Brahms Intermezzo 116.4
Something sweet today: a bit of magic from Brahms.
Johannes Brahms
Intermezzo Op 116 No 4
Download (4:39 / 5.4 M)
These late Brahms pieces — same with the first recording in this weblog — are amazing to me as a composer. They sound lush, but the writing is actually quite spare and elemental. The structures are at once formal and organic, like Bach preludes. And the incredible emotional intimacy, their sense of being so personal, is like no other music I know.
But enough of that — writing about music is…well…you know. (That should not stop you from posting a comment, though!) Enjoy listening.
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Lovely.
And I liked the commentary on this one, too; writing about music may be like building about dance, but it’s still always fascinating to find out why a performer loves a piece of music. It adds that extra sense of shared experience, if you hear the same things in the piece, or something to talk about if you don’t. (In this case, I think you got it exactly.) Looking forward to more…
Hearing the Intermezzos one after the other is like a brief visit home from you!
I agree with Joel: for all the danger of talking about music, what you said both helps me listen a bit better and hear what you love in these pieces.
Just listening to the Brahms - beautiful. I saw the reference in the Guardian online to your blog and thought I’d have a look - I’d never thought of blogs being used in his way. What an absolute delight!
Kind regards,
julienne
Melbourne, Australia
I agree with the previous comments. Talking about music can become innocuous when the writer indulges in his own experiences, aka David Dubal “Art of the Piano” sometimes writes things like, “his pianissimo was like dew on morning grass.” And I’m not kidding. However, when a writer does, as you did, write with the sole intent of informing the listener, cueing them in on possibly some of the secrets of the composition, this can only be helpful.
Good job and nice website. Go Brahms!
Dear Paul,
Thank you so much for taking the time and making the effort to share what you have learned from the tedious task of trying to capture the sound of a quality accoustic piano. I have a Hamburg Steinway also in a small living room. Your advice will prove invaluable. A couple of questions. When choosing microphones did you try any higher end(as far as price) microphones such as Neumann U-87 or any thing like that? Or are there any other mics you would have preferred but thought the price was prohibitive. Also, “experts” always say you should use a matched pair of microphones. Did you try this and get unsatisfactory results? Thanks for any input.
Sincerely,
Michael Zygmunt
Michael – I didn’t try any really high-end microphones. I was trying to keep it cheap, and was getting results so satisfactory with these $400-500 mics that I didn’t feel the need to search at the higher end. I’d love to try some AKGs, Neumann, Blue, etc., but if I had the money for something really high-end, I’d probably just get the piano tuned more often, and do some soundproofing. Both of those are bigger issues for my sound right now.
Honestly, I think people tend to get just a hair too hung up on mics at the expense of positioning, mastering, and instrument issues. Mics matter, but past a certain level of quality, other things make a much bigger difference.
I was not able to get results I liked using more tradition symmetric / X-Y / ORTF-like approaches. I was getting things from each of the two mics I selected that I wasn’t getting from any other, and was very pleased with the results of mixing them. The wild stereo image it creates certainly isn’t for everyone, though.
Beautiful beautiful beautiful……I could spend hours on this site. Thank you for sharing such wonderful & uplifting music.
Chopin particularly is my favorite and he would be honored I’m sure the way his pieces were masterfully played.
Best wishes.
It’s amazing how well all the note’s volumes are
even. Beautiful! The hammer thumps were quiet also.
I loved it!