tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10680113.post4131181070159699090..comments2024-03-23T11:40:13.092-05:00Comments on Musical Assumptions: Curiouser and CuriouserElaine Finehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14248422399226824168noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10680113.post-84766039015959186062012-08-12T05:02:15.238-05:002012-08-12T05:02:15.238-05:00Why, oh why weren't YOU the one writing music ...Why, oh why weren't YOU the one writing music history textbooks when we were in school, Elaine? Isn't it amazing when a "secondary" composer slips in and rocks your world? And sites like IMSLP have finally made it easy and affordable to explore a full range of repertoire.Martin Perryhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17709439736501506650noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10680113.post-69053190054210009422012-08-10T21:44:22.441-05:002012-08-10T21:44:22.441-05:00The thing about the people in Brahms' circle i...The thing about the people in Brahms' circle is that they were all, with the exception of his teacher and of the Schumanns and Joachim, were really pretty much followers of Brahms. <br /><br />Pleyel, on the other hand, served as an inspiration for Mozart while Mozart was writing his "Haydn" Quartets. Mozart even wrote to his father raving about Pleyel's Opus 1 string quartets.Elaine Finehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14248422399226824168noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10680113.post-930497096730575582012-08-10T21:44:18.571-05:002012-08-10T21:44:18.571-05:00The thing about the people in Brahms' circle i...The thing about the people in Brahms' circle is that they were all, with the exception of his teacher and of the Schumanns and Joachim, were really pretty much followers of Brahms. <br /><br />Pleyel, on the other hand, served as an inspiration for Mozart while Mozart was writing his "Haydn" Quartets. Mozart even wrote to his father raving about Pleyel's Opus 1 string quartets.Elaine Finehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14248422399226824168noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10680113.post-37349631091068590252012-08-10T20:27:27.801-05:002012-08-10T20:27:27.801-05:00eder 52Thanks!
I know some Reinecke and Stanford,...eder 52Thanks!<br /><br />I know some Reinecke and Stanford, and there's soem Rontgen floating around my house. I would add Rheinberger, a first-class choral composer, to the list.<br /><br />And <a rel="nofollow">Wikipedia has a good list</a> of minor and major Romantic-era composers.Lisa Hirschhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14014924958428072675noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10680113.post-55036462202680095292012-08-10T20:05:59.812-05:002012-08-10T20:05:59.812-05:00Robert Fuchs, Heinrich Herzogenberg, Ethel Smyth, ...Robert Fuchs, Heinrich Herzogenberg, Ethel Smyth, Friedrich Kiel (who taught Charles Villiers Stanford), Carl Reinecke, Hans Sitt, Theodor Kirchner, Gustav Jenner, Amanda Maier, Eduard Hanslick, Eduard Marxen, and Julius Röntgen are good people to start with.<br /><br />I'm particularly fond of music by Fuchs, Stanford, Maier, Kirchner, and Reinecke. None of them are Brahms though. He was really a singular musical personality. A "one off."Elaine Finehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14248422399226824168noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10680113.post-67156855679330210762012-08-10T14:06:29.164-05:002012-08-10T14:06:29.164-05:00I'm sorry, my question was not clear. I should...I'm sorry, my question was not clear. I should have asked this: Who were the now-unknown contemporaries of Brahms, the equivalents of Pleyel, Moscheles, Hummel, etc.?Lisa Hirschhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14014924958428072675noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10680113.post-50527353877189140462012-08-10T12:01:54.305-05:002012-08-10T12:01:54.305-05:00Well, there are the Schumanns for two, and Joachim...Well, there are the Schumanns for two, and Joachim, and Liszt, and Tchaikovsky (Brahms hated him), and Wagner (Brahms copied parts for him).<br /><br />I guess the thing about Brahms was that he was practically an original thinker--or as original a thinker as a musician can be. He left far more fingerprints of influence on his contemporaries then they seem to have left on him.<br /><br />I remember learning all the possible harmonic material of the (what we now call) common-practice musical spectrum when I was in high school. When my theory teacher told us that we had studied all of the possibilities, my response was to ask him, "what about the harmonies that Brahms used?"Elaine Finehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14248422399226824168noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10680113.post-17594703031672637222012-08-10T10:59:56.609-05:002012-08-10T10:59:56.609-05:00I'm going to have to find recordings of those ...I'm going to have to find recordings of those quartets. I got some Cherubini last year and they are also interesting.<br /><br />I agree with your general point as stated and also as implied: the way we're taught music history omits swathes of important context. Those composers deemed "minor" or "lesser," who provide context for those deemed "great" or "greater," are typically omitted from general music history books and classes, and so we miss much of what we need to know and hear to fully understand any particular period of music history.<br /><br />I'll wave at Hummel, Moscheles, and their contemporaries in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. How can we begin to understand Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn, and Schumann if we don't know those composers?<br /><br />And whose music do we need to know to better understand Brahms? Just who WERE his contemporaries, for that matter?Lisa Hirschhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14014924958428072675noreply@blogger.com