Johannes Brahms was a German composer, conductor, and pianist of the Romantic period. He was born on May 7, 1833 and died on April 3, 1897.
According to Wikipedia, Brahms was born in Hamburg and spent much of his professional life in Vienna. He is sometimes grouped with Ludwig van Beethoven and Johann Sebastian Bach as one of the "Three Bs" of music, a comment originally made by Hans von Bülow, a nineteenth-century conductor.
Brahms composed for piano, organ, chamber ensembles, symphony orchestra, voice, and chorus. As a virtuoso pianist, Brahms premiered many of his own works. He also worked with performers of note, including the violinist Joseph Joachim and the pianist Clara Schumann (the three were close friends).
Brahms has been considered a traditionalist as well as an innovator, by his contemporaries and by later writers. "His music is rooted in the structures and compositional techniques of the Classical masters. Embedded within those structures are deeply romantic motifs. While some contemporaries found his music to be overly academic, his contribution and craftsmanship were admired by subsequent figures as diverse as Arnold Schoenberg and Edward Elgar. The diligent, highly constructed nature of Brahms's works was a starting point and an inspiration for a generation of composers."
Olivia listened to four pieces by Johannes Brahms and had the following comments:
Olivia thought or commented:
- I can picture people dancing in a ballet. I was thinking you meant that it would be a waltz. It would be more of a piece that people would prefer to.
- It's very dramatic.
- A lot of dynamics - a lot of really loud and then soft. You can definitely tell what parts of repeating because of the dynamics.
- The tempo was fast!
- I liked it.
Olivia thought or commented:
- This is definitely slower than the first piece.
- It almost feels a little more sad...especially at the beginning.
- It is like the songs are opposites (the first one and this one).
- Feels like this song has sections - kind of like a sonatina - where you have the first part and then a second part (different from the first part), and then a third part that is kind of like the first part (different, but parts are the same).
- I liked it...but I think I like the Hungarian Dance one better.
Olivia thought or commented:
- It definitely starts out as tragic. It's soft, but I think the way that they are performing it with it being loud and then going softer makes it feel tragic and sad...or someone is mourning.
- If someone had gone missing or someone has died - this would be the music that would be played....but kind of in a romantic way. I don't see this as a piece for someone who is mourning the loss of a parent...it would be more of mourning the loss of someone they had romantic feelings for.
Olivia thought or commented:
- Yeah, I can see it as a lullaby.
- (Olivia yawns.)
- Seems a little sad.
- The first one was happy and dramatic...and this one is less.
- It sounds familiar...the rhythm sounds familiar.
- Listening to the lyrics - it sounds familiar, but I just don't remember it.
No comments:
Post a Comment