Getting Romantic with Brahms

Daniel and Isabel dive into Brahms' Intermezzo Op. 118 No. 2, and also touch on Brahms’ Piano Trio in B Major and the 3rd movement of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata in E Major, Op. 109.

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

Let's start today with a little broms. Recognize that one?

SPEAKER_01 0:57

Chorus. Yes. Brahms Opus one eighteen number two inermezzo. Yeah, he wrote these.

SPEAKER_00 1:04

Pretty well known. Yeah, it's one of his more famous inner metsi. He wrote these really intimate solo piano pieces toward the end of his life. This is Johannes Brahms' uh romantic era composer, so we're talking 19th century. Uh if you know Robert Schumann, that that was one of his mentors.

SPEAKER_01 1:24

And uh Schumann was one of Brahms' mentors, or Brahms was one of okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:28

No, uh Schumann, a little older, was one of his mentors. Brahm's famously in love, hypothetically, theoretically.

SPEAKER_01 1:35

With his sister.

SPEAKER_00 1:36

With his wife.

SPEAKER_01 1:37

Oh, that was his wife, Clara Schumann.

SPEAKER_00 1:40

Yeah, come on, you do that.

SPEAKER_01 1:42

I didn't know. No Brahms.

SPEAKER_00 1:44

You trying to mess with me.

SPEAKER_01 1:45

No, I think you know what it was. I think when someone's in love with someone, like sister, feel I'm like, of course, everyone loves like the hot sister. Yeah. So I was giving him the benefit of the doubt that it wasn't.

SPEAKER_00 1:57

No, it was even more scandalous.

SPEAKER_01 1:59

Right, and that's more why it was unrequited because she was married.

SPEAKER_00 2:04

And we have probably have that unrequited love to thank for all this great music.

SPEAKER_01 2:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

All that pain.

SPEAKER_01 2:11

It's like um we referenced uh in another episode or are going to reference in another episode, depending on when we release these for release. Oh yeah. Uh we have uh we have love to thank for a for a piece that now like seven-year-olds play all the time. Yeah. Anyway.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

So sorry I really mipped out. No, this is a this is definitely how this podcast is gonna go. Um but yeah, so these are the last pieces that he wrote before he kind of retired, you know, uh from from writing and then came back to writing for these clarinet works that you also play on the viola, the opus 120, uh the sonatas, the clarinet sonatas, slash viola sonatas. But these are like kind of you know, his swan song. He returns to the piano late in life. He started the piano. I mean, he is a pianist, and his opus one is a piano sonata. So he kind of goes off, ventures forth compositionally, ends up composing a ton of beautiful, amazing chamber music. If you want to get to know Brahms, you should really listen to his chamber music. Like the piano quartets, the three piano quartets, to me, especially the C minor piano quartet is like immediately uh gripping.

SPEAKER_01 3:30

And the G minor piano quartet, that's like a festival favorite. That is the one. The only times I've been it's just like everyone is so just horny for that one.

SPEAKER_00 3:42

Yeah, it's a it's a uh it's a sexy one. And actually I don't have to get too nerdy about it, but that's like the sexy part. Oh yeah, the uh the little interlude there in the middle of the dance. Daniel's not enjoying this right now. He doesn't know. No, no, I'm uncomfortable because I want to finish my point. But um, I knew this would happen. What was I gonna talk about? Oh yeah. No, just um that these uh what I like about these late pieces is that everything is kind of distilled at this point in his life. It's like you can hear at the beginning, he's he's out there trying to make it. You know, um Robert Schumann had touted him as this uh savior of you know the the new age, that he was gonna be the next Beethoven. He was hailing him as this great pioneer, and this put a tremendous weight and pressure and anxiety on Brahms in terms of his composing. He didn't actually compose a symphony until he was 40 years old, so he put off this uh the kind of biggest genre, the the the genre that someone like Beethoven was uh championing uh to say, Well, I'm not ready for that, oh I'm not ready for that, I don't know. And to some degree, I feel like as he returns to these uh intimate piano pieces, these solo piano pieces, it's kind of like getting in touch with a part of him that is he's assimilated all his uh you know uh desires and styles throughout his life, and now he's just getting into something that isn't just incredibly personal and not for anyone else but himself. So you hear that in Opus 118 number two, where it's just the right hand has this starts with this beautiful duet. We have a melody on top and then a kind of counter melody supporting it underneath, and then the left hand provides these rich bass notes. You know, this is something Brahms does all the time, which is have these uh what we call a tonic pedal point or a note in the bass that is like grounding things and supporting things, but also providing expectation and anticipation.

SPEAKER_01 6:10

It harkens back maybe a bit to also late Beethoven. When he had those vast register uh you know shifts and stuff or like he simultaneous high and low registers, yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_00 6:27

Um Beethoven was experimenting that with that probably early on in his life, and then toward the end he just accepted it as part of his like larger spiritual aesthetic or something. Um and and it's just like it's a broad view, right? He's not right out of the gate trying to do something trying to make a splash. He's like and I mean, but even I mean, think about like the the B major piano trio that also has that where it's what would it sound like without a pedal?

SPEAKER_01 7:02

Like, would you reharmonize it and like probably not, but I can try, or maybe just take the pedal up an octave.

SPEAKER_00 7:10

Uh let me see. If it without well, without the pedal point, what would it be yeah, would I would have to maybe reharmonize. I mean I can't really do it. I can't even hear it without that pedal point underneath.

SPEAKER_01 7:27

I'm just wondering if it would sound like more like more cheesy and more you know like it gets like film scorey almost.

SPEAKER_00 7:39

Or even like even if you did go this, um you know, if you had the had the dominant there, then it's like okay, these are the the actual harmonies that he's using.

SPEAKER_01 7:56

It's just dinkier, it's less of like a oh, this is like a heavy melody that carries a lot of weight and emotion.

SPEAKER_00 8:06

And also, it's building to something. What change is it building to? It's really getting all the way to there. That's that crunchy, beautiful, suspended harmony. That happens just at the right time before coming back to B major. So he's using these devices emotionally but also structurally for the music to build something and to create these incredible moments. So to go back to 118 number two for a sec, I mean, another unique we can get into like more just general Brahms and how we feel about it and stuff, but to speak a little more about this piece, it's interesting the tempo marking. I don't know if you can counter this in Brahms. I'm trying to remember honestly, uh some of his tempo choices, but it says on Dante tenoremente, which is it's not just on Dante, it's just uh not just a kind of walking tempo, which is very normal. Mozart would have written on Dante, Beethoven would have written on Dante, Haydn would have written on Dante, it's just that is a classical uh kind of tempo choice.

SPEAKER_02 9:18

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 9:19

Which Brahms absolutely loved the classical era and before he was like obsessed with older music, but tenoramente is kind of to be played tenderly. So now we're getting like some more specific expressive markings attached to the tempo. So not just all right, play it on Dante, kind of walking tempo, which has like an ease to it, you know, but tenderly, whatever that means, maybe some kind of robato or hesitation on some of the chords that you want to take time on, so that it has a little more sensitivity and nostalgia. These are the kinds of things that can easily be overdone, obviously, and sound, and maybe I sound, you know, uh either cheesy there or forced or not genuine, but these are the things we actually work on as musicians, right? Is to like, well, uh what do I feel about this so I can produce something that feels organic to me. If it feels organic and natural to me in my heart, it'll probably come out authentic there. It doesn't, it's not a mathematical thing that works out. It's not like take a little bit of time here or a little bit of time there, or oh no, that's too much. It's like I've heard performances where it seems like it would have been way overdone, but because the person felt it genuinely, I'm like, I buy it. I totally buy that, I buy that tempo, uh you know, I buy their timing. It's not a it's not an objective uh thing. It's it's it's very, very personal, don't you think?

SPEAKER_01 11:15

It's like an act a good actor or a bad actor, because even if it's coming from a genuine place, you are sorry, I'm touching your foot.

SPEAKER_00 11:23

I'm not trying to distract you. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 11:26

Um like good acting, bad acting. Good acting, bad acting. Because when you're playing a piece of music, you're not necessarily actually going through the emotion that you're conveying in the music. Like this is a tender, nostalgic, uh painful piece, right? Right. I could have been I could have had a great freaking day. Yeah. And now I have to perform this piece. So I'm gonna get into a space to perform it. That is exactly what an actor does. But a good actor is drawing from maybe real life or or or tapping into something real that then conveys the desired affect. Yeah. Whereas a bad actor, it's just it's just bad. It doesn't feel right or real or anything. There's no history in there to back it up.

SPEAKER_00 12:14

You feel like someone's pretending to be someone.

SPEAKER_01 12:16

Yeah, you can just tell. So it's the same with a good interpreter of of Brahms or any music. Uh you can tell if their choices are coming from just them being fully present in that moment and heart and you know, thinking back to something like painful or beautiful that makes them feel more connected to the piece. Like maybe it's as direct as when I play this piece, I think about you know, my husband. Or maybe it's more abstract. Like when I think about this piece, I think about just like the idea of like it's just satisfaction and the like chasing satisfaction and the elusiveness of beauty, and you know, like it could be anything, but as long as it feels real to you. Yeah. Um, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 13:00

Yeah, I know I you're right. And one of the things, one of my pet peeves in hearing interpretations is when people are um when people sound overly reverent of the music. Like in other words, you can hear intention, like you're saying. You can hear motivation. So when I hear that someone is just like listen to how beautiful this music is, um, it sounds like someone saying it like that in that affect.

SPEAKER_01 13:30

It sounds like someone performing Shakespeare badly, like to be or not to be. Yeah, I mean And I would I honestly more than 50% of the like highly regarded professional classical musicians, I think, are kind of I would say more than 80%.

SPEAKER_00 13:51

Sure, I was being joked. So many I think especially because of where classical music is now and everything, is like it's so phony. Let me tell you about this incredible art form from the stage. Or the facial expressions that like Yeah, all that is all that is bullshit. I'm sorry. 90% bullshit. Some people hey, maybe it's genuine for uh do you think it's ever genuine?

SPEAKER_01 14:16

Of course it's sometimes there's always an exception. Yeah. And I'm sure I would I'll now like watch a performer with who makes a face, but it's like I think that's real. Or they just have a weird-looking face and their face just kind of does that or whatever. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:28

But and also it's not necessarily like, oh, they're putting something on to look more emotional. They could just be tense. I think a lot of the time, I mean, I used to perform much more uh emotively, I don't know how you put it, but uh, where where I would make more expressions as I'm playing. But part of that was I'm almost trying to convince myself of the emotion that I'm trying to play. In other words, I'm like, oh, it's it's really, really sad here, so I need to like get into sad zone. How do I do that? The body, uh, the mind follows the body a lot of the time, right? And vice versa. So if I maybe if my body does something that would indicate sadness, I will then feel sad. And sometimes that's true. So if it's a helpful device to get into the character, all right, I I kind of get that. There's a lot of different spectrums and reasons why someone would be emoting on stage. I found that as I became more confident in myself and my own voice, and as I uh develop the desire to just focus mainly on what the sound is that I'm making and staying attached to the sound, um stilling everything, making sure my body is still and my mind is focused and attentive and not distracted has helped me, I think, develop a clearer story in the music. And it allows me to be receptive to what I'm doing in the moment. If I'm trying to do things, well then I'm not I'm not listening, I'm not receiving, I'm um I'm I'm attempting to create something. You get you gotta be when you're performing in a little bit more of a state of receptivity so that you can allow a reaction to the sound you're making too, you know? Anyway. Um anyway. This is what this is point is this is one of those pieces that really can feel very affected, especially because Brahms is kind of an overnotator.

SPEAKER_01 16:31

He's micromanage-y, he's telling you to play tenderly, like Dante tenorement uh it's a lot of his pieces are marked like allegor man on tropo.

SPEAKER_00 16:40

Like it's always like not too much, or make sure you're extra expressive here, and uh a little bit that's a a uh remnant of Beethoven, too. I mean, toward the uh I don't know if I've played this yet on the podcast, but one of Beethoven's famous late sonatas is Opus 109 in E major, and the last movement he writes, you know, to be played uh singingly and expressively and as kind of like as beautifully as you possibly can in that this chorale. And also mezzo voce, so with a kind of half voice. It's a simple kind of folk song, but he's telling you to play it with all the expression and heart that you could possibly muster. Which actually most of the time is not helpful because it's gonna put the performer in all these knots psychologically. It's like okay, enter a profound state and play this simple music with an air of profundity, and it's like how about you let me discover what's so beautiful about this music? But that's the thing about Beethoven, is uh the material itself is not always as profound as he himself is finding it. So, like, we do he does need to convey. Look, I know this is really simple music, but it's actually could be more profound than you think if you play it this way. So he does need to micromanage you. It's a tricky thing, but Beethoven kind of paves the way for overnotation, for like not trusting the performer at all. He writes a lot of like Swordsandos and you know a lot of Sword Sandos, which are like these little accents in the middle of the phrase that like uh make sure you play this with extra emphasis, or he suddenly changes from forte to piano in like random places. I have this um do I did I pull this up? Oh no, I don't even have it, so I can't play it. But in one of my videos, like where I'm figuring out different markings that someone erased for me on YouTube. Um one of the first ones that my friend gave me with the Diabelli variations by Beethoven, which I didn't know, which it's a famous piece, but I just never came across it. I think I I'm sure I've heard it uh when I was younger, and I just never came across it, and people don't really play it that much. So, but it's a really simple tune by Diabelli, and it has if you play it without any markings, it sounds like a dorky little classical tune. But then with the markings from Diabelli and Beethoven, like suddenly it's like whoa, I'm suddenly getting forte here, I'm suddenly doing a crescendo here. I did not expect I couldn't predict the markings, which tells you these composers sometimes are trying to do things that are intentionally unorthodox, and the only way to convey that is to actually show you, you know, through notation. Otherwise, it'll just get lost, it'll be washed over, especially in 20 years, 30 years, 40 years, 50 years, 100 years. And Beethoven is maybe one of the first composers who's thinking that long, who's like, you know what? My music might I want my music to last. So I want to make sure that what I've written here is exactly what I mean.

SPEAKER_01 20:15

What's what are the Diabelli variations? You have them? No, I don't have them. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 20:20

Sorry. You can check out my video called Where the Markings on YouTube where I do I play through the theme.

SPEAKER_01 20:26

Make sure you like and subscribe.

SPEAKER_00 20:28

Oh, absolutely smash that like button. Um okay, back to 118. So, you know, there's a tenderness, there's an individualism in this music. And yet, Rahm's right, he's steeped in tradition. He loves classical form, he loves Baroque music too and Renaissance music. And these phrases, even though they're tender and beautiful and sensitive and lyrical, they're incredibly balanced and classically structured. So I'll just show you really quick. We have four bars. That's one, two, three, four. And that's the first half of a little phrase, right? Typically, phrases in the classical beard are like this four plus four measures or eight plus eight measures, but they work out very evenly. So that's the first four bars. Here's the next four bars. So that you can hear there's a kind of response, right? Um, and a return. And now we have the next eight bars. So this is a a nested little phrase inside of a bigger phrase, right? Because now we've landed on the key of E. Started an A. Oh, sort of. I mean that's like a suspended harmony, but we are in A major. Um, so now we have to find a way. Um we have to find a way to respond to those first eight bars, right? So he repeats a version of the first four now. And now another four to wrap it up. Okay. So we've just gone through our little sixteen-bar phrase, and everything works out super neatly, like Mozart. Just like Mozart. Um what makes this romantic music and not classical music is the expression. Is the it's the the tender affect, the richness of the counterpoint.

SPEAKER_01 23:01

Um also just the the period it was written, right? Like isn't is there?

SPEAKER_00 23:07

Well, yeah, but he could have written like, you know, he could have written it.

SPEAKER_01 23:13

No, I I know, but is there any I this is a genuine question about just how we classify these periods. And are there any composers who are completely contemporary to Brahms who we say are classical composers? Or is it just it's too late time-wise. So they you could say, oh, they really write in the classical style, but he's a romantic or she I guess she's a romantic composer. Right, of course. Uh that's a joke, because we don't really talk about female composers from this time.

SPEAKER_00 23:46

I mean, thankfully we're playing Clara Schumann's music more now. But we are? Clara? Yeah. Yeah, we do. I mean, she just doesn't have that much because also because she wasn't encouraged to write music. Right. Um, or like Fanny Mendelssohn is a big romantic era female composer. Um and there are others too, but you know, we're we're we're working on it.

SPEAKER_01 24:07

We're working on it. But wait, so my question about um the era.

SPEAKER_00 24:12

Oh so so uh well I d I guess uh uh yeah, we say like romantic era as if it's like a time, but I am talking about style.

SPEAKER_01 24:21

But don't you think that would be this is all probably a little confusing to someone who's not completely embedded in this world because you're saying this is romantic based on how it sounds. Yeah. But also this is a romantic era piece.

SPEAKER_00 24:38

Yeah. Yeah, and there is romantic sounding classical music by Mozart, of course. Right. Like, you know, the lacrimosa.

SPEAKER_01 24:46

It's like we almost we we just use too few words to we should have like separate words ideally for the era and for the style. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:54

It's like, whoa, I mean c I mean romantic with a capital R, referring to the time period.

SPEAKER_01 24:59

Right. And then there's also just like it sounds romantic, which is never what anyone is talking about, even though this music sounds so romantic. I know, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:06

I guess all this is unnecessarily alienating for the average person.

SPEAKER_01 25:11

I don't know if it I mean it's sh I I don't want it to be alienating. I just I feel like and it's what you do with it's what you're always trying to do. Just like I want to invite more people in with it. Like, okay, just but just so you know, these are like terms that are being kind of used in weird ways.

SPEAKER_00 25:24

Well, I'm also I'm talking about what I learned, which is also maybe problematic. Where it's like what did I learn and how did I learn it and why do I use those terms? I mean, maybe we're due for some new terms.

SPEAKER_01 25:37

Yeah, but that's not gonna happen.

SPEAKER_00 25:39

Okay. Um for now we'll do our best. I will say what else is it that I think the harmonies too, like what chords he chooses, there are some chords that like classical people or Baroque people like wouldn't have used. In other words, there is a kind of development or a changing of style where composers are using different chords to signify different things. And if you threw them in the Renaissance period, they'd be like, whoa, this doesn't make any sense. But if you put them in Brahms during the 19th century, it's like, yep, that's down the middle of the road, romantic era stuff. So uh that's why these categories can be helpful to kind of we do uh you know, culture does have its trends, and we gotta be able to label what those trends are. Right. Um, to some degree or categories. We were talking about that earlier. Um let me play a little more. Try to notice see if you can notice what does change in these two phrases. So I'm gonna play these these sixteen bars again, and the second half gonna is gonna sound like a repeat of the first half, but there are subtle differences. Let's see if you can just listen for them. Okay. And everyone knows what a chromatic passing tone is, right, Isabel?

SPEAKER_01 27:52

So, okay. Take it away. But here's the thing: this is one of those terms where it's fun to learn because you'll be like, oh, I hear that all the time in music, in pop music, and in like all sorts of music. So it the first one goes, dunno, wait, hold on. Well, they're in it's in the inner voices, but I'm no, I'm just trying to remember where it is though. Okay. Um, okay, so just play it again.

SPEAKER_00 28:17

All right, sure.

SPEAKER_01 28:24

So right here, that's no chromatic passing tone.

SPEAKER_00 28:27

And then still none. So the that's the first half of the phrase, which is nice and clean. And now I'll bring it out a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 28:48

Yeah. So play those back to back. Play the first one without it. Sure. So and then so chromatic means let's explain how this what chromatic passing tone means. Because I think it's I'll try. So chromaticism, okay. Well, when I think of a chromatic scale, it's scale and half step.

SPEAKER_00 29:16

So instead of Instead of like uh what we call a diatonic scale, which is just whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole half in the key of C major, that's a major scale. Chromatics is the smallest interval on the piano that you can travel.

SPEAKER_01 29:37

Right. And it's the smallest interval used in l in music besides music that gets really c you know microtonal stuff, which is more in like 20th, 21st century music.

SPEAKER_00 29:48

Yeah, and also music from other cultures. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:52

This is very specific We're really specif. You know, we're focusing on what European concert.

SPEAKER_00 29:57

Western European classical tradition, let's say. From like, you know, medieval to present.

SPEAKER_01 30:03

Yeah, the half step is the is generally the smallest space between notes. Yeah. So that's a chrome that's chromaticism.

SPEAKER_00 30:11

That's chromaticism. So a by the way, doesn't I mean it comes from chrome chrome is like color, right? Oh see, I never even thought about that. So it's it's a coloring of the harmony. So that it's like when you hear a chromatic note, instead of just, for example, a major chord, let's say I chromatically increased the fifth that has a different coloring to it. It feels different. It's like, whoa, we just went purple instead of blue or something like that.

SPEAKER_01 30:41

And like chrome, like in a color, like blue chrome is like a more, I think of it like a modern blue. It's like shinier chrome. Yeah, there's something Google Chrome. Whoa. To you by Google. Okay, so that's so we know what chromatic means, right? It's a half step between notes in this context. Then passing tone refers to a note that kind of connects one part of a melody or a phrase to another. So it's the passing tone.

SPEAKER_00 31:12

The role of it is in the title, passing. It's passing through. It's passing through from one note to another, and in this case in a chromatic way, in that colorful, half-stepy way. So uh where will where where were we? So here this F sharp needed to get to this E. Right? And by the way, that's what happens the first time. Now what is it right to the E. Right. So what if we traveled chromatically to the E? You're adding an extra note in order to get there in a more tender and more nostalgic and more heartfelt way. And you're literally taking an extra step to get there. Yeah. There's an effort to do it. Right.

SPEAKER_01 32:06

It's in the symbolic timing, right? We're not adding any time in this case. No, yeah. Uh, and I don't mean expressive timing, I mean literally the timing of the notated music.

SPEAKER_00 32:16

We don't have to add a whole measure in order to do this. Right.

SPEAKER_01 32:19

We're just changing, adding there is room for an extra note, and this time we're taking that extra note.

SPEAKER_00 32:24

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:27

And it gives it. So play the play them back to back one more time. Sure.

SPEAKER_00 32:33

So first one. Kind of hopeful, noble. Second one, second version of this.

SPEAKER_01 32:58

Yeah, I mean, I I don't it's it's weird. To me, it's like, well, obviously that makes it sound more nostalgic, a little more tender, yeah, less noble, more more personal.

SPEAKER_00 33:08

There's some at the very least, if you don't feel that, it's important to recognize that something has happened or something is different. That's one of the greatest lessons that I was ever given, you know, um just a j as a general principle at Stony Brook under Gil, uh Calitch, my teacher there, where he didn't force an interpretation on you ever, ever. He wouldn't say, This is more nostalgic. Like ironically, like he never put words to it, and it's kind of ironic because I'm I'm kind of trying to put words to what I do. But I love his um openness to all he would tell his student is doesn't something happen there? He would just leave it open for you to feel it or not feel it because he he didn't want it to feel forced. He didn't want someone to run to the piano and be like, oh yeah, chromatic leading tone or chromatic passing tone means nostalgia, so I'm gonna oh I'm gonna play it nostalgically, right? Did I do a good job playing it nostalgically because chromatic leading tones means nostalgia? Instead, it's just like notice that something happens there. I can show you exactly in the music if you want, or you can discover it for yourself. I'd rather you discover it for yourself and have curiosity about it, but okay, if you're not getting it, let me like lose my finger to point to an F natural. And then it's up to you what relationship emotionally you develop with that part. Because I'm putting words to it, I'm playing it a certain way. The last thing I would want is for someone to listen to me play it this way, and then be like, ooh, I'm gonna play it that way too. And so it's dangerous to mimic, to listen back, because it won't be genuine to you. It won't quite be genuine to you. You might love it, just like uh you can love you can love lots of things and it can inspire you, but for you to develop your own interpretation, you gotta sit with it and notice something about it that is uniquely your own uh relationship.

SPEAKER_01 35:09

Well, it it goes back to acting where you know, genuine acting can just be reacting to something. And you don't even need to identify it, just sort of oh, especially if you're acting with another actor, right, in a scene. Oh, something just happened, they just did something, and I'm just reacting to it. And in a way, this music is one actor and the performer is the other, and you're reacting to that passing tone. Yes. It doesn't really matter what you do, but yes, something happens there.

SPEAKER_00 35:36

And here's what's really crazy what's really crazy is I absolutely have to develop a new wonder about it every single time I play it, or at least every time I perform it, otherwise it will get stale and I will start to be a mimic of myself.

SPEAKER_01 35:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:53

So, like, how do you that was what's so great about Gil is like, how do you foster not interpretations, not good playing, but curiosity. Because if you have a fountain of that, your wonder of it and your expression of it will never end. Because you're always gonna discover something fresh about it for you. Even even if this is like the thousandth time I've probably played this passage, but I can still feel something about it because I know that that element of it is there and all I have to do is witness it fresh again.

SPEAKER_01 36:28

I have jokes I tell on stage, I've told hundreds of times. And sure, eventually I do get sick of my material and you you're everyone does.

SPEAKER_00 36:38

Everyone gets sick of your material.

SPEAKER_01 36:41

I know. But but until I'm sick of it, I'm still let's say I'm performing it for like the 400th time, I'm not sick of it because I have a different audience in front of me reacting to it in real time. And sure, if the joke bombs, it's not fun, and I'm maybe I'm sick of it in that moment. But as long as the audience is present with me and laughing, I feel like I'm telling it for the first it's fresh. Yeah. And I'm I am doing what what Calish is saying, Gil Calish, like playing it as if it's the first time, always discovering something new. And sometimes you do discover something new. Sometimes you hear a new little tag on stage and you just say it something, a joke you've said a hundred times before, and then you just say a little different thing on it, and you're like, Oh, yeah, that was different. Yeah. But I had another thought about this chromatic passing tone, because there's two, I think, two places that he doesn't. There's another one right after that that I didn't play yet. We don't have to point that out right now. But so this is the the repeated time it's almost another micromanaging move from Brahms because he's instead of he could have written now this time more nostalgic. Yeah. But instead of that, he actually just gave you a more nostalgic version of it.

SPEAKER_00 37:54

Yeah. Yeah, that's true. He's kind of he's forcing you to feel it. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:00

I mean, it is it is well, because when music is repeated like that, we often I think uh any decent musician will say, Okay, let's do this time a little different. Maybe it's a little quieter, maybe a little more sentimental, something.

SPEAKER_00 38:13

But and and the the question we rarely ask is why? Like we are taught, I think, especially that oh, this is a second time, so you you should do it different or feel it differently. But we don't get the proper motivation. Like in other words, that's not again, it's not something you can force. It can be like, well, this is a second time, so maybe I'll just do it less. Uh-huh. Okay, that's fine. But like what would be your motivation for doing that? Or you know, what would your be your deep um psychological change that would warrant that?

SPEAKER_01 38:46

Right, because honestly, also why is it wrong to play it exactly the same again for the audience?

SPEAKER_00 38:51

If I'm feeling sometimes like, you know what, I don't feel differently about this part. I don't nothing changed for me in this moment for whatever reason. Maybe I'm not as inspired or something. I don't change it.

SPEAKER_01 39:02

Well, that was just the same thing again.

SPEAKER_00 39:04

Like it's No, like we we this is what composers do. Another reason composers repeat stuff um is not for any special sentimental value, but just we need to hear stuff twice in order to get it into our minds so that later they can play with the form, so that they can this is it's like, hey, don't forget, this is the theme, this is the seed. I mean, why do we have choruses and refrains and stuff not just so that oh man, everyone can sing along like even bigger this time? It's also just it's it's comforting for our minds to be able to return to something that we understand and know. It's almost like if we change it too much, then uh we're we're like developing it in a way that isn't comforting or it isn't it isn't building that uh grounding for us to jump off of. So that return is actually per a perfectly good a perfectly good thing to do is just play it exactly the same way twice. Depends on the context.

SPEAKER_01 40:04

Right.

SPEAKER_00 40:05

Um let me point out the second change that he has, and then maybe I'll play a big chunk of the piece. So we got okay. So this is the second phrase where he has this beautiful chromaticism. Now the final part of the phrase and you heard it in the middle voice there, right? So instead of now he goes in that inner voice chromatically leading up. So he has it in that second phrase as well. Shall I keep playing?

SPEAKER_01 40:55

I I want to uh I think you should get to more of the piece, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:58

Okay, let's show people a little more of what happens. Another pedal point that seems to be leading somewhere. My foot pedaling. Now this really feels like it could be the end, right? But it's really just the end of the first section, and he gets us to the relative minor key of F sharp minor here in a really beautiful way. This passage is repeated and we get to hear the counter melody if we want. So instead of just this top voice, which is itself a beautiful melody, there's actually a melody in the left hand that we could bring out. Really, where these not just one melody, but two voices interacting together in beautiful counterpoint to create harmony.

SPEAKER_01 43:37

So there was an additional voice in the left hand for that repeat. There actually is different notes out there.

SPEAKER_00 43:42

No, no, it's exactly the same music. I just voiced it differently. I literally just played it differently. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and then where do we go from here? Like, F sharp minor, we're in this dark, beautiful, sentimental place. And then we ascend to something kind of divine. What do you think of that moment in the piece where it's almost like he steps away and reflects on something so spiritual and heavenly and just way way beyond the individual now. Like we started with a kind of song, maybe a duet, and we get into a deep dark kind of a place. But then it's like a release into something that soars above.

SPEAKER_01 44:58

Yeah, it it also it's a release, but it also it feels like a just a reliever to enter this major, this F-chart major. It's sort of just a momentary respite because so much of this piece feels just like the musical embodiment of sobbing.

SPEAKER_00 45:14

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:15

And then this is This is like a chorale. This is could be a happy memory from the past. Yeah. Um that's redundant. A memory from the past. Uh and yeah, there's obviously an element of the divine there's obviously an element of the divine.

SPEAKER_00 45:33

Of course, well, and it's the texture too, right? Like a a hymn, a chorale, like when all the voices are moving simultaneously together, it brings us to church in some way.

SPEAKER_01 45:45

Yeah, and it it is it does just serve a function in terms of it it lets us relax for a second, but then he gets to hit us again.

SPEAKER_02 45:56

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 46:16

Rip us back to reality and bring us back to the return of the opening.

SPEAKER_01 46:37

Speaking of chromatic passing tones, now the whole melody is a little altered.

SPEAKER_00 46:44

Reaching higher this music takes on a totally different quality now because of where we went. I think that's what I love about Late Brahms is he's learned how to distill all the tools that he's gathered and all his style and meld it into something that is just personal and concise and says just what it needs to say how it needs to say it. Love Brahms. Right. Absolutely love Brahms. One of my top one of my one of my absolute favorite composers, right next to Hubert.

SPEAKER_01 48:48

You didn't always love Brahms though. We gotta stop soon, but we're gonna talk about this in another Maybe we could.

SPEAKER_00 48:54

Yeah, no, I definitely I've always loved Rom. It was an acquired taste for me. Yeah, we'll we'll get into it in another podcast. Yeah. Sounds good.

SPEAKER_01 49:01

All right. That was Brahms. And I'm Isabel Hagen.

SPEAKER_00 49:09

And I'm Daniel Anastasia. Thank you guys for listening.

SPEAKER_01 49:12

Bye bye.