Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Brahms Piano Quintet Manuscript


It is an amazing experience to be able to look at a manuscript in Brahms' hand and hear the music in your own head, particularly when it's a glorious viola moment.

You could go to the Library of Congress to look at it, or you can simply click your way to the IMSLP and see it almost instantly.

2 comments:

Sean said...

This has been one of my very favorite pieces of music for a long time, especially the 3rd and 4th movements.

After becoming familiar with this piece it was very interesting to hear 34b -- I wonder what the string quintet version was like.

Elaine Fine said...

There is a recording of an approximation of what some people might call the original that just came out on Toccata that I really don't like. There's also one from 2007 on Biddulph that has sound clips on line. I trust Brahms' evaluation of his own work, along with the opinions of Clara Schumann and Joseph Joachim. He solved the problem of being Brahms and writing chamber music with two cellos with his sextets.