When you ask most people what constitutes ‘long-haired’ music (and I’m talking Classical, not Twisted Sister here) what springs immediately to their lips is MozartBachandBrahms and I’ve always thought that kind of funny because Johannes wasn’t even born until 42 years after Mozart’s death (83 after Bach’s) and strictly speaking is rightfully considered a revolutionary of the Romantic movement. Still-
Brahms is often considered both a traditionalist and an innovator. His music is firmly rooted in the structures and compositional techniques of the Baroque and Classical masters. He was a master of counterpoint, the complex and highly disciplined art for which Johann Sebastian Bach is famous, and of development, a compositional ethos pioneered by Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, and other composers. Brahms aimed to honour the “purity” of these venerable “German” structures and advance them into a Romantic idiom, in the process creating bold new approaches to harmony and melody. While many contemporaries found his music too academic, his contribution and craftsmanship have been admired by subsequent figures as diverse as Arnold Schoenberg and Edward Elgar. The diligent, highly constructed nature of Brahms’s works was a starting point and an inspiration for a generation of composers.
Of course now his best known work is his ‘Lullaby‘ which is just a part of a much larger piece, Wiegenlied, though it was written in honor of a baby born to his friend Bertha Faber.
Like many Romantics he drew his inspiration from folk music and tales though he never intended it to be representational or even evocative of a particular narrative or emotion, unlike other members of the movement. The work I have selected today, Hungarian Dances, is fairly typical, inspired by traditional melodies fully scored and formally arranged they are among his most popular and profitable compositions. Though there are 21 of them in all each one is mercifully short (1 to 4 minutes) and all put together they clock in at about 50 minutes.
Obligatories below.
