Is there a myth of Brahms?

[Peter]

A year ago we had his whole output being broadcast on BBC Radio 3 within ten days or so, including all his operas (or what he did write of them, as some are unfinished).

Amazing - a year ago! Yes there is some fine music in the operas, especially Fierrabras and Alfonso und Estrella .

[Sorrano]

Any recommendations on a Schubert collection?

[Peter]

Any recommendations on a Schubert collection?

Do you mean specific works?

[Sorrano]

Do you mean specific works?

Looking for something similar to the Brilliant collections for Beethoven and Haydn. The symphonies I have (thanks to a recommendation from Roehre), but I would like to branch out on other works.

[Peter]

Looking for something similar to the Brilliant collections for Beethoven and Haydn. The symphonies I have (thanks to a recommendation from Roehre), but I would like to branch out on other works.

I don't know Sorrano, I haven't looked but certainly look out for the last two piano trios (especially the Bb), late piano sonatas (including the G major Op.78, but especially the Bb), the song cycles, the last Mass in Eb (I adore that Kyrie!), last quartets (especially for me 'Death and the Maiden' which I prefer to the G major), String Quintet in C, the impromptus and Moments Musicaux, last 3 piano pieces, The Grand duo in C, the duet fantasy in F minor and the Variations in Ab. No music collection is complete without these glorious masterpieces and I notice that my list mainly comes from just the last few years of Schubert's incredibly short life - one of the truly miraculous wonders of music.

[Roehre]

Looking for something similar to the Brilliant collections for Beethoven and Haydn. The symphonies I have (thanks to a recommendation from Roehre), but I would like to branch out on other works.

There exists a Brilliant 40CD set "Schubert - the masterpieces" (Brilliant 92394), with
-symphonies 1-6; 8+9
-all masses
-stringquintet
-string quartets "Rosamunde", "Death and maiden", G-major , Quartettsatz, g-minor D.173
-the piano trios
-octet
-all works for violin and piano
-all piano sonatas and diverse other pieces like Wanderer fantasie, moments musicaux and impromptus
-2 CDs diverse piano duets
-3 song cycles
-70 diverse songs
-lazarus


Enjoyable set, which I acquired specifically for the piano music

[Sorrano]

Thanks for the recommendation! Currently, the set is offered at Amazon for $80+ and does not appear to be in stock other than through their zShops. It does look like a good set, though.

[Belle]

Bach overrated?

I will admit that Bach's pedantry and pressing need to supply new works to several churches sometimes led him to write mediocre work. I think particularly of the numerous cantata and mass solo or duet arias which in my opinion are often uninspired and formulaic, and bring to mind one of his sons' description of him as "the old wig." However, his music was just as likely to be richly inspired. Offhand and with pretty wide experience, I cannot think of one chorus from his religious works that is not inspired, and many of them are among the supreme works of Western music. Examples from among many, many could include The Magnificat in D (where even the arias are all first rate), Cantata No. 50, a one-movement masterpiece of a chorus that literally knocks one's socks off, or just about any chorus from the B Minor Mass. Cum Sancto Spiritu from the Mass I would place up against just about any single movement in Western music for sheer shivering greatness. The combination of Gloria In Excelsis immediately followed by Et In Terra Pax is enough to being one to one's knees. The series of choruses Et incarnatus Est, Crucifixus, Et Resurrexit and Et In Spiritum Sanctum has to be one of the most profound and moving meditations in all of music. Then of course there are the great Passions, with the St.Matthew probably foremost among them, all full of marvelous music.

Likewise the orchestral works, such as the early ones from Cothen or the later Zimmerman's Coffeehouse concertos, are very richly inspired almost without exception. The Orchestral Suites, those paragons of joyousness? Keyboard Concerto No. 1 in D Minor with its thundering first movement? The Violin Concerto in E Major with its classical sweetness that brings to mind the beautiful grace of ancient Greek art? The Double Violin Concerto? Please, sir, you must be joking.

To my mind the keyboard suites tend to be a little formulaic, but the other instrumental works for solo or small group are of very high quality. The Goldberg Variations. The Fifth Brandenburg with its monumental cadenza. Has the sheer cozy woody beauty of stringed instruments playing with and against each other ever been more fully realized than in the Sixth Brandenburg? The Chaconne from the Violin Partita No. 2 all by itself is a high monument of Western culture. Outside of Bach you can find works which equal these (you tend to think of Beethoven) but not really surpass them. I think perhaps your Bach experience is limited, or possibly you just do not get him. Back in the Pleistocene Age we had another such on this site.

I should mention his supreme craftsmanship, and his perfection of the most complicated counterpoint, for instance in The Musical Offering where the high technical achievement is surpassed by the serene spiritual emotions repeatedly evoked by the music. In hundreds of his works, the bass line alone, which is never routine, is more worth listening to than most other composers' main melodic lines.

All this is to not even speak of his influence on Western music as one of the prime explorers of the furthest reaches of harmony, whose pioneering experiments in this dimension were hardly even appreciated until the Romantic era. And the influence of only the Well-Tempered Clavier on possibly every important successive composer is incalculable. But I did not even mention these pedagogical factors before, because I was speaking of Bach purely as a creator.

Forgive my intensity, but you have touched my heart.

I'm not sure about Bach's 'mediocrity' and his role as "the old wig", preferring instead Andras Schiff's assessment of Bach as "the old Testament in music". The rest of your comments are dazzling and worthy of inclusion in any serious musical text. I found myself in complete agreement with the sentiments you've expressed, only wishing I could have written them myself. Long live 'intensity'!!

You write with the keen 'eye' of a visual artist ("sheer cozy, woody beauty") and the aesthetic judgment of a connoisseur.

[Chaszz]

I'm not sure about Bach's 'mediocrity' and his role as "the old wig", preferring instead Andras Schiff's assessment of Bach as "the old Testament in music". The rest of your comments are dazzling and worthy of inclusion in any serious musical text. I found myself in complete agreement with the sentiments you've expressed, only wishing I could have written them myself. Long live 'intensity'!!

You write with the keen 'eye' of a visual artist ("sheer cozy, woody beauty") and the aesthetic judgment of a connoisseur.

Aw shucks, ma'am, yore makin' me blush...

No seriously, thanks for the compliments. But have you really never found some of the arias in the cantatas formulaic and second-rate in inspiration?
Since his melodic lines in the arias are very long and convoluted, and he repeats them several times, when they are not inspired they seem boring to me. No?

[Peter]

Aw shucks, ma'am, yore makin' me blush...

No seriously, thanks for the compliments. But have you really never found some of the arias in the cantatas formulaic and second-rate in inspiration?
Since his melodic lines in the arias are very long and convoluted, and he repeats them several times, when they are not inspired they seem boring to me. No?

He had a rather busy schedule!

[Chaszz]

He had a rather busy schedule!

Yes, that's what I said at the beginning of my long post above. Fathered 23 children with two wives, responsible for the weekly music in four Leipzig churches, composed two complete yearly cantata cycles, consulted with poets (usually Picander) on cantata libretto each week, composed and supervised parts copying by students of the entire cantata with an average of six movements each week, rehearsed choirs, soloists and musicians for the cantata each week, performed and conducted cantatas on Sunday, taught numerous private students including his own children (producing four composers among them), frequently wrote keyboard works which he published, led secular Collegium Musicum with weekly concerts including concertos of his own, composed on commission (Goldberg Variations, Brandenburg Concertos), owned and ran musical instrument and manuscript store, traveled to professionally test and evaluate instruments, especially organs for churches, consulted professionally with instrument makers, fought with employers, compiled family album of huge Bach clan, read Bible, meditated and prayed, compiled B Minor Mass in spare time, drank prodigious amounts of beer and wine, all in an 800-square-foot 3-floor apartment bustling with adults and children and linked with his church office... A somewhat impressive example of the Protestant work ethic.

[Peter]

Yes, that's what I said at the beginning of my long post above. Fathered 23 children with two wives, responsible for the weekly music in four Leipzig churches, composed two complete yearly cantata cycles, consulted with poets (usually Picander) on cantata libretto each week, composed and supervised parts copying by students of the entire cantata with an average of six movements each week, rehearsed choirs, soloists and musicians for the cantata each week, performed and conducted cantatas on Sunday, taught numerous private students including his own children (producing four composers among them), frequently wrote keyboard works which he published, led secular Collegium Musicum with weekly concerts including concertos of his own, composed on commission (Goldberg Variations, Brandenburg Concertos), owned and ran musical instrument and manuscript store, traveled to professionally test and evaluate instruments, especially organs for churches, consulted professionally with instrument makers, fought with employers, compiled family album of huge Bach clan, read Bible, meditated and prayed, compiled B Minor Mass in spare time, drank prodigious amounts of beer and wine, all in an 800-square-foot 3-floor apartment bustling with adults and children and linked with his church office... A somewhat impressive example of the Protestant work ethic.

Deo gratias!