I love it. Lol. Love it a ton. Love listening to it that is 🤣🤣🤣 I thought it was the hardest part of the piece to play. Harder than the last 2 var or the fugue for me. So I just have memories of hours of practicing accuracy with it and still missing notes. But it is exceedingly fun and perfectly placed after the epic 13th variation.
Thank you so much for this! My favorite theme and variations. Please do videos on more of the variations. My favorite recording is by Etelka Freund (available on TH-cam). She used to play for Brahms at his home as a teenager, so she might actually have played this piece for him. He was head of the Vienna music society and enabled her induction at the age of 16. The recording was made in her 70s, but she was still very strong. Also consider a video on Reger’s Variations on a Theme by Telemann, which is so clearly influenced by Brahms’ Handel variations.
What a great video! I've loved Brahms' Handel Variations since my college days. I imprinted on the performance done by Gary Graffman (student of Horowitz, IIRC). He paired this set of vatiations with both books of the Paganini Variations. There's also a YT of Sviatoslav Richter playing the Handel Variations which is pretty awesome.
@@thisismoyukhsworld2022 At least the Eroica Variations, and 3rd symphony variations actually sound good, the hammerklavier is pretty much just noise. Complexity loses all meaning if you're not able to make it sound good.
Nice job! If you can use terms like "augmentation," I think you can use "head (motive)" and "tail (motive)" when talking about "fragmentation." It might also be possible to introduce language like "exposition," "episode," "sequence," and "(dominant) pedal point."
Thanks for the informed and pleasant comment, and you bring up a great point! I see people comment from time to time things like "bro doesn't know what a I64 chord is" but I tend to just ignore those comments. It just looks childish to argue and what do they really want, my to give timestamps of past videos where I teach these concepts. But back to your comment, it is a delicate balance of knowing when to use technical terms and when to look for other ways of explaining (or ignore a concept in a video). In this case "head" and "tail" would have been perfect because it's self explanatory, wish I would have said that. But while talking I do try to teach concepts over terms. I don't want my videos to become only me showing off cool words I know (like my earlier example, if the video is already 20-30 minutes longs getting sidetracked on I64 might not worth it. Especially considering it's less intuitive and isn't always the main focus) Well, now I'm rambling. I really enjoyed your comment and thought it was an good opportunity to share my pedagogical thoughts on it. Do I always get it right, lol, no way. But in my head I'm always asking "should I get into that in this video?" "Shut up Ryan" "sound-feel-symbol-name" "focus on the big picture" "more details". Stuff like that 🤣. Have an awesome day!
@@ryanabshier Thanks for kind reply. As theory/composition/ear training teacher back in the day, I always enjoyed reinforcing and re-introducing concepts--especially if a student is likely to encounter the same concept elsewhere in his coursework. Maybe the idea of fugal exposition and episodes isn't so important to a casual listener, but even a casual listener might have some notion of sequences, and pedal points. (My "go to" examples of ascending and descending sequences happen to both be Christmas songs-- "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" and "Angels We Have Heard on High") A couple of my favorite fugues are by Beethoven: the Finale from Hammerklavier, and the Finale from Opus 110 in A-flat. I really enjoyed the process of learning those Beethoven fugues, even though I wouldn't dare perform them in public. All best wishes.
@ryanabshier btw will you talk about the 4th movement of beethoven's first sonata?. i love it SO much and the left hand on the slow section reminds me of heart beats, that slowly become more passionate hehe
What's wrong with the 14th variation 😭😭 It's one of my favorites from the whole set
I love it. Lol. Love it a ton. Love listening to it that is 🤣🤣🤣 I thought it was the hardest part of the piece to play. Harder than the last 2 var or the fugue for me. So I just have memories of hours of practicing accuracy with it and still missing notes.
But it is exceedingly fun and perfectly placed after the epic 13th variation.
Love these breakdown vids. I had an old cd from the 90's that had the 5th and 6th variations. Always loved those in particular.
Your videos are awesome!!
I didn’t know this piece. Thanks so much!
Thank you so much for this! My favorite theme and variations. Please do videos on more of the variations.
My favorite recording is by Etelka Freund (available on TH-cam). She used to play for Brahms at his home as a teenager, so she might actually have played this piece for him. He was head of the Vienna music society and enabled her induction at the age of 16. The recording was made in her 70s, but she was still very strong.
Also consider a video on Reger’s Variations on a Theme by Telemann, which is so clearly influenced by Brahms’ Handel variations.
What a great video! I've loved Brahms' Handel Variations since my college days. I imprinted on the performance done by Gary Graffman (student of Horowitz, IIRC). He paired this set of vatiations with both books of the Paganini Variations. There's also a YT of Sviatoslav Richter playing the Handel Variations which is pretty awesome.
Brahms was probably inspired by Beethoven's "Eroica" Variations, Op. 35, which also concludes with a massive fugue.
@@ericrakestraw664 Yeah but the Eroica Fugue is no match in complexity compared to the Hammerklavier Fugue.
@@thisismoyukhsworld2022 At least the Eroica Variations, and 3rd symphony variations actually sound good, the hammerklavier is pretty much just noise. Complexity loses all meaning if you're not able to make it sound good.
@@MonsieurFeshe what??? noise??? this has to be a joke, it's one of my favourite fugues!
Thanks Ryan. You are fantastic - even with just a little too short fingers
Nice job!
If you can use terms like "augmentation," I think you can use "head (motive)" and "tail (motive)" when talking about "fragmentation." It might also be possible to introduce language like "exposition," "episode," "sequence," and "(dominant) pedal point."
Thanks for the informed and pleasant comment, and you bring up a great point! I see people comment from time to time things like "bro doesn't know what a I64 chord is" but I tend to just ignore those comments. It just looks childish to argue and what do they really want, my to give timestamps of past videos where I teach these concepts.
But back to your comment, it is a delicate balance of knowing when to use technical terms and when to look for other ways of explaining (or ignore a concept in a video). In this case "head" and "tail" would have been perfect because it's self explanatory, wish I would have said that. But while talking I do try to teach concepts over terms. I don't want my videos to become only me showing off cool words I know (like my earlier example, if the video is already 20-30 minutes longs getting sidetracked on I64 might not worth it. Especially considering it's less intuitive and isn't always the main focus)
Well, now I'm rambling. I really enjoyed your comment and thought it was an good opportunity to share my pedagogical thoughts on it. Do I always get it right, lol, no way. But in my head I'm always asking "should I get into that in this video?" "Shut up Ryan" "sound-feel-symbol-name" "focus on the big picture" "more details". Stuff like that 🤣. Have an awesome day!
@@ryanabshier Thanks for kind reply.
As theory/composition/ear training teacher back in the day, I always enjoyed reinforcing and re-introducing concepts--especially if a student is likely to encounter the same concept elsewhere in his coursework. Maybe the idea of fugal exposition and episodes isn't so important to a casual listener, but even a casual listener might have some notion of sequences, and pedal points. (My "go to" examples of ascending and descending sequences happen to both be Christmas songs-- "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" and "Angels We Have Heard on High")
A couple of my favorite fugues are by Beethoven: the Finale from Hammerklavier, and the Finale from Opus 110 in A-flat. I really enjoyed the process of learning those Beethoven fugues, even though I wouldn't dare perform them in public.
All best wishes.
My favorite fugue by far is Beet's 31 sonata
That one's great too. I don't think Beethoven wrote a fugue I don't like.
@ryanabshier btw will you talk about the 4th movement of beethoven's first sonata?. i love it SO much and the left hand on the slow section reminds me of heart beats, that slowly become more passionate hehe
My favorites are the little ones in Totentanz and 4th ballade
Love Totentanz, although it technically is a fugato 🧐
Please do a video on Hammerklavier's Fugue also.
I should. I'll have to call it "My other favorite fugue" haha
Also please do a video on the complex jazzy Fugue from Samuel Barber's Sonata.