Brahms Intermezzo 116.4 (remastered)
This was the first Brahms I ever learned to play. It looked to me like a relatively easy piece, simply because it doesn’t have all that many notes — but I was wrong: never having played Brahms, I didn’t recognize the difficulty that was there. Brahms doesn’t always divide his music into clear layers of melody and accompaniment; he’ll have bits of melodic thread appearing in different voices, different layers. None of these threads is complete in itself, but they form a complete whole that doesn’t emerge from any single place. Much like Renaissance polyphony, the “foreground” of the music emerges from a delicate interplay of layers.
So yes, not many notes, but this piece turned out to require a great deal of care in fingering and voicing, to give just the right weight to each note, and the right shape to the many parts. After I “got it” with this one, I found it much easier to work my way into other Brahms. Playing music requires a certain empathy with the composer; it is much like making friends.
Though it proved a bit tricky to learn, it’s certainly not tricky to listen to: the music is pure bliss, and though it passes through many landscape-changing shades of light and dark, nothing breaks the floating bubble between the first note and the last.
Johannes Brahms
Intermezzo Op 116 No 4 (in E major)
Download (4:40 / 5.4 M)
Nicely done Paul. Sounds great. I played 117-3 as a kid. My Jazz teacher always had us play a classical along with the jazz standards. Dave
Magnificent! Your piano is wonderful and if there is a better sounding recording
of a piano, I would like to hear it.
I agree the piano tone is quite marvelous! I enjoyed your phrasing. You really let the music breath in the right spots, and become dramatic in a clear and focused manner. The layers come across with fine color and clarity. You will have to tell me more about how you achieve such a high quality recording.
Julieanne: I have published a fairly detailed description of how I make the recordings, though the section on mastering is out of date.
wow, very nice choice to play, and nice playing, too… you’ve won a new podcast listener over here
Hey man, i have to do a work for Wiman a teacher here in Argentina, would you tell me about the parts, about the form…
Nolingo: The form is free; it does not have a name. Are you thinking of learning to play it, or are you supposed to analyze it for your teacher?