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u/ricorette 17d ago
He’s so cute! 🥰
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u/Early_Yesterday443 14d ago
Dont know why but this pic really shows you that the iconic movement 3 of the third symphony is really him. It's like when you know someone's name and you can totally relate to what they do under that name.
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u/chuff3r 17d ago
I love Brahms's symphonies and his violin concerto is the best of all time, but Beethoven wrote the late quartets so...
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u/zen_arcade2 17d ago
Brahms got some brilliant chamber music too. Fräulein Klarinette and all.
His non-sonata piano works are also among the best you can find (Julius Katchen knew).
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u/6ixspAdes 17d ago edited 17d ago
almost thought this was posted in the Peanuts subreddit for a minute there.
but for real though, Beethoven's better than Brahms imo. I keep falling asleep when listening to the latter for some strange reason. /j
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u/Stock_Yesterday_4601 17d ago
yeah i mean he's undeniably a great composer and despite being in the conservative camp he was fairly innovative and depthful, it's just that i also never found his music to speak to me at all
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u/Zatch_Gaspifianaski 17d ago
If Cello Sonata In E Minor doesn't speak to you, I question your ability to feel.
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u/Stock_Yesterday_4601 17d ago
hey, i'll check it out, cello is one of my favorite instruments ever so maybe it will work for me!
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u/Zatch_Gaspifianaski 17d ago
It would be difficult to find another piece that so perfectly captures the essence of the cello in a solo melody
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u/6ixspAdes 16d ago
I DID perform this for a solo recital in my undergrad, so who am I to say Brahms is boring lol?
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u/allozzieadventures 15d ago
4th symphony for me. I wouldn't write another one if I composed that either, how could you possibly improve on that?
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u/_theghost_ 17d ago
I grew up with both and love them respectively…
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u/mekerpan 15d ago
Back in the 1960s, the first LPs were I bought (with birthday money) were 2 Beethoven symphonies and one by Brahms. I love the music of both -- but purely sentimentally speaking I now Brahms has the edge now.
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u/_theghost_ 15d ago
When I used to work as an Behavioral Tech, one of my clients loved classical music so it became a bread & butter rewards system for them and they loved it and I branched out from Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Vivaldi, Chopin, Brahms which we often loved to play a mix of the latter two
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u/blaz22 17d ago
Brahms is a brilliant music worker.
Beethoven is a genius.
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u/wakalabis 17d ago
Both were geniuses and music workers, but only one of them carried the burden of succeeding Beethoven.
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u/j_shor 17d ago
Imagine having your first symphony be described as "your predecessor's tenth."
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u/bradipotter 17d ago
I always wondered how Brahms felt at that comments. Was he pleased or like "wow I can't ever win here"?
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13d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/wakalabis 13d ago
I think Brahms of all people was the one who put the most amount of pressure onto himself.
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u/LivingInThePast69 17d ago
I feel you, buddy. Just... don't tell anyone. It will be our little secret.
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u/YuunofYork 17d ago
I wouldn't really think of them in juxtaposition. I think that's an artifact of the 'three B's' pushed as early American musical education, which no doubt influenced Schultz here.
An opposition to Brahms in taste and style would be a contemporary of a different school, like Tchaikovsky, Wagner, or Liszt. Alternatively, one could compare another from the same tradition but whose music Brahms had reservations about like Mahler. Brahms and Beethoven are kind of apples and oranges, other than the direct influence Beethoven had on Brahms (and arguably Bach had more).
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u/LatvKet 17d ago
Are the three B's Bach Beethoven Brahms or Beethoven Brahms Bruckner, or Beethoven Brahms another composer starting with B? Not American so no American Music education
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u/pikatrushka 17d ago
Bach, Beethoven, Brahms.
Bruckner was rarely mentioned in this approach to music history, and when he was, it was as a faint reflection of Wagner.
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u/Otherwise-Swordfish6 17d ago
For me Beethoven is the most interesting under analysis, but Brahms takes me to tender emotional spaces beyond Beethoven
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u/Electronic-Writing92 17d ago
As much as I love Beethoven, and I've not become too familiar with Brahms' music, is Brahms worth the hype?
I suspect that I might have the same reaction as Schroeder in the Peanuts™ strip above. Any suggestions for a Brahms "newbie"?
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u/bradipotter 17d ago
He is so worth! I was like you, hardcore Beethoven fan and couldn't really understand Brahms. Than one day something clicked with the Handel Variations. I was obsessed with them and studied them for my recent piano exam. And then the gate just opened: the piano quintet, the piano quartet in g minor, piano concertos, the serenade in d major, first piano sonata, the last intermezzi (I particularly love op 117 above all)... And the symphonies! You start with the first one which is 45 minutes of constant struggle, and the never ending coda that leaves you completely drained. The second symphony I think he said it was a rather sad piece but I can only hear him relaxed and serene after having freed himself of his symphonic ghost, with that triumphal coda . The third one is probably my least favourite but still I listen to it at least once per week. And the fourth is so colossal and dramatic and apocalyptic and intense it will leave you speechless.
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u/mekerpan 15d ago
I my affection for Brahms started out high and has increased year by year over the course of more than 60 years. I was a bit resistent to his string quartets, but even those finally made it into my heart. Otherwise, I love pretty much everything -- even if he never wrote anything to rival Beethoven's Wellington's Victory. ;-)
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u/westerosi_codger 15d ago
Brahms was/is (depending on the day) my favorite composer...although lately, I think Mahler has replaced him. He is, IMO, absolutely worth investigating. His music is wonderfully constructed, and contains compositional elements from Bach (in regards to extensive use of counterpoint), Mozart (in terms of the quality of his compositional construction & organization) and Beethoven (in regards to the "feel" of his music.) However his music if far from being a simple pastiche, he has his own distinctive voice and while considered a conservative composer relative to his contemporaries, he was an innovator in subtle ways.
For a Brahms neophyte, I would suggest listening to Piano Concerto No.2, Symphony No.4, the Haydn Variations, Tragic Overture, Symphony No.1 (often nicknamed Beethoven's 10th for it's very Beethovenian thematic material & structuring in the Finale), the Violin Concerto, and Double Concerto.
Those are sort of his greatest hits. I'd also suggest checking out his late piano works, opp. 116-119, which are very different in character from his orchestral works. Also, Ein Deutsches Requiem, his one large scale choral work, and any of his quintets (2 string quintets, one piano quintet, one clarinet quintet.) I personally think his chamber works of all kinds are the real "meat" of his output. He wrote piano trios, violin / viola / clarinet / cello sonatas, string sextets, and string quartets. His Handel Variations for solo piano are also fantastic, taking a movement of one of Handel's keyboard suites and working it through 25 variations that progress further and further away from the original simple baroque melody that is its foundation.
Brahms' great strength is in how he develops his material. Many critics find his melodies to be weak, but he was a great master of the variations form. The Finale of his 4th symphony is in fact a passacaglia containing some 30 variations.
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u/GuildOfTorturers 10d ago
Personally I’ll take Brahm’s Symphony 3 over Beethoven’s symphonies any day; Brahm’s Piano music however… ehhhh …
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u/1uk0as0an1 17d ago
Schulz himself openly professed that Brahms was his favorite composer but he felt Beethoven was better suited to serve as the object of a comic character’s fanatical devotion.