How Did Brahms Play The Piano?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 13 ก.พ. 2018
- This is an independent research project I did over the last year, trying to reconstruct Brahms's performance on his famous wax cylinder recording. I'm very pleased with the results and want to share what I've found out.
References:
Brahms at the Piano by Jonathan Berger and Charles Nichols:
ccrma.stanford.edu/groups/edi...
Interesting history about the cylinder:
www.cylinder.de/resource_brahm...
My own academic writeup for this project:
osf.io/xq835/
Old Recordings:
Leschetizky plays Chopin Nocturne:
• Chopin, Nocturne No 8 ...
Pugno plays Chopin Nocturne:
• Raoul Pugno plays Chop...
Pugno plays Chopin Polonaise:
• Raoul Pugno plays Chop...
Pachmann plays Chopin Nocturnes:
• Vladimir de Pachmann p...
Saint-Saëns plays Beethoven:
• Saint-Saëns plays Beet... - เพลง
Look at the book of the youngest daughter of Clara and Robert Schumann. Eugenie Schumann wrote a chapter about Brahms and she wrote also about his piano playing. I don't remember exactly, but she wrote about him not practising at all before concerts and not taking the score too seriously. She and her mother told him, he hat to practise, not to improvise. The book is well written and the chapter also offers a new view about Brahms as a person. I really liked it.
Absolutely right. Brahms grew up having to play in dodgy bars for a living so it'd make sense he took the improvisational approach. He could transpose pieces by ear while playing them just by taking a different root note, which he had to do once in a concert when the piano he had was tuned a semitone off during one of his piano concertos.
Eibenschütz said of Brahms that he "played as if he were improvising, with heart and soul, sometimes humming to himself, forgetting everything around him. His playing was altogether grand and noble, like his compositions."
thanks interesting! 🎶🎶🎶😊
True romantic, receiving inspiration in real time
2:22 is my favourite moment in music education on music
This is exactly the playing style of my grandmother, who was a pianist trained in the 30's and 40's when this playing style was probably still alive. She would dislocate notes and change the tempo extensively while playing from notes or doing her own arrangements. I definitely have to check some of those old recordings you used to show those techniques. Anyway, brilliant work!
There is no arranging here, his objective was to match the score as it was written and it worked out.
Brahms was notorious for having his own way with the tempo, and in chamber ensembles this frustrated his peers to no end. :) Also, he very much _did_ improvise on these "Hungarian" dance themes quite a lot, and was slow in finally writing them down for publication. They were an escape from painstaking craftsmanship that were, for a while, used mainly for personal fun at parties.
It should also be mentioned that they were popular tunes of the time, not original Brahms compositions.
Jan Swafford mentions in his Brahms biography that chamber groups were often frustrated by Brahms' rubato and improvising in performances, as well as his loud vocalizing and grunting.
@@mwhite6522 Such a phenomenal read.
Radu Lupu playing Brahms piano concerto no 1 with The Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra from 1996 video TH-cam! This IS The Best Brahms playing ever! Lupu a class of his own!!
@@RaineriHakkarainen :I'll give you that one; Radu Lupu, a matchless pianist. But, the Brahms 1st. ?? My wife presented to me the only gift I wanted for my 24th birthday. I'd only heard of Sviatoslav Richter at the time. But being in virtual love with the instrument, thanks to William Kapell and Horowitz. I was curious. Richter's performance of Brahm's 2nd concerto with Eric Leinsdorf?? Well, I'm an old man now. And it remains possibly my most cherished birthday present. The sound of the piano is just GLORIOUS under his hands. If you dont have it, get it. This concerto is a testament to Brahms as a pianist when he was a younger man, obviously. Even Mischa Dichter had to consult Richter on the right technique to accomplish certain passages in the first movement. And the scherzo?? How did he ( Brahms ) think of that ending. The concerto brings me to tears. No wonder his name ( is ) Brahms.
I didn't expect to hear Camille Saint-Saens playing Beethoven. amazing.
It's been the fashion with musicologists to pooh-pooh those piano rolls. But I suspect they can tell us a lot about performance practice of the time.
I certainly want some of these practices back in classical music. My and my, how dull we have made it, compared to what it used to be.
Well done, and good reconstruction. Brahms' music was obviously very emotional, and without tempo changes, would sound lifeless - a fault found in many modern performances. It's as if modern performers never had a genuine emotion in their life - worse than robots, as robots have an excuse. The video called "Debussy plays Debussy" is instructive and ear-opening as well. Thanks for having the courage to bring to life the music as it was intended.
Thank you for defining the human beings of the last decades...
And in spite of not having emotions, they consider themselves enough qualified to say what is good or wrong in Music..., the music created by the Greatest Geniuses of the past with the deepest emotions, totally oposite to them... Just Amazing
I wonder what would say the "great" Pollini if he would Heard an hypothetical recording of Chopin... Totally wrong! Orribile, non rispetta lo spartito. Sbagliato!
I'm a music librarian at Sydney Conservatorium of Music and work closely with Prof. Neal Peres da Costa. We are very pleased to hear that the Peres da Costa's book OFF THE RECORD (Oxford University Press, 2012) helps inform your finding. Your presentation is very good, well researched and valuable. I am very impressed. Thank you for posting and sharing your knowledge!
Wow thanks very much! That means a lot
This was really fine. I can so easily imagine that Brahms played that way. Makes perfect sense.
It surely sounds like a man really enjoying playing the piano. Trying, creating and daring looks like his fundamental ingredients. This is what makes the huge gap between Brahms and people only playing the exact score. This gave me allot of new insight for continuing my piano journey
People who write new music are allowed to change their minds and ways of playing. Even Brahms!
That’s racist!
@Adrien
Everything is racist (according to woke google.)
Just search literally any word in the english language followed by "racist".
@@AlexVonCrank How is it racist?
Absolutely brilliant video. I don't pretend to have any special interest in Brahms other than knowing of his music, but to see you applying such knowledge and incredible investigative logic to decode what was originally played was really interesting!
I also can't believe how easy you made it to follow such complex and advanced musical theories. The on screen visualisation of the notes, again while I didn't understand them, I understood watching the timer move along coupled with your audio. And all in under 10 minutes.
Really excellent stuff!
Agree with you, and he doesn't waste time like so many other videos where they spend 90% of the time telling you what they are going to explain at the very end.
This is amazing. Enjoyed your really excellent scholarship here, and your comedic timing is spot on. Make more! Thank you for this!
Gorgeous video! I've been always fascinated by this recording by Brahms.
Absolutely brilliant!! You’ve helped rediscover a piece of history - please do more!!
Perfect analysis! I've been wondering about this recording for a long time and this analysis is the only one that makes sense to me!
this vid is incredible, please make more
Wonderful, meticulous and very useful work, finely freeing the musical interpretation and bringing it "back to its sense" thank you so much!
This is virtually the same tempo Brahms' friend Joseph Joachim played it on the violin. You can find his 1903 recording on TH-cam.
What an incredibly insightful upload! Many thanks for posting this. I had been wondering how Brahms would have played his own works and your explanations and musical examples give a great insight. Fabulous!
Please make more. Absolutely fascinating
Your research is phenomenal.
Thank you so much for getting closer!
I love the sound of your piano and I always end up coming back to this video just to listen to you play!
Wow!
Awesome project with a really neat end result.
Subscribed.
Awesome! Thank you for the knowledge, I hope to see more videos like this of yours.
9:27 love that little bit of Chopin op.23 coda
Yes, I thought this was amazing, and I'd love to see more. I am also fascinated by Brahms as a composer and wish there was more content on him. Best of luck!
Very interesting and intriguing!! Thank you for all the work you put in to make this video and thank you for sharing!
Great stuff man, please do make more.
Thank you! I'm very interested in these same problems, and i think you did fine job, and A LOT of work to make this video. Well done!!
What a wonderfully fascinating discussion!
Wow. Great detective work! I think would never have the patience to do this video) You are very passionate about the subject!
This is fascinating and your playing is superb. Bravo!!!
Thanks I’m so glad I didn’t have to research all this because it’s been on my list for 8 years
Thank you!! This was and is a very intersting music story for me.
Brilliant work! Really nicely done.
I don't even have much of an interest in piano music, bar listening on occasion, but honestly this was an excellent 10 minutes. I was fascinated.
Thank you James, people like you keep art alive.
What an amazing video and well done with putting it all together.
I loved your work on this recording, I think that your instinct and taste are good on this piece ; excellent work
amazing video! please make more on Grieg, Debussy, and other historical interpretations by the composers themselves. Great job, you already got your place in musicology history. Best wishes
You’re amazing! Thanks for posting this!
Thanks so much for your very thoughtful analysis.
Really interesting presentation. You made a very good case for your point. Makes perfect sense to me and I've been playing and writing about music for over 40 years.
You've done a hell of a good job!
Keep it up!!
YOU'VE COMPLETELY TURNED THE WORLD OF WAX CYLINDER MUSIC INTERPRETATION ON ITS HEAD
quality content!
Thank you for sharing. I hope you make more videos.
Very good video! Thank you for sharing!
Fantastic! Great work! Very inspiring! Thank you!
Wonderful!!! Clever, probing, intelligent content and also crystal clear verbal and visual exposition without an ounce of fat. MORE! MORE!
A most excellent and intriguing exploration. Thanks you. And, yes, make some more.
Extremely interesting and well made video!
2:20 Quote of the day! 😂😂😂
Very interesting! A remarkable analysis!
Wow! Excellent work!
Damn, this investigation work is incredible.
Most musicians don't know that rhythm was much more loose in the 19th century than they are taught. Composers often complained about how performers would be rather free with the tempo, while at the same time composer-performers would take just as much liberty with the tempo as the regular performers.
Great work! Thank you for this! ❤️
Excellent- this is wonderful- thank you for this. I’m currently surveying they early Liszt opera fantasies and am currently enveloped by this world and these performance practices. 👏🏻👏🏻
Great research, thank you!
Mozart said the left hand should keep the beat, with rubato in the right hand. Chopin advocated the same.
Thank you - that was very illuminating!
Good stuff and interesting. Thank you for posting
This is an outstanding work of scholarship and musicianship
Brilliant! I'm sure it took an unimaginable amount of time to work through this, but very so worth it. Thank you. I wonder how these techniques (dislocation) would have been used in the concerti when played by the composer?
Great video, really interesting!
Great work man!
Fantastically interesting. Thanks.
Awesome work - thanks
quite a sense of rhythm there! enjoyed it!
Good explanations and teaching.
Wonderful, thank you so much!
What a amazing video!!
Very good content mate well done
Great, please more like this!
Great video... More content please.
I am glad that I ran into this video, though it is four years old. The research is very illuminating.
Many thanks for your great work in decoding Brahms's playing! One observation: The very much shortened note at the end of the long phrase sounds exactly like the effect Brahms's friend Joseph Joachim achieves in his violin version of that piece. I am sure they tried to play it similarly in that place. The effect is a bit like that of howling.
I was skeptical of this when it started but it's actually excellent, brilliant explanations. I'd love to hear your analysis of some of the students of Clara Schumann I've been listening to and wondering how they could play the way they do because it sounds so different from how I'm used to hearing Schumann and Brahms.
This is very eerie
Yes! More more! How about playing some historical music using these techniques?
Emil Danielsen Yes certainly, I've been practising dislocation for about a year now and you can hear it in a lot of my recordings. Hopefully one day I can do it as well as the experts
I keep coming back to this video not just because it’s so informative but because I find it very inspirational. It’s a shame how much we are missing out on with modern performance practice.
Excellent work James, as somebody who's doing a PhD in reconstructing American Harp Guitar performance 1890-1920, I totally agree with your conclusion. Please do more videos about historical performance reconstruction and hopefully a greater understanding and appreciation of music of this period will come about.
You are an amazing pianist; very informative video. You should have 813,000 subscribers!
Your left hand jumps make me appreciate you highly.
Fabulous work. Congratulations. I think it sounds MUCH more romantic.
New to the channel. Love it!
You have earned my subscription a hundredfolds
Wow, very interesting! Thanks a lot!
Great video!
A good job I didn’t stop halfway through, because you eventually made a very good argument. Thanks!
awesome video.
As Ryan Renteria said, quality excellent, academics are well done. I just had to subscribe to this channel.
Very interesting ! Thank you very much.
yo this content is spectacular. any more in the works?
Found you while reading 'The Science of Music by Andrew May'. A really interesting video and break down so thank you!
Hello I really enjoyed this video! Could you please make one about the other lost techniques, this is such a fascinating subject! Thank you for sharing this knowledge with us.
Fascinating!