Classic Ross Amico

Tag: Johannes Brahms

  • Friedrich Gernsheim, Brahms’ Brother from Another Mother

    Friedrich Gernsheim, Brahms’ Brother from Another Mother

    If you ever wished Johannes Brahms had written more orchestral music, then Friedrich Gernsheim just might be the gift you’re looking for.

    Gernsheim, who knew Brahms – the two respected one another and championed one another’s music – shared the master’s conservative, classical-Romantic outlook. Both artists favored traditional forms and structural rigor over a more subjective approach and the emotional extremes of the New German School. Yet Gernsheim remains all but unknown to most of Brahms’ admirers.

    Bard College’s The Orchestra Now (TŌN) – a graduate training orchestra founded and conducted by Leon Botstein – is hoping to change all that by way of a three-year initiative to revive Gernsheim’s major works. Thanks to a grant from E&V ProArte, the first of TŌN’s Gernsheim festivals was held this past weekend. The three-day affair consisted of evening orchestral concerts at the Frank Gehry-designed Fisher Center at Bard, and afternoon chamber music concerts across campus in Olin Hall. There was also a scholarly panel held in Olin on Saturday morning.

    While the festival was nowhere on the scale of its summertime flagship event, the Bard Music Festival – itself the crown jewel in the diadem of the college’s annual celebration of the arts, Bard SummerScape – it proudly extended the artistic mission of offering fine performances of worthwhile, though under-programmed, or even basically forgotten, music.

    What’s more, you couldn’t beat the price: the panel and chamber concerts were presented free of charge (with the option of making a donation) and the seats for the orchestral concerts were very reasonable.

    For me, it made the most sense to head up on Saturday, as the Friday night orchestral program was to be repeated. I could also take in a chamber concert and, if I could get myself moving, I might even catch the panel.

    Well, I was too late to attend the 11 a.m. panel (hardly surprising, as I had a lot to do before I left, and I was coming from Princeton). I was genuinely sorry to miss it, since I always find what the scholars have to say informative, and this one included some real Gernsheim advocates. But I got there in plenty of time for the afternoon chamber program, for which there was unreserved seating. The turnout was okay, but it was by no means packed.

    The program consisted of chamber music with piano. (Sunday afternoon’s concert would be devoted to chamber music for strings alone.) The Piano Quartet No. 3 in F major, Op. 47 (1883) was given its U.S. debut. The Piano Quintet No. 2 in B minor (1897) was heard for the first time in New York. Both pieces were performed with commitment and a striking level of maturity by TŌN musicians.


    The pianist, Francis Chung-Yang Huang, deserves special mention, as he played throughout. The Quintet was almost like a reduction of a piano concerto. Altogether, the concert was a very pleasant experience. The music was well-crafted, full of long-limbed cantabile melodies, but also punched up with some energetic scherzandi. Violinists Carlos Torres and Jolin Yi-Lin Lin seemed to enjoy it too, as they exchanged smiles frequently during the Quintet.

    As I say, the evening concert was a repeat of Friday. So I got to hear the U.S. premiere – or rather the second performance, since it was also done the night before – of Gernsheim’s Symphony No. 3 (1887), which bears the subtitle “Song of Miriam.” Gernsheim was inspired to write it after hearing a performance of Handel’s “Israel in Egypt.” It was a rare example of Gernsheim program music – music reflecting on extramusical matters – but the approach was definitely more Brahms than Liszt.

    In fact, if there is any composer Gernsheim resembles, it’s Brahms! I would say he’s like Brahms’ more immoderate younger brother. You know, the black sheep who uses instruments like English horn, bass clarinet, and harp in his symphonies.

    Because Gernsheim outlived Brahms (he died in 1916), he also tried his hand at a late Romantic tone poem, “Zu einem Drama” (“For a Drama”) – in this case, the drama unspecified – another piece of program music, which opened the concert. But again, next to Strauss, Mahler, and Schoenberg, it was pretty tame stuff. Imagine Brahms letting his hair down and using a tam-tam. Fun to listen to, but no masterwork.

    In fact, for as much as his champions are no doubt hoping otherwise, I can’t imagine Gernsheim ever becoming standard repertoire. His music is well-crafted, dramatically persuasive, and often very beautiful (the second movement of the “Miriam” symphony is gorgeous), but again, he sounds too much like Brahms. That, more than any of the injustices the Nazis perpetrated against his music and reputation, is going to relegate him to, if not obscurity, then at least curiosity.

    Of course, Gernsheim was long gone by the time Hitler came to power. There is nothing at all threateningly modernist about his music – like Brahms, Gernsheim is German classical-Romantic to his core – but he was Jewish and despised as such. Agenda deafened the Nazis to the evidence of their own ears.

    It would have been instructive to hear Orion Weiss perform Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 1 on the concert’s second half, but I had to slip out at intermission in order to get home at a reasonable hour. Hungry cats are angry cats, and as it was, I didn’t walk in the front door until 11:00.


    My summation of the day? In general, I found the chamber works to be more successful, in terms of not having Brahms ever before my ears. It was hardly unusual for anyone writing chamber music in the latter decades of the 19th century to have been influenced by him. But Gernsheim’s orchestrations of the symphonies are a step too far.

    That’s not to say the music is bad – his symphonies easily surpass those of his nearest musical friend, Max Bruch, in terms of maintaining and rewarding interest – but there were moments in “Miriam” when I couldn’t help but smile (the hymn-like theme in the last movement, which could have been a sketch for the last movement of the Brahms’ First) and even laugh (the work’s coda, which was about as Brahms as anyone not Brahms could get).

    I’m not trashing Gernsheim’s symphonies. If you’re a classical music lover and fond of the period, I definitely recommend them. They’ve been recorded, which is how I got to know them. But I can’t hear them as lost masterpieces. I would not sneer to encounter them on any orchestra program, and I look forward to whatever TŌN unearths for future festivals. But in Gernsheim’s case, I’m sorry to say, I think posterity got it right.

    However, for anyone looking to add an element of surprise to their chamber music concerts, I would highly recommend checking out his piano quartet and quintet.

    Thank you, TŌN, and I look forward to hearing more Gernsheim in the future!

    ————-

    The lovely second movement of Gernsheim’s Symphony No. 3, a musical response to the idea of Miriam, Moses’ sister, on the banks of the Nile on a summer night, confiding her sorrows and hopes to the stars.


    The complete symphony, with more information in the write-up beneath the video.


    Dave Hurwitz extols the virtues of Gernsheim

  • Get to Know Friedrich Gernsheim

    Get to Know Friedrich Gernsheim

    Bard may not have scheduled its upcoming mini-festival of the music of Friedrich Gernsheim as a mea culpa for August’s “Mozart and His World,” but I choose to take it as such. Not that “Mozart and His World” was not a success. Just the opposite! Music director and co-artistic director Leon Botstein announced from the podium that it was the most successful Bard Music Festival ever. But Bard is known for its questing spirit, flipping the monoliths of the standard repertoire to see what lurks beneath. Unquestionably there were plenty of discoveries to be made even with Mozart and his “wolf pack.” But Gernsheim is more in Bard’s wheelhouse.

    Who exactly was Gernsheim? I didn’t know myself until I happened to catch one of his symphonies by chance on the radio. And it was an ear-opener! He can sound a bit like Brahms in his colors, but the similarity ends there. His symphonies, anyway (I’ve since acquired recordings of all of them), strike me as sounding more unbuttoned than Brahms’, more polymorphous, which make them less consistent, perhaps, but also more surprising. That said, I hope I’m not falling into the trap of something being more familiar being “better” when I say it doesn’t surprise me that Brahms’ symphonies gained more traction. But isn’t there room in concert programs for both?

    Botstein will conduct the young but able performers of The Orchestra Now (TŌN), the graduate training ensemble he founded, in two of Gernsheim’s orchestral works on Friday evening at 7:00 (with the program repeated on Saturday) at the campus’ Fisher Center at Bard: “Zu einem Drama,” a late Romantic tone poem from 1902 (remember, Brahms died in 1897), and the Symphony No. 3, subtitled “Song of Miriam” (or simply “Miriam”), from 1887. The symphony was inspired by a performance Gernsheim had attended of Handel’s “Israel in Egypt,” after which he couldn’t get the Biblical character of Miriam out of his head.

    On the second half of the program, Orion Weiss will be the soloist in Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2. Yes, Gernsheim and Brahms knew and admired one another.

    On Saturday morning at 11:00, across campus at Bard’s Olin Hall, scholars and historians will discuss Gernsheim’s life, music, and legacy.

    That will be followed on Saturday afternoon at 1:00 by a concert of the composer’s chamber music, including the Piano Quartet No. 3 and the Piano Quintet No. 2.

    To round out the weekend, another chamber concert, Sunday morning at 11:00, will feature the String Quartet No. 2 and the String Quintet No. 2.

    The scholarly panel and chamber music concerts are free, though reservations and a donation are encouraged. Seats for the orchestra concerts are reasonably priced.

    I should add, the Nazis were not favorably disposed to Gernsheim’s music, because of his Jewish heritage, which may account to some extent for his subsequent neglect. TŌN is to be applauded for its efforts to restore Gernsheim’s reputation in what will be a multi-year project. A lot of this will be new territory for me (I’ve never heard any of the composer’s chamber music), so I am very much looking forward to it. It seems like a good time of year for a weekend or even a day trip to Upstate New York!

    The inaugural Gernsheim Festival will be held at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, NY, from Friday, September 18, to Sunday, September 20. For more information, visit:

    https://ton.bard.edu/gernsheim/

    Symphony No. 3 “Song of Miriam”


    Dave Hurwitz waxes enthusiastic






  • Princeton Symphony Brahms & Schoenberg

    Princeton Symphony Brahms & Schoenberg

    To open its 2025-26 season, the Princeton Symphony Orchestra is offering a rare opportunity to experience an established masterpiece from two very different perspectives.

    Johannes Brahms’ Piano Quartet in G minor of 1861 was orchestrated by Arnold Schoenberg in 1937. Brahms was 28 when he wrote it. At the time of its transmogrification, Schoenberg was 63.

    Despite his notorious reputation as the godfather of dodecaphonic music, Schoenberg greatly admired Brahms and indeed would celebrate him, emphasizing his underappreciated genius as a musical adventurer, in a series of 1947 talks titled “Brahms the Progressive.”

    Schoenberg’s reimagining of the piano quartet is warm and affectionate. For most of the work, he manages a pretty good Brahms impression, if not a slavish one. It’s hard to imagine Brahms ladling on the percussion quite like that in the “gypsy rondo” finale. Furthermore, perhaps disorientingly, there is no piano in it. So it’s not Brahms, exactly, but it IS entertaining. Otto Klemperer, who conducted the premiere of the hybrid in Los Angeles, on Brahms’s birthday anniversary, May 7, 1938, paid tribute to Schoenberg’s accomplishment. “You can’t even hear the quartet,” he declared, “so beautiful is the orchestration.”

    Brahms-Schoenberg will make up the second half of this weekend’s Princeton Symphony Orchestra concerts. The program will also include Antonín Dvořák’s Violin Concerto, with soloist Aubree Oliverson, who charmed audiences last year with her performances of the Tchaikovsky concerto. The concerts will open with “Orpheus’ Comet” by Bulgarian composer Dobrinka Tabakova.

    To get the Brahms fresh in our ears and enhance our appreciation of Schoenberg’s achievement, the PSO will present Brahms’ Piano Quartet No. 1 in its original guise on Thursday night, with PSO favorite Natasha Paremski, along with violinist Marc Uys, violist Xandi van Dijk, and cellist John-Henry Crawford. The concert will include commentary by PSO music director Rossen Milanov – who, of course, will also conduct the weekend concerts.

    Brahms’ chamber work will be performed at Trinity Church Princeton, 33 Mercer St., on Thursday at 7 p.m.

    The orchestral program will be presented at Princeton University’s Richardson Auditorium, Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 4 p.m.

    At another related event, storyteller Maria LoBiondo will refresh our memories of the Orpheus myth, in preparation for our brush with “Orpheus’ Comet,” as she weaves her spell at Princeton Public Library, this Wednesday at 7 p.m. Attendees will have the opportunity to enter a drawing to win free tickets for this weekend’s concerts.

    Don’t look back with regret like Orpheus. For more information, visit princetonsymphony.org.

  • Brahms & Tchaikovsky A Classical Bromance

    Brahms & Tchaikovsky A Classical Bromance

    Ever since I learned some years ago that Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) and Pyotr Ilych Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) – who share a birthday on May 7 – actually met on several occasions, and that Tchaikovsky’s initial suspicion of, and contempt for, his colleague and rival softened into a genuine admiration for the man (if not his music), I haven’t been able to resist revisiting the story of this classical music true bromance.

    This year, I’ll put a different spin on it by sharing the observations of English composer Ethel Smyth (1858-1944) and the antics of her exuberant dog Marco. Smyth, whose steely determination to become a composer, in a day when it was the sort of thing that women simply didn’t do, wore down the opposition of her father – a major general in the Royal Artillery! – and enrolled at the Leipzig Conservatory in 1877.

    When the conservatory didn’t measure up to her expectations, she acquired further polish through private studies with Heinrich von Herzogenberg (and fell in love with his wife). Her adventures in Germany brought her into contact with Dvořák, Grieg, Clara Schumann, and Herzogenberg’s friend, Johannes Brahms.

    It was at a private performance of Brahms’ Piano Quintet, with the composer in attendance, that Smyth’s St. Bernard mix, Marco, burst through a door, toppling the cellist’s music stand, which, much to everyone’s relief, the notoriously prickly Brahms found hilarious.

    Smyth also became friendly with Tchaikovsky, another visitor. Her first-hand accounts of her interactions and correspondence with both composers make for enjoyable reading. According to her, Tchaikovsky was “secretly terrified” of Marco, but whenever he wrote, he never failed to ask after him.

    Brahms also kept in touch. It’s said that he carried a photo of Smyth with him until the time of his death.

    In his diary, Tchaikovsky had characterized Brahms as a “scoundrel” and “a giftless bastard.” He was elated to find him, in reality, to be full of warmth and good humor. His preemptive hatred likely had more to do with the over-the-top and widely-broadcast veneration of establishment figures, such as Eduard Hanslick and Hans von Bülow, who hailed Brahms as the rightful heir of Beethoven.

    “I’ve been on the booze with Brahms,” Tchaikovsky wrote after their first meeting. “He is tremendously nice – not at all proud as I’d expected but remarkably straightforward and entirely without arrogance. He has a very cheerful disposition, and I must say that the hours I spent in his company have left me with nothing but pleasant memories.”

    I always find it oddly endearing that Brahms and Tchaikovsky were able to look past their personal aversions to one another’s music to actually grow to appreciate their individual qualities as people. There’s a lesson to be learned from that, I think. You can read more about it – and Marco! – at the links below to the website Tchaikovsky Research.

    Happy birthday, boys. I’m glad it all worked out in the end.

    Smyth, Marco, Brahms, and Tchaikovsky

    https://en.tchaikovsky-research.net/pages/Ethel_Smyth

    Tchaikovsky and Brahms (and Grieg)

    https://en.tchaikovsky-research.net/pages/Johannes_Brahms

    Brahms, Piano Trio No. 3 in C minor, Op. 101 (disliked by Tchaikovsky)

    Tchaikovsky, Symphony No. 5 in E minor (disliked by Brahms)

    Smyth, Serenade in D, her first orchestral work (written with the encouragement of Tchaikovsky)

  • Why Is Schumann Suddenly Everywhere?

    Why Is Schumann Suddenly Everywhere?

    Is Robert Schumann having a moment?

    It seems everywhere I turn these days everyone is playing Schumann – in a way that, judging from the comparatively tepid response to his bicentennial 14 years ago, I would have never thought possible.

    Let me be clear from the start that this is not intended to be a “hit piece” on Schumann, who, by any standard, should be regarded as one of the greatest composers who ever lived. When one becomes immersed in his world, it’s not unusual for everything to go topsy-turvy. Intellectual rigor and a literary sensibility are dashed against the rocks of passion. I emerge from the brine, wringing out my clothes, exhilarated, but wondering what the hell happened. At its most personal, his music is like a siren song. But is it for every season?

    On the evidence of concert and radio programmers, it would seem so.

    Whenever I’m around my digital radio, I swear, two hours will not pass without an encounter with Schumann. Even that ne plus ultra of classical music programmers, Peter Van de Graaff, airs Schumann’s music regularly. My most recent enthusiasm is Yle Klassinen, a classical music service out of Finland. Its playlist is breathtakingly diverse, and yet, all at once, there he is again – Robert Schumann. (Even now, I am listening to Karl Goldmark. The performers: the Robert Schumann Philharmonic!)

    Is Schumann the new Brahms?

    Perhaps part of the reason we are hearing more Schumann is that we’re oversaturated with music by his star discovery. (I’m not noticing any comparable surge in the performance of music by Albert Dietrich.)

    In terms of classical radio, surely this boost is attributable in part to the form’s lamentable race to the bottom, in programming the most, and therefore shortest, selections, allowing for so much variety within a single hour, like dicing the world’s masterpieces into an overwatered gazpacho. If a work is presented complete (even classical radio hosts need to run to the bathroom), the tendency is to go “short.” Hence the insane popularity of Schumann’s Symphony No. 4, which at a half an hour or less is being aired much more frequently now than any of the Brahms’ symphonies. In their complete form, that is. Vapid radio will still drop in the third movement of Brahms 4th symphony (the one adapted and recorded by the progressive rock group Yes) from time to time.

    I’m also hearing a lot of Schumann piano music (beyond the ubiquitous “Kinderszenen”) and songs (if it’s a station that isn’t queasy about vocal music) and even substantial chamber works. I haven’t approached it scientifically, but it also seems to me that Schumann is being heard more on live concert programs.

    Is it a case of renewed curiosity, now that we’re hearing more about Clara? Is Robert riding Clara’s skirts, as she once rode his coattails? If so, I am not seeing a comparable effect with the Mendelssohns, Felix and his sister Fanny. Not that Felix Mendelssohn ever hurts for performances. It’s just that, like Schumann, everyone seems to turn up their noses and regard him as somehow “second tier.” Or perhaps as seated far to the back of the first tier.

    Of course, in the right mood, those of us of a certain disposition have no problem connecting with Schumann’s kaleidoscopic Romanticism – by turns tender and turbulent, lyrical and seething, tormented and perhaps even a little eldritch.

    There really is no one else like him – even if, of the great composers, he seems about the furthest away from Tarzan, in every respect, that I can imagine.

    Schumann of the Apes, cartoon by Pablo Helguera from 2012

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