This book explores the connections between art and life in the works of three giants of musical romanticism. Drawing on contemporary critical theory and a wide variety of 19th-century sources, it ...considers topics including Schubert and Schumann's uncanny ability to evoke memory in music, the supposed cryptographic practices of Schumann and Brahms, and the allure of the Hungarian Gypsy style for Brahms and others in the Schumann circle. The book offers a fresh perspective on the music of these composers, including a discussion of the 19th-century practice of cryptography, a debunking of the myth that Schumann and Brahms planted codes for “Clara Schumann’ throughout their works, and attention to the late works of Schumann not as evidence of the composer's descent into madness but as inspiration for his successors. The book portrays the three key players as musical storytellers, each in his own way simulating the structure of lived experience in works of art.
InSonata Fragments, Andrew Davis argues that the Romantic sonata is firmly rooted, both formally and expressively, in its Classical forebears, using Classical conventions in order to convey a broad ...constellation of Romantic aesthetic values. This claim runs contrary to conventional theories of the Romantic sonata that place this nineteenth-century musical form squarely outside inherited Classical sonata procedures. Building on Sonata Theory, Davis examines moments of fracture and fragmentation that disrupt the cohesive and linear temporality in piano sonatas by Chopin, Brahms, and Schumann. These disruptions in the sonata form are a narrative technique that signify temporal shifts during which we move from the outer action to the inner thoughts of a musical agent, or we move from the story as it unfolds to a flashback or flash-forward. Through an interpretation of Romantic sonatas as temporally multi-dimensional works in which portions of the music in any given piece can lie inside or outside of what Sonata Theory would define as the sonata-space proper, Davis reads into these ruptures a narrative of expressive features that mark these sonatas as uniquely Romantic.
Brahms's self-identity and public identity as a Liberal are the basis for the two historical perspectives in this book. One reconstructs his place in Vienna. The other draws on criticism conditioned ...by Western Marxism, on ideas developed in response to 19th-century Liberalism. Brahms appears not to have recognized a societal problem of late Liberalism: exaggerated emphasis on the individual. He did, however, recognize a related musical problem delineated by Adorno — individualized themes at the expense of the formal whole — and made it central to his lifework. Commentary on Brahms's chamber music draws on other ideas articulated by Adorno and Lukács such as “second nature”, while discussion of ideology of the symphony applies Habermas's explanation of the “public sphere”, in both instances to move between social and musical problems associated with late Liberalism. Emphasis is placed on Brahms's diverse sources of renewal and on an under-explored facet of his music: his mastery of ways and degrees of establishing a key in this late period of tonality. With Brahms's works and his circumstances as exemplars, an addendum to late-style dialectics is proposed: late works are at once an expression of their time and alienated from the contemporary context. For better and worse, Brahms remained an orthodox Liberal. Thus, despite his allegiance to German nationalism he did not succumb to the tribalism that became critical around 1890.
A fair amount of literature has been published on the use of musical topics in the works of eighteenth-century composers, with the writings of Leonard Ratner and Wendy Allanbrook among the most ...influential. Allanbrook, Ratner, and their disciples have shown how studying representations of topics in opera might allow for the recognition of those same musical characteristics when they appear in instrumental music. Although for these scholars the use of topics was an eighteenth-century practice, it is also useful to consider their use in nineteenth-century repertoire. Ratner's method can be used to create a guideline for the general musical topoi that Johannes Brahms uses in his late piano works through the examination of his other piano pieces, chamber music works, and songs. The comparison of Brahms' written tempo markings and the examination of textural elements such as rhythmic patterns, figurations, and key areas help support the identification of certain topical characteristics. Brahms' songs in particular offer instructive information on common textural topoi, where the text helps underline the given mood of a passage. The compilation of a list of musical topoi used by Brahms, one that reflects both the given period's and the composer's personal musical choices, furthers the understanding of Brahms' musical language and allows for more well-informed interpretations of his works.
Contributors to this exciting new volume examine the intersection of structure and meaning in Brahms's music, utilizing a wide range of approaches, from the theories of Schenker to the most recent ...analytical techniques. They combine various viewpoints with the semiotic-based approaches of Robert Hatten, and address many of the most important genres in which Brahms composed. The essays reveal the expressive power of a work through the comparison of specific passages in one piece to similar works and through other artistic realms such as literature and painting. The result of this intertextual re-framing is a new awareness of the meaningfulness of even Brahms's most "absolute" works.
Since its first publication in 1990, Brahms and His World has become a key text for listeners, performers, and scholars interested in the life, work, and times of one of the nineteenth century's most ...celebrated composers. In this substantially revised and enlarged edition, the editors remain close to the vision behind the original book while updating its contents to reflect new perspectives on Brahms that have developed over the past two decades. To this end, the original essays by leading experts are retained and revised, and supplemented by contributions from a new generation of Brahms scholars. Together, they consider such topics as Brahms's relationship with Clara and Robert Schumann, his musical interactions with the "New German School" of Wagner and Liszt, his influence upon Arnold Schoenberg and other young composers, his approach to performing his own music, and his productive interactions with visual artists. The essays are complemented by a new selection of criticism and analyses of Brahms's works published by the composer's contemporaries, documenting the ways in which Brahms's music was understood by nineteenth- and early twentieth-century audiences in Europe and North America. A new selection of memoirs by Brahms's friends, students, and early admirers provides intimate glimpses into the composer's working methods and personality. And a catalog of the music, literature, and visual arts dedicated to Brahms documents the breadth of influence exerted by the composer upon his contemporaries.
ABSTRACT
Research in musical performance studies has generated a healthy scepticism of the importance of large‐scale structure to performance (in terms of both interpretation and perception): on the ...one hand, it might well be hardwired into notation; on the other, prioritising it risks simply repeating outworn maxims that neglect the performer's musical contributions. Recently some scholars have begun to rethink the potential structural relevance of performance rather than necessarily determining structure on the basis of the musical score alone. In this article I consolidate some of this thinking and draw out its implications for performers’ handling of large‐scale structure; in doing so, I suggest that we consider moving away from conventional large‐scale score‐based forms as structural mandates or certainties. I support this through a case study of Johannes Brahms's Intermezzo in E minor, Op. 119 No. 2, in which I analyse recorded performances by Wilhelm Backhaus, Maria Yudina and Ilona Eibenschütz. I conclude by arguing that the inclusion and prioritisation of any particular musical material – whether the score, performance, or other – requires serious consideration and reflection in any analytical act.
This article argues that Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms gave their music a blurry, Romantic quality by distorting well-known harmonic progressions. After identifying the basic progression that ...underpins the music, the analyses discuss the rhythmic dislocations that cause chords to overlap and merge together. The essay bridges a gap between an important aspect of the Romantic aesthetic and our theoretical understanding of Schumann's and Brahms's harmonic vocabulary.
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