll see what whether we have chemistry and whether that chemistry leads into something organically uh fulfilling for people. But right now we're in the technically stage of the podcast. Um but anyway, Schubert Schubert can do that beautiful song stuff, like vinterize. I mean, you know, all the beautiful song cycles he has where there's a narrative from beginning to end, and all these songs are connected in some way by a story, but then he can also go into this realm, which is also a song, but because of the unified voices and harmonic rhythm, it also feels like a chorale, doesn't it? It has a melody, but right here. So tender and so um I mean it's not so sacred, right? Because he he I think the personality of that voice on top makes it a little more human. A little more tender, a little less sacred. Yeah, a little less sacred.
SPEAKER_02But when it comes back around, much like in the appassionata, you said there's one chord you love. Isn't there another another chord we have to get to in this?
SPEAKER_00Well, I mean, for one thing, the chord we did get to toward the end of the phrase I find really beautiful. And a lot of this, I'll connect it back to the appassionata right now in a way because I think the really deep stuff, the stuff where you're like, oh my heart is breaking there in that moment. I think that occurs when form and harmony meet each other in a really expressive and beautiful way. You cannot not think about the form and structure of what you're doing in music, partly because it's it's a temporal art, it's just always going. So um a part of it's kind of like for a painting, you're thinking about all this geometry of how things are in space and time, right? Not so much time. For music, time is pulling is doing a lot of the heavy lifting there. It's like what happened before and how it relates to what's happening in the future sets up a feeling. And composers are super aware of that, and that is what form and structure are in music. So here, there's not much going on. It's very beautiful, it's pianissimo, but harmonically, nothing interesting is really happening. We're in A flat, we're just doing normal A flat stuff. We're setting up this emphasis on B2, which is nice, has a lilt. There we have a little emphasis on B3. Now we just do the same thing in octave higher. Nothing that special. But we've been waiting for this. This chord here. And then we'll cadence. But that chord is a move outside the key that we haven't gotten this whole time. We've gone through one, two, three, four, I don't know, like 12 measures or something. And is that the chord I was referring to, or am I imagining another? Oh, there's more. There's more later, but we don't have to fully analyze this one. I mean, that to me is a very special chord. Um, where that's very Schubert, that's very like bittersweet remembering of something. Um and then letting go. Where it's it's only momentary. I'm not gonna get stuck in that like Wagner. I'm just gonna like, huh. Isn't that isn't that beautiful, that pain? Isn't that part of what it means to be human, to feel a little nostalgia and bitterness or bittersweetness? And then we have to keep going.
SPEAKER_02It's a chromatic motion in there, right?
SPEAKER_00Like is that what the chromaticism is in the um inner voices. Yeah. So without that inner voice, it's actually totally normal it works. But it's that note, that E flat that's crawling up to an E natural. Yeah, like you said, the chromatic note. And Schuber loves these chromatic changes that are very subtle but open up a whole new emotional realm. I mean, he does this like all the time in his music. This is in the key of A flat minor, but when it comes back later, it comes back in the parallel key of A flat major, and all he needed to change there was that the third was raised by a half step. So he has a real subtle, sophisticated notion of how to make you how to make you feel something internally rather than try to pull you into the emotion like in a blunt way.
SPEAKER_02Well, he's literally having the stuff happen internally in the chord.
SPEAKER_00Inside, in the inner voices. It's usually the harmony in the inner voices that are leading the leading the way. Let's get back to the um Apassionata.
SPEAKER_02I think I can guess what your favorite chord is. Oh, really? Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Okay, well, let me play it one more time, at least the first eight bars, and see if our listeners can guess. Should I be like a face? No. All right, one sec.
SPEAKER_02Again, it's that chroma there's a chromatic pa is it a chromatic passing tone? Is that what it is?
SPEAKER_00So what it is, is this is toward the end of the phrase where he moves down to this augmented six chord, but it's how it resolves that is so beautiful. Yeah. Because normally you might go to this or something. Um you might do that, but this G goes down to the side.
SPEAKER_02That so it retroactively makes the previous note a chromatic passing tone. No? I'm I don't know why I'm stuck on this. Are you trying to cry?
SPEAKER_00I'm trying not to cry because it's this is what happens to every single time when I'm like, is it a passing tone? It's about I don't give a shit if it's a passing tone or not. Um I mean it's nice to explain this stuff, and it's nice to try to put your head around it conceptually so that you can explain what's so meaningful and beautiful about it. And also sometimes it's nice to just let it hit you. But I for me why it's so beautiful is I like I guess I like to imagine that that choice to resolve it in that unusual way is a choice. He could have done this, he could have done this like, you know, or he could have done, I don't know, any you know, I don't know, he could have done any number of different predominant chords to get there, but instead he chooses this one that's like a stab to the heart, and then like I feel that as such deep acceptance. I think it's because it's lowering that it's like, no, we're not gonna go there, you know. Like we're not gonna, I'm not gonna give you what you think you want. I'm gonna pull you a little deeper into a a more raw and real place. That is like when we go to that place, we let go of concept, we let go of trying to understand, and it's just a release and I don't know, an acceptance of the reality of things when we have the right perspective. It's so hard to put that into words, um, but that chord just really, really moves me. And then almost like the Schubert, it's like, okay, well, we gotta move on. Like, and life goes on. Yeah, and so here's the second part of the theme. We gotta keep going. And it's a little more hopeful, maybe. There's a little more motion in this, you know, more individualism here. He's reaching higher, a crescendo. Talk about, you know, Emperor Concerto, nobility. There's something noble in that, and then. And this is actually a set of variations. So we have that first theme, and the variations unfold very organically, very gently. It's like he starts off. I can't play this whole thing, but it's almost like he's immediately dissecting or like picking apart the very simple harmony in a in a very natural way. He's letting it unfold. I think that's he has a lot of patience, uh ironically. But we think of Beethoven as impetuous, but with the with movements like these, he has had incredible patience. Um, it reminds me of the third movement of Opus 109, the famous late piano sonata and E major, which the third movement also is a theme in variations that has this really beautiful, profound kind of chorale. But it's really kind of like more like a little folk song that's accompanied by this harmony, very intimate. Beethoven totally overdoes the markings here. He says you gotta play this as expressively as possible and beautifully as possible with all this singing. It can really tie people up in knots. Because you're trying to capture this sacred quality of this really simple theme, and then he's not in a hurry when he starts the variations. It's like a little aria. And then just like the Apassionata, he kind of breaks it down a little. It's really modern. It's very modern. It's because almost like Vabern.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Maybe it's the way I'm playing it too, but it feels like Beethoven had a lot more textural exploration in his music than a lot of his contemporaries. Like he I'm not saying his music w necessarily was like, oh, it's uh really just experimental, but but there are elements of it that are like quirky, even just the spacing in his voicing, and then something like that. And you do just wonder how much of it was was because of his hearing loss too. Yeah. And him just almost having less of a limitation or just searching for things that he could still sort of feel the resonance of. You know?
SPEAKER_00Like texture plays more of a role in his mind, maybe in part because he's searching for different timbers in a way that someone who could clearly hear doesn't have the need or urge to do. Um that that would make sense to me. I mean, especially like if you're if you're playing these low registers and it's like vibrating in a certain way. Maybe that's what partly drove him to write in those dark registers. Could be. And he was just exploring and exploring as an innovator, as a revolutionary, he was constantly trying to push the instrument to its limits and see what what music he could squeeze out of different. Yeah. Right. Um put he did not care whether it was hard. Let's just say that. He didn't care whether you had to be flying around the piano going to this range and that range, uh reading all these ledger lines like Beethoven and I think that's a good idea.
SPEAKER_02You say he doesn't care be just because clearly he kept doing that?
SPEAKER_00Is that what I just he just from everything I just have read about him and stuff, it's it's that he he put the music first before the human being who's trying to play the music. Whereas some other composers uh will especially from his day or before, would tailor the music a little bit, adjust the music because, well, hey Beethoven, this isn't in my range to sing or you know, um I don't know, this is just I don't have time to practice this. Can you make an easy piece for me? He wasn't interested in composing for you, for the convenience of you. He's just interested in uh expressing whatever's in him. You know, and and you could kind of c care less if you're able to play it. Okay, well I'll find someone else who can, or I'll play it myself. Um I wanted to also bring up the opening of the first movement of the appassionata because unlike the second movement, which is so serene, it's such a break, the first movement is full of anxiety, and it's that classic Beethoven that we uh come to know throughout his heroic period. I mean this is Opus 57.
SPEAKER_02What's the heroic period? Is that an actual period?
SPEAKER_00I didn't say heroic period. I usually I usually think of uh I usually think of the middle period uh as a period. Why did I say heroic? Maybe I think of the heroic symphony.
SPEAKER_02Does that mean heroic heroica?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Okay. I mean it's like a an expression of heroicism. Okay. But um I think. But he uh yawn.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, thanks, Isabel.
SPEAKER_00Um ask a question and they get bored by the answer. That's a good way to interview. Um what inspires you? Oh, he gets contagious. So but in this middle period, anyway, where I do think of him as um in his peace his pieces tend to start in this like anxious uh state of turbulence and then end with a heroic triumph. Maybe that's why I say heroic period. But the appassionata starts this way. Oh, I'm starting in the wrong range. I'm giving Beethoven I'm I'm I did Beethoven a favor. Yeah. My right hand started at octave lower. But this is way more powerful because the space between the voices. This is something like Shastakovich. Oh, because it's two octaves between them, right? Okay. I mean, I don't know. It is like Shastakovich. Shastakovich will be like, he'll have a melody like you know, he'll everything in unison and the higher register, you know. You know, uh, but an octave apart, or two octaves apart to give that whoa, it's like somehow more intense. It's not as unified. It's clearly two individual voices just struggling to do the same thing. And here he's a master of using those rests, right? Those dramatic rests. And then he's like, you know what? Let's start the piece over, but uh half a step higher. Just another question. There's a little hint of Beethoven's fifth. Whoops, sorry, let me try. So so much expectation and intensity. This is such a way to start a sonata, you know? And then I I can't even play this part, I haven't practiced it, but it explodes. Just gonna generically play a C7. And then it's kind of like the piece truly begins. So there's drama right away in this F minor work by Beethoven. I want to say one other thing about this this unison thing. Is a thing. Like composers do that.
SPEAKER_02I was gonna ask, is that very radical in terms of the times using employing unison like that?
SPEAKER_00I don't think it's very I don't think it's very radical. I think it's usually it's a symbol of like an orchestral kind of feeling when when composers um I'm trying to think. Even very early, Opus 1 number three, his his piano trio in C minor. Oh yeah, right. I mean all of that is violin, cello, and piano playing in unison. And I think what it does really well is it leaves you wondering, first of all, what harmony are we in? I mean, it's already it is implying with this is implying C minor, but it's not like going.
SPEAKER_02Right. Even Mozart in a dun dun dun dun dun dun.
SPEAKER_00Oh yeah. The piano quartet. Oh shoot, let me pull it up really much.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I played it a long time ago, but but all the instruments are playing in unison for that opening.
SPEAKER_00Oh, that's right. Oh, that's right. Yeah, violin, viola, chello. The piano quartet. Yeah, good call. Mozart. And then there's this like little interruption. And then they come back together. So maybe it's a kind of symbol of drama, you know, traditionally. But composers throughout time will use this.
SPEAKER_02I mean Ooh, I just thought of another one. Beethoven opus 95 string quartet. But Beethoven does it kind of a lot.
SPEAKER_00He does it a lot. Because he just wants to grab your attention right away. Yeah, party trick. This is sleazy like Beethoven will use this one simple trick. Composers hate him. Um starting in unison, gets him every time. But Brahms will take this and run with it, and that's why you have your viola, right?
SPEAKER_02Oh, yeah, we can but the unison part's not the viola.
SPEAKER_00No, no, no, I just thought of that. But the the fact we were we were thinking that, okay, F minor appassionata, Beethoven. What other works are in F minor that have that similar character? And especially by someone like Brahms, who revered Beethoven, um, and then immediately, I mean, you're a violist, so you know this piece really well. You mentioned the F minor viola sonata.
SPEAKER_02Well it's a clarinet sonata originally. Right. And then violists arguably, I think it's I thought he arranged it also for viola. Everyone is I yes, Brahms allegedly arranged. I heard someone told me that, like, actually he didn't, but that might be wrong. But the common knowledge is that Brahms did the viola arrangements as well, but it was originally written for a clarinetist. It was definitely originally written for clarinet. Yeah, but a viola and a clarinet share uh voice, so viola can play clarinet music pretty easily. A lot of the time.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, they they share, they share the same register.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's what I mean by vo register, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, they're both alto instruments, I guess.
SPEAKER_02Yes, but the fun thing about the Brahms connection and the appassionata is one, it starts in unison, and then when the viola comes in, the first three notes are the same three notes as the beginning of the appassionata. Yeah, you want to play some of it?
SPEAKER_00Let's do it, but I also just before we leave the unison thing, I want to mention like this is not like just a classical thing. I mean, yeah, like Brahms, you know, we'll we'll start pieces just as you'll hear in in unisons. But I've whenever I think of unison, I think of Messien, uh Olivier Messienne's quartet for the end of time.
SPEAKER_02Oh, the entire unison movement.
SPEAKER_00The sixth movement is entirely in unison. That's for a totally different purpose and effect, but every instrument is playing.
SPEAKER_02How many instruments? Four. Four. Clarinet, violin, cello, piano.
SPEAKER_00So I mean, if you want to if you want to really go wild.
SPEAKER_02That's like how long of a movement is that?
SPEAKER_00Um it's a significant, maybe like seven minutes or something.
SPEAKER_02Right, it's not just an opening, it's like a whole movement in unison.
SPEAKER_00And the w the reason he uses that technique is because this is like a fanfare of Trump, it's signaling the end of the apocalypse. So it's like the intensity of unison's squeezed to its maximum potential. And like, hey, maybe it all starts with Beethoven or Mozart. But this concept is kind of it's fascinating when you see these uh concepts that seem just fundamental to music that are then discovered and rediscovered and used by other composers for different reasons. Um it makes you feel like things are kind of connected, even if they're not obviously connected. Right. I mean, you know, anyway. Should we give them a little taste of the Brahms?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I feel stupid about the clarinet viola arrangements thing. But I I swear I because everyone says Brahms did these arrangements to make them for viola. No, that's what I heard doing then I had one masterclass, can't even remember who. This guy was like, No, there's like a letter from Brahms saying, like, I hate these arrangements. Oh, yes, the famous letter. Yeah, it's always a letter. Anyway, I don't know. If you're a historian, you can look it up, you can comment.
SPEAKER_00The secret letter. All right. Exciting. Isabel's got her viola on her. Let's play some brand. Incredibly. No, I don't know.
SPEAKER_02And then we'll talk about the connections between the apposhanata sonata. Apasshanata sonata. And this Brahms F minor sonata.
SPEAKER_00All right, let's do it. Beginning with Unison's.
SPEAKER_02I mean Violet's will do like crazy fingerings to avoid the string crossings, but I just I can't. Really? Like instead of but I just think it's so goofy, and I'd rather I like the anytime I can be in sorry, anytime I can be in like first or third position, I just also think it sounds better. It's not just that it's kind of easier, but Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Well go ahead.
SPEAKER_02I mean you can do it, but on a clarinet there's no string crossing, so it makes sense that this was originally written for a clarinet.
SPEAKER_00Well, but and there's there's what you miss in the clarinet, though, is the effort between notes.
SPEAKER_02Well, that a lot of times I hear a clarinet play this piece and it's just like it's easier.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, like you're pushing buttons a little bit. Yeah, like you're playing the recorder. Totally. Um, but yeah. Um and I do like it when clarinetists add even a little vibrato to this kind of stuff. Because I mean, I know it's whatever.
SPEAKER_02It's so funny that clarinet is one instrument where if you add vibrato, everyone's like, okay, Benny Goodman.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, that's that's true, but like it needs or it it I think it can withstand, this music can withstand the kind of vibrato that you're putting on the viola. I mean, like what you get to do with a viola that they can't do as well, maybe, or naturally, is vibrate. You know, you've studied your whole life on how to vibrate um tastefully, and that leads to a more singing quality. The the clarinet is naturally like a lyrical instrument, just because it's a wind instrument and the the tone and stuff and how one note leads into the other in a really legato, beautiful way, but you get to sing with with your finger more. You get that that tactile expression that they don't have.
SPEAKER_02Right. So connections between the two pieces. One we just noticed in the score is the tempo marking is allegro appassionado, probably just a coincidence.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, never know with Brahms. Brahms has these um expressive tempo markings sometimes, you know, um, where it's not just allegro, you know, but it's allegro amabile or something, or allegro appassionado. Monotropo, monotropo, but not too much.
SPEAKER_02Not too much. Does he ever just mark things allegro?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think he I think he does. I can't think of the top of my head, but especially early on, I think Allegro Conbrio was like, you know.
SPEAKER_02That's not just Allegro.
SPEAKER_00I guess that is, but Beethoven wrote that. Oh. I guess he plays around with the expression of tempo markings a little bit more than the average person. And I mean, it doesn't feel Allegro. Maybe I'm not playing it fast enough, but I think because he's not starting right away with eighth notes or with uh sixteenth notes or with fast moving notes, there is a little bit of reservation at the opening. Not to mention the uh temp the dynamic marking is poco forte, a little forte, or like somewhat forte, like don't be too forte. So let's not get too strong too soon.
SPEAKER_01Whoops. Oh god.
SPEAKER_00Which I get. Uh I got the so brom's by the way, to just like as soon as he gives you this big he gives you this big you know, this like big explosion of the dominant, like, okay, we're gonna now we're really getting somewhere. And then it's just like never mind, never mind. It's kind of like it kind of fades into this like like uncertainty that is so so prevalent in his heart a lot of the time, at least based on his music. He often ends pieces, like the fourth movement is like quite unsatisfying a lot of the time, where it's like this meandering movement of uh like the last movement of the of the C minor piano quartet, which is one of his most epic and dramatic pieces, but it ends with it ends with this movement that's kind of like searching and trying to find itself. It's like, dude, give us like a satisfying conclusion, and so he kind of fades away here, and then he's like, Oh yeah, this is supposed to be Allegro Apassionado. So it's like it's like finally we get these.
SPEAKER_02I messed up the Also, we should note that you're playing off music and I'm playing from memory, which feels like a flawed way to do this because you're consulting all of the markings and like because I have the notes memorized, I don't have the markings like you don't have the markings memorized.
SPEAKER_00No. Well, but so but you've played this piece, I assume. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, I don't memorize anything anymore, dude.
SPEAKER_02It's just it's just Well, when I perform this in recital with a pianist, I play off the music as well. Because the sonata to me is a a real chamber piece. So we should be on even playing field. And generally when you're playing chamber music, everyone's reading off of the music. But if I'm playing like a concerto but with piano accompaniment, I might play the concerto from memory because it's a little bit the solo instrument of the concerto is at a uh on a higher level musically than the orchestra part, or you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's intentionally given a real spotlight. Yeah. Whereas a duo, yeah, I've played I've played plenty of times with people who are super memorized and super in their own part um and don't have maybe the curiosity of like, hey, what's going on there? Or oh, I can see what you have in your part there, let me try to match you, or maybe this is dialogue between the two of us, and instead they're like, it's obvious they just want me to lay down the part. And um and those chamber experiences are just not as interesting to me at all. Because I'm not interested in delivering a perfect performance of a piece um with other people. I'm interested in the conversation that arises in the process. Like, hey, let's figure this out, let's figure that out. Why do you feel that way? And then the result of that dialogue is the the best expression possible. Not you come in with your idea, I'll come in with my idea, let's try to um perfect it somehow.
SPEAKER_02Well, I I this is why I really hate rehearsing in general. I mean, as it when we didn't rehearse this. We didn't. But obviously, when you're a child or when you're learning, you need to rehearse. But with two people who come in prepared with their own parts and they have the music in front of them, sure you want to play through it a few times, get settled in, but the rehearsal where you're like, hey, what do you I feel like there I'm not feeling your uh like I I don't and to me it's if you're not feeling it, it's because one of you just isn't doing your job and talking about it isn't gonna fix much. Like it might. But you sh to me, it should be able to be an in-the-moment dialogue. You can practice having the dialogue a couple times, but if it's not already there, if you're not already able to listen and react in real time.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I take like if I'm working with someone, I'm taking you at face value with the way you're playing. Yeah. So in other words, like okay, you you uh you know, let's say you started off, let's say at a different tempo than me or something, then I'm gonna go with that. I'm gonna be like, oh, she knows what she wants because I'm gonna assume that I'm gonna have trust. You know what you want. Now let me meet you there. You're trying to tell me something. You're trying to say, hey, I don't like your tempo, I like this tempo. And I was like, let's try that. And you have that whole back and forth just by listening.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So like and let's say I'm trying to say to you, okay, yeah, that's a good tempo, but like, can we try this other tempo maybe? I can also suggest that by playing a little bit faster and trusting you're listening to me too. You're listening to me kind of poke you and say, Isabel, I dig your tempo, but can we do it a little bit faster or something like that?
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And then if you don't get that memo and we're kind of off from each other, and then we stop, and it's like it's just not right. Then it's like, well, let's talk about it. That means like the listening wasn't happening closely enough, and now words are required, which happens, dude.
SPEAKER_02It happens, it's not like I'll never say anything, but you find yourself in rehearsals with those people who are constantly stopping and constantly asking. And it those are always the ones who are like, I find not the best listeners because I want to be or not the best showers of their intention, because either it's like, well, I'm showing you what I'm doing, or I'm not getting anything from you to react off of. Yeah. So now we have to stop and discuss every measure and try to make a plan. Yes. And then in the moment the plan doesn't happen anyway because no one's doing that great.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's like, don't even bother writing this in because I'm probably going to change it next time anyway. Yeah. But and there's also those people who maybe they they do hear everything, but they don't have the patience or the empathy to be like, we're not playing well right now. Together and that's okay. Let's see what happens in the next section. Let's see what happens in the next section. Let's see if we can find each other over the course of the next two minutes or three minutes or five minutes. And that can be really beautiful too. So you you have to have an openness. You you really do have to be like a receiver as much or more as a giver when you're playing chamber music. That's why I love it. I'm just like, you get to be an observer and a kind of subtle actor rather than um a leader. I feel very uncomfortable. I would feel super uncomfortable being a conductor.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. I have never had the desire to be a conductor. Do you want to do some of the second movement just because it's so beautiful? I was gonna suggest that. We didn't play through this at all, but we'll see if it works.
SPEAKER_00So pretty. Um this is the second movement of the Brahms F minor sonata for it's worth it's worth just hearing the opening, um, especially if you've never heard it. And as with all these pieces that we play, it's like really encourage you to go listen to the full versions. And maybe there's some recording you want to suggest later, but I have no suggestions. Perfect. So pretty. And that one does work really well, I think, on clarinet. Yeah. Um, because they can enter a kind of sound and and like a in a stable way that is like still if they have really, really good breath control.
SPEAKER_02Right. Well, violists can also do that if they're better than that. No, no, no.
SPEAKER_00No, no, it's nothing new with that. I think it's just it's a different what I like about clarinetists. I'm like, wow, you're playing reminding me of how good it sounds on the clarinet for really obvious reasons. No, dude, it's just it's a different kind of song, yeah, like on the different instruments, and so like I I I find that really interesting. Anyway, please play with me more. Really? You don't play that much viola anymore. You're always doing stand-up, which is I mean, that's just what you do.
SPEAKER_02I play a lot of viola in my stand-up, actually. Like I I am playing a fair amount still.
SPEAKER_00You do you are?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I'm just not preparing recitals or playing like full programs with ensembles. Yeah. I'm jumping in here or there or playing for my own comedic reasons.
SPEAKER_00Does it ever I was wondering if it ever gets tiring to play the same like excerpts in your in your stand-up sets and stuff?
SPEAKER_02No, not yet. Because it's just a relief to play something I'm comfortable playing. I have so much anxiety around playing. Really? Like, I mean, even just now, playing that slow movement, especially I was really nervous just now. I was like, don't mess with it. Like, I was really in my head. Yeah. Um it's that's part of the reason why I've distanced myself a little from like just being a musician, is because I have so many demons around it, and it's it's just not the most fun thing for me to do a lot of the time. Um but in stand-up, playing something I know I can nail, and I'm leading towards like a laugh and joy, and it's it's it's like the most therapeutic way to approach the instrument for me. So I'm sure, I mean, um I get sick sometimes, sick of something. I get sick sometimes. A lot. I'm very sick right now in the head. Uh I get sick of things and swap them out when I was sobbing. Also, doing this podcast and in general, I can't listen to too much classical music sometimes because I get really sad because it reminds me of like how much of a role it used to play in my life. Because I did really I do really love it. It's just certain uh circumstances of pursuing the life of a professional performer of classical music that just I don't think is sustainable for me. But because of that, I have sort of given up a life of like there's just less music in my life. Yeah. And it's so connected to like my family and where I came from and and so much emotion and love for me that I sometimes I hear pieces and I'm like, oh damn, like music is really good and powerful. Yeah, and I just I wish I didn't push it away so much, but whatever.
SPEAKER_00We'll figure it out. Uh you know, by episode 100, yeah, I'm gonna get you to feel differently about it.
SPEAKER_02No, by episode a hundred, I'm gonna be like, I just can't figure out a healthy way to get it in my life.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I'm like, okay, maybe we should stop the podcast.
SPEAKER_02Every episode I just start crying more and more.
SPEAKER_00I'm like, dude, I'm trying my best here. I'm trying to sell this stuff. Um well, guys, thank you so much for listening as always. Check out some Beethoven, check out some Brahms, check out some classical music and slow movement of Opus 132 Beethoven's string quartet, the Heiliger Donka Song.
SPEAKER_02That's what one of the chorale movements we mentioned, but we did not play. If you want to go listen to that.
SPEAKER_00Start there, then make your way to Opus 109 Beethoven. Alright, talk to you soon. Bye. Bye.
