Brahms Intermezzo 117.1 (remastered)
My mastering experiments are complete, at least for now, which means two things: First, I’m back to composing and practicing again, so new recordings are on the horizon. Second, I’m reposting all my old recordings using the new mastering process, starting today!
This is the first recording I posted to In the Hands, so it seemed fitting that it be the first to go out in its remastered form. It’s a piece Brahms wrote late in life, a lullaby. He included a motto at the top, which in English is roughly: Sleep, my child, now softly sleep / It grieves my heart to see you weep. That quote might at first suggest something depressing and morose, but no, it’s the lullaby image, the parent cradling the child, that gets at the heart of the piece: this is profoundly comforting music. Brahms is perhaps the most humane composer I know, a quality which shines through in the elegant simplicity of a piece like this one. I wrote last week about the embrace between the music and the listener; this music’s embrace is tender and compassionate, and in its arms, we are all children, all loved.
Johannes Brahms
Intermezzo Op 117 No 1
Download (5:57 / 6.9 M)
If you’re keen on comparing the old and new mastering processes, the old version of this recording is still available here. Don’t worry: the fortuitous thunderclap is still in there.
Does Brahms demand a lot more pedal presses and releases than the other composers you record? Now that I’ve finally got a better listening medium (new PowerBook! Yay! iPod earbud headphones– not so yay, but will eventually be replaced w/Grados!), I hear pronounced pedal noises on this and your other Brahms recordings. They sound like pedal noises, anyway, and they aren’t nearly so common on your Bach or Chopin recordings.
Yes, I suppose so — in Chopin, the pedal may tend to be down continuously more often, and up continuously more in Bach. But perhaps a more important factor is that this piece, 117.2, and 10.4 are all very quiet (this one is exceptionally quiet). The damper noises have a fairly constant volume, so they’re louder relative to the music — and thus louder in an absolute sense, since I turn the quieter pieces up a bit louder. Now that you’re listening for this, you’ll detect it in other piano recordings as well. It’s far more obvious on headphone than on speakers.
Congrats on the new machine!
mojo adagio! =)
This piece is so….(speachless)! I love it. I found this site by accident while I was looking for a piece called Intermezzo. I’m researching it for my band class. Only being in this world 13 years….I’ve never heard a thing like so.
Hi Paul, I’ve played the piano for years and for some reason, never got into Brahms (I play mostly Beethoven, Chopin, Schumann and Schubert). It probably because the first Brahms pieces I had to learn were 3 uninspiring waltzes for the NYSSMA (NY state school music association) exams. This piece and especially your rendition of it has really opened my eyes to Brahms. I have learned it and enjoy playing it immensely. Your version so inspired me that I included it in the music played at my late father’s memorial. Keep up your wonderful work!
Angela.
i really liked the song it was great, the recoreding wasnt so good but o well but not fast enough
This is my favourite Brahms piece and you played it beautifully. Very inspirational. Thank you for sharing your recordings!
Hi..came across your site by browsing today…enjoyed the Brahms, especially 39 #15…I have recorded 4 verses, gospel oriented to this piece…I love the melody…thanks for the beautiful music…
The Intermezzo op.117 No 1 by Brahms is beautiful. I would like to know who wrote the words to it, it was a well-known German poet. In German, if possible, although I could translate it!
Could you find out? Thanks, Helga
Helga: The piece has no lyrics. Brahms does begin the Op. 117 score with a short epigraph, which is from a Scottish folk rune and is originally in English:
Or sometimes it appears as:It is a traditional song; the author is not known.