Sales of Classical Music

[Bonn1827]

Makes sense. I've just read in a book on Brahms by Ivor Keys (of all names) that Brahms' First Symphony has references to Beethoven's Fifth and Ninth Symphonies. Ok, I can hear it a little with respect to the 5th but, for the life of me, I can't detect the 9th anywhere in Brahms. Can someone help me out with this please?

[Michael]

Makes sense. I've just read in a book on Brahms by Ivor Keys (of all names) that Brahms' First Symphony has references to Beethoven's Fifth and Ninth Symphonies. Ok, I can hear it a little with respect to the 5th but, for the life of me, I can't detect the 9th anywhere in Brahms. Can someone help me out with this please?

The last movement of the first symphony has a main tune that is very similar to the "Ode to Joy" melody. The story goes that this was pointed out to Brahms and he is said to have testily replied: "Any fool could spot that."
(Not referring to you, by the way! )
This, along with the four-beat rhythm of the first movement caused Brahms First Symphony to be facetiously nicknamed "Beethoven's Tenth".

[Roehre]

The last movement of the first symphony has a main tune that is very similar to the "Ode to Joy" melody. The story goes that this was pointed out to Brahms and he is said to have testily replied: "Any fool could spot that." (...)
This, along with the four-beat rhythm of the first movement caused Brahms First Symphony to be facetiously nicknamed "Beethoven's Tenth".

And this Brahms theme opens (in a disguise for six horns) Mahler's 3rd symhony ("A Summermorning dream")

[Bonn1827]

..and Brahms is never less than absolutely wonderful, always!

[Michael]

..and Brahms is never less than absolutely wonderful, always!

Yes indeed. I am just going to put on the Second Symphony.

[Bonn1827]

All 4 of them are so glorious I can't decide. Reminds me of the scene in the film "Amadeus" where Mozart is choosing a head decoration and wig for a costume ball. "They're all so beautiful I can't decide: I wish I had two heads"!!

[Sorrano]

All 4 of them are so glorious I can't decide. Reminds me of the scene in the film "Amadeus" where Mozart is choosing a head decoration and wig for a costume ball. "They're all so beautiful I can't decide: I wish I had two heads"!!

But you do have two ears...

[Michael]

But you do have two ears...

Which is more than Beethoven had.

[Zevy]

Which is more than Beethoven had.

A friend of mine once enlightened me by saying; "Beethoven probably heard his music better than we will ever hear." Would you agree?

[Peter]

A friend of mine once enlightened me by saying; "Beethoven probably heard his music better than we will ever hear." Would you agree?

I think it is true that he would have had a highly developed inner sense of sound in his imagination and would have 'heard' far better than most people with 'normal' hearing. I say most, because I think all great musicians have this ability to hear in far greater detail than other people, especially these days when few really listen properly. I had this with a pupil the other day, completely unable to hear the difference when different notes were brought out from the same chord.

[Bonn1827]

I don't think any amount of qualifying about the extent of "hearing" music in one's head can ever ever ever compensate for the loss of LvB's hearing. It was ineffably sad. Imagine, for instance: he never heard Schubert!!!!

I was on a Rhine cruise last April and struck up a conversation at dinner with an Audiologist who was also deaf himself. He talked about how he coped with teasing at school but, to my horror, suggested that deafness wouldn't have been a real problem for Beethoven!! (He probably meant in the compositional sense, but didn't say so). I said, "careful; you are treading on very dangerous ground here", but this didn't stop him!! We never spoke again.

[Peter]

I don't think any amount of qualifying about the extent of "hearing" music in one's head can ever ever ever compensate for the loss of LvB's hearing. It was ineffably sad. Imagine, for instance: he never heard Schubert!!!!

I was on a Rhine cruise last April and struck up a conversation at dinner with an Audiologist who was also deaf himself. He talked about how he coped with teasing at school but, to my horror, suggested that deafness wouldn't have been a real problem for Beethoven!! (He probably meant in the compositional sense, but didn't say so). I said, "careful; you are treading on very dangerous ground here", but this didn't stop him!! We never spoke again.

I am convinced however that Beethoven's music would have been very different had he not undergone the inner turmoil and searching that his deafness forced on him - in a sense he suffered for us!

[Bonn1827]

This is very true, Peter. Somebody recently wrote in a teaching text about LvB that "he was deaf and towards the end of his life he wrote from memory". I can't help but think that "from memory" doesn't provide an adequate description of what he really did. Personally, I think his reclusiveness and deafness provided the means to explore the spiritual, emotional, but also intensely intellectual possibilities of music. I think of those later works as supreme examples of the work of a musical intellectual: to a far greater degree than those of his other two "periods". These are just my own responses.

[Michael]

I think it was Daniel Barenboim who, when asked what recordings he would take to a desert island, replied: "None - but loads of scores so that I could hear the ideal version of the music in my head" - or words to that effect.

(This "Sales of Classical Music" thread has taken some amazing twists and turns! It's rewarding sometimes to let a thread go off topic.)

[Michael]

A friend of mine once enlightened me by saying; "Beethoven probably heard his music better than we will ever hear." Would you agree?

Mozart once said (or is supposed to have said) that he could hear a work "instantaneously" in his head, i.e. not in real time. I never could understand that as music and time are linked, but the brain is an amazing thing (especially Mozart's.) Maybe his exact meaning got lost in the translation.