Brothers, love is a teacher, but a hard one to obtain: learning to love is hard and we pay dearly for it. It takes hard work and a long apprenticeship, for it is not just for a moment that we must learn to love, but forever. (Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov)
Sunday, November 20, 2011
For Brahms-Lovers Only
All one or two of you, follow this link to hear the last two movements of the Op. 25 Piano Quartet in G minor played by the superstar ensemble Opus One. I heard the performance on the radio this morning, and was absolutely astonished by it. This is a piece I know and love, and I've never heard it played with this kind of organic blossoming of tempi and complete integrity among all the voices. It sounds as if they're composing as they go -- incredibly exciting.
Sadly, not available in this country.
ReplyDeleteYou'll have to listen when you come back.
ReplyDeleteInexplicably, and wonderfully, this same show was repeated today, so I got to hear it again. Bill McGlaughlin, the host, noted that "it cost [Brahms] something" to write the unabashedly romantic third movement, and also something I did not know -- that Joseph Joachim was first violinist and Clara Schumann the pianist in the first performance of the work.
ReplyDeleteI thought of you just yesterday, listening to Brahms on the radio. Will have to come back to this when I have more time. I'm trying to find your post on panettone, without luck thus far.
ReplyDeleteHere it is:
ReplyDeletehttp://pentiment.blogspot.com/2011/12/random-thoughts-particular-to-day.html