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JOHANNES BRAHMS

In 1890, Johannes Brahms (1833 – 1897) found himself at the end of a most brilliant career. Many great composers acquire their deserved recognition, and important position in the history of music, after their death. This was not the case with Brahms. In Vienna, well within his own lifetime, he had established himself as the true heir to Beethoven, and champion of a more conservative romanticism. Throughout much of his life and career, with the help of Robert and Clara Schumann, he had acquired legendary fame, something close to today’s pop music icons.

 

Brahms writes to a friend during this time: “Recently I started various things, symphonies and so on, but nothing would come out right. Then I thought: I’m really too old, and resolved energetically to write no more. I considered that all my life I had been sufficiently industrious and had achieved enough; here I had before me a carefree old age and could enjoy it in peace. And that made me so happy, so contented, so delighted - that all at once the writing began to go.”

 

In 1890, the world was changing, and a more modern view of life and art was taking hold. That year the Rose String Quartet premiered what was meant to be Brahms’ last work, the String Quintet in G major, Op. 111. To put things in perspective, the Rose Quartet, just ten years later, would become the champion of the new modern music of Arnold Schoenberg. But Brahms’ Op. 111 was the perfect farewell to a consummate life as a composer, and was a beautiful success.

 

In 1891, Brahms traveled to Meiningen for a weeklong arts festival. There he heard several of his own works played, including his Fourth Symphony. But what really struck him were performances of a Weber Clarinet Concerto and the Mozart Clarinet Quintet played by the principal clarinetist of the Meiningen court orchestra, Richard Muhlfeld. Muhlfeld originally joined the orchestra as a violinist, but he was also a clarinetist, at first an amateur, then as a clarinetist during his military service in the band of the 32nd regiment (1876 – 9), eventually acquiring the principal position with the court orchestra. Brahms found himself truly inspired by Muhlfeld’s playing, his magical ability to spin a phrase, and his gorgeous dark and rich tone. This inspiration created a most fruitful and historic musical friendship, pulling Brahms out of retirement to compose some of the most important and iconic chamber works of the period, for Muhlfeld, his Clarinet Trio, Op. 114, his two Clarinet Sonatas, Op. 120, and his Clarinet Quintet in B minor, Op. 115.

 

There is always a touch of emotional darkness and melancholy in the music of Brahms, even in the most uplifting of moments. This bittersweet theme is taken to an extreme with his Clarinet Quintet, displaying one gorgeous retrospective heartbreaking moment after another, masterfully using the natural dark singing quality of the clarinet, which as Malcolm MacDonald says, reveals “every super-refined shade of silver-grey regret.” In fact, the first two movements contain the bulk of the emotional angst. The piece opens with music of stunning beauty, a smoldering clarinet solo over thickly woven strings, and a wonderful Hungarian gypsy section in the 2nd movement reaches a climax that is one of the most satisfying in all of music. Interestingly, the piece cools down in the 3rd and 4th movement, with a scherzo featuring the strings, and a lovely set of variations. Brahms died only a few years later, in 1897, after a battle with cancer. The Clarinet Quintet is a masterful work of Brahms at his most mature, and an exquisite example of the conservative romanticism he is known for.

 

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ELLIOTT CARTER

 

Elliott Carter (1908 – 2012) was born just ten years after the death of Brahms, in New York City, but those ten years, and those just beyond, brought huge changes in history, art, and day to day existence. Here is a statement from Carter himself, made in 2003, illustrating these profound changes, and making clear why the romantic views of Brahms seem far away, and not relevant to his modern life:

 

“My generation, I was born in 1908, was the first generation to grow up with modernism. Actually modernism was a desire to find a more emphatic and stronger way of presenting in the arts, life as it was lived in the present time. There was this influence of psychoanalysis and influence of machinery, and we could fly and we could take automobiles. All this changed our whole view of how one thought about music.”

 

Carter was a student of Walter Piston and Nadia Boulanger, and was inspired early on by the music of Stravinsky, Varese, Schoenberg, and Charles Ives, whom he knew and was an important mentor to him. His compositional life was exceptionally long and productive, beginning in the 1930s and continuing through to his last year, just past his 104th birthday in 2012. In that time, he became a pioneering voice for American classical music, and one of the most influential and historically important composers of the 20th and 21st centuries.

 

Elliott Carter’s music composed in the 1980s is characteristically complex and dense. He speaks of being preoccupied with the concept of “confusion”, or the complicated aspects of living in the modern world. This idea of confusion, and a charming sense of humor, are put together in his duo for flute and clarinet: Esprit Rude / Esprit Doux (1985), roughly translated as “rough breathing / smooth breathing”. This five minute work was composed as a gift for Pierre Boulez on his 60th birthday. Here the confusion is created with the use of polyrhythms. A common pulse holds the music together, but the two instruments never sync; are never together in a traditional sense. Sometimes the flute leads, sometimes the clarinet, and often a beautiful indistinguishable rhythmic mesh is achieved.

 

Carter’s late works have a certain masterful stability about them; complex music with a sense of transparent control, which Daniel Barenboim calls “distilled complexity”. There is an almost heartbreaking romantic expression in his late music. This is certainly the case with his Clarinet Quintet, written in 2007 at the age of 99. Just like Brahms, Carter turns to this very versatile and bountiful instrumentation at the end of his life. Here though the clarinet and string quartet are two separate characters throughout, sometimes not paying much attention to one another. There are some wonderfully tender expressive moments in the middle sections of the piece, leading to a most unusual and emotional finale. After a pyro-technical fanfare in the high register of the clarinet, the finale begins, with an interplay that brings to mind the clarinet as a heroic character on an odyssey, walking and enduring through a journey in a dangerous surreal landscape.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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JOHANNES BRAHMS

In 1890, Johannes Brahms (1833 – 1897) found himself at the end of a most brilliant career. Many great composers acquire their deserved recognition, and important position in the history of music, after their death. This was not the case with Brahms. In Vienna, well within his own lifetime, he had established himself as the true heir to Beethoven, and champion of a more conservative romanticism. Throughout much of his life and career, with the help of Robert and Clara Schumann, he had acquired legendary fame, something close to today’s pop music icons.

 

Brahms writes to a friend during this time: “Recently I started various things, symphonies and so on, but nothing would come out right. Then I thought: I’m really too old, and resolved energetically to write no more. I considered that all my life I had been sufficiently industrious and had achieved enough; here I had before me a carefree old age and could enjoy it in peace. And that made me so happy, so contented, so delighted - that all at once the writing began to go.”

 

In 1890, the world was changing, and a more modern view of life and art was taking hold. That year the Rose String Quartet premiered what was meant to be Brahms’ last work, the String Quintet in G major, Op. 111. To put things in perspective, the Rose Quartet, just ten years later, would become the champion of the new modern music of Arnold Schoenberg. But Brahms’ Op. 111 was the perfect farewell to a consummate life as a composer, and was a beautiful success.

 

In 1891, Brahms traveled to Meiningen for a weeklong arts festival. There he heard several of his own works played, including his Fourth Symphony. But what really struck him were performances of a Weber Clarinet Concerto and the Mozart Clarinet Quintet played by the principal clarinetist of the Meiningen court orchestra, Richard Muhlfeld. Muhlfeld originally joined the orchestra as a violinist, but he was also a clarinetist, at first an amateur, then as a clarinetist during his military service in the band of the 32nd regiment (1876 – 9), eventually acquiring the principal position with the court orchestra. Brahms found himself truly inspired by Muhlfeld’s playing, his magical ability to spin a phrase, and his gorgeous dark and rich tone. This inspiration created a most fruitful and historic musical friendship, pulling Brahms out of retirement to compose some of the most important and iconic chamber works of the period, for Muhlfeld, his Clarinet Trio, Op. 114, his two Clarinet Sonatas, Op. 120, and his Clarinet Quintet in B minor, Op. 115.

 

There is always a touch of emotional darkness and melancholy in the music of Brahms, even in the most uplifting of moments. This bittersweet theme is taken to an extreme with his Clarinet Quintet, displaying one gorgeous retrospective heartbreaking moment after another, masterfully using the natural dark singing quality of the clarinet, which as Malcolm MacDonald says, reveals “every super-refined shade of silver-grey regret.” In fact, the first two movements contain the bulk of the emotional angst. The piece opens with music of stunning beauty, a smoldering clarinet solo over thickly woven strings, and a wonderful Hungarian gypsy section in the 2nd movement reaches a climax that is one of the most satisfying in all of music. Interestingly, the piece cools down in the 3rd and 4th movement, with a scherzo featuring the strings, and a lovely set of variations. Brahms died only a few years later, in 1897, after a battle with cancer. The Clarinet Quintet is a masterful work of Brahms at his most mature, and an exquisite example of the conservative romanticism he is known for.

 

 

​

 

ELLIOTT CARTER

 

Elliott Carter (1908 – 2012) was born just ten years after the death of Brahms, in New York City, but those ten years, and those just beyond, brought huge changes in history, art, and day to day existence. Here is a statement from Carter himself, made in 2003, illustrating these profound changes, and making clear why the romantic views of Brahms seem far away, and not relevant to his modern life:

 

“My generation, I was born in 1908, was the first generation to grow up with modernism. Actually modernism was a desire to find a more emphatic and stronger way of presenting in the arts, life as it was lived in the present time. There was this influence of psychoanalysis and influence of machinery, and we could fly and we could take automobiles. All this changed our whole view of how one thought about music.”

 

Carter was a student of Walter Piston and Nadia Boulanger, and was inspired early on by the music of Stravinsky, Varese, Schoenberg, and Charles Ives, whom he knew and was an important mentor to him. His compositional life was exceptionally long and productive, beginning in the 1930s and continuing through to his last year, just past his 104th birthday in 2012. In that time, he became a pioneering voice for American classical music, and one of the most influential and historically important composers of the 20th and 21st centuries.

 

Elliott Carter’s music composed in the 1980s is characteristically complex and dense. He speaks of being preoccupied with the concept of “confusion”, or the complicated aspects of living in the modern world. This idea of confusion, and a charming sense of humor, are put together in his duo for flute and clarinet: Esprit Rude / Esprit Doux (1985), roughly translated as “rough breathing / smooth breathing”. This five minute work was composed as a gift for Pierre Boulez on his 60th birthday. Here the confusion is created with the use of polyrhythms. A common pulse holds the music together, but the two instruments never sync; are never together in a traditional sense. Sometimes the flute leads, sometimes the clarinet, and often a beautiful indistinguishable rhythmic mesh is achieved.

 

Carter’s late works have a certain masterful stability about them; complex music with a sense of transparent control, which Daniel Barenboim calls “distilled complexity”. There is an almost heartbreaking romantic expression in his late music. This is certainly the case with his Clarinet Quintet, written in 2007 at the age of 99. Just like Brahms, Carter turns to this very versatile and bountiful instrumentation at the end of his life. Here though the clarinet and string quartet are two separate characters throughout, sometimes not paying much attention to one another. There are some wonderfully tender expressive moments in the middle sections of the piece, leading to a most unusual and emotional finale. After a pyro-technical fanfare in the high register of the clarinet, the finale begins, with an interplay that brings to mind the clarinet as a heroic character on an odyssey, walking and enduring through a journey in a dangerous surreal landscape.