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James Jolly (/users/james-jolly) Thu 1st January 2015

Aimez­vous Brahms?

James Jolly talks Brahms with conductors BernardHaitink and Marin Alsop, both at work onsymphony cycles

What does the name 'Brahms' conjure up in your mind? For mostpeople the image that automatically springs to mind is of thecomposer in middle age, corpulently rotund, lavishly and greylybearded and reassuringly avuncular in appearance. Blame thephotographs because he belongs to the first generation of composerswho were caught on film (and images of Brahms 'at leisure' aregreater in number than for most composers). That image attaches tohis music, too — from whatever time in his life. For his detractors it'sthe very confirmation of stodgy North German-ness: solid anddependable, but backward-looking. For those who adore his music,it's an image that throws up contradictions for his is music of suchpassion, of such intensity that image and imagining never quite tally.

But there was a time when he was slim, blond and, according to manyreports, almost girlish in appearance. That was the Brahms(http://www.gramophone.co.uk/composers/johannes-brahms-34098) who left his native Hamburg in the early summer of 1853,aged just 20, returning later that year, a doted-upon composer,known to Liszt, Wagner, Berlioz and, of course, Clara and RobertSchumann, who declared him a genius. He had achieved fame andpresented in his first few works a solid foundation from which thatcelebrity would grow. Very few people who crossed his path wereunaffected by his obvious and abundant talent.

When he died, in April 1897, aged 63, he was the German-speakingworld's foremost composer; indeed he was probably the most famouscomposer in the entire world. His music was played across the USA as

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his disciples took up posts in the musical capitals of the New World.He had amassed a considerable fortune almost entirely from theroyalties to his music with occasional supplements from performing.He was a composer who did not rely on financial patronage but whotruly lived off his talent and was beholden to no one. Today, Brahms'smusic — particularly his orchestral music — has a grip on therepertoire like few others, his god Beethoven apart. No othercomposer offers a symphonic legacy that is so well balanced, soconcentrated and at such an equally high level: four works, like thefour sides of a square, that comprise a unit of great strength andintegrity. It's no surprise that barely a week (hardly even a day) goesby without a performance of one of his symphonies somewhere in theworld; in the US during the 2004-05 season Brahms, according to theAmerican Symphony Orchestra League, will be the fourth most-performed composer. On disc, Brahms symphony cycles havecontinued even when record companies have hesitated overBeethoven's. This month sees the conclusion of one such cycle, fromthe London Symphony Orchestra under Bernard Haitink, and the startof another, from the London Philharmonic Orchestra under MarinAlsop (http://www.gramophone.co.uk/features/focus/marin-alsop-and-the-proms).

I caught up with both conductors just before Christmas to talkBrahms, a subject they each address with considerable passion. Alsopwas passing through London, from a concert the previous night withthe Residentie Orchestra in The Hague which had included Brahms'sFirst Symphony, en route to her home in Denver, where she started2005 with a Brahms cycle with the Colorado Symphony. BernardHaitink was concluding a three-concert series with the LSO. Therewas no Brahms on the bill, but it made a glorious close to a seasonthat has provided musical gold aplenty for London concert-goers inhis 75th-birthday year with a handful of Europe's greatest orchestras.

Those of us who love Brahms's music love it with a passion thatwanders through his entire output and alighting on specific pockets,like the choral works. Marin Alsop remembers her first encounterwith Brahms's music. 'I heard the B flat Sextet when I was 11 yearsold — and that was the very first time I was moved by music. I hadthis experience of an emotional reaction to music — of course myhormones were probably racing, too — but I remember being justgripped in a way I never had been before and I didn't know that musiccould do that. Of course I raced off and bought the record — it wasthe Amadeus Quartet's — and by the time I was 16 years old therecord was so thin because I'd played it so many times! There wassomething very 'connecting' about Brahms's music.

'Then of course I got more engaged. It's like with an author — youread everything they wrote, until you OD on it. And I did that withBrahms — analysing the way he approached his works, particularlythe symphonies which he comes to so late in life, and whatpsychologically led to them and how Beethoven's influence played arole in them and so on. How one incorporates that interpretivelybecomes a real Sherlock Holmes experience, which I love.' For Alsop,the 2004-05 season has turned into something of a Brahmsfest. 'Itwasn't terribly conscious but I knew I'd be in the midst of theserecordings. It was interesting because a lot of orchestras asked forBrahms from me so it seemed to work out well. It's fantastic becauseorchestras who play Brahms a lot don't do the Third very often so youhave the challenge of working on a piece together.'

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For Haitink, who is just concluding his third Brahms cycle on disc, thecomposer has been with him 'right from the beginning. But I havelearned by trial and error. I've discovered that concert organisers,particularly on the Continent, give Brahms symphonies to youngconductors — "Let him do a Brahms symphony!" — but it's not thateasy. You need — maybe now that I'm older I would say this — butyou need more experience to bring off Brahms well. It's difficult tosay why. I think when we think of Brahms we all conjure up a huge,inflated sound and that is totally wrong because Brahms wrote somuch wonderful chamber music which is a fine indication of thetextures he was after. If you look at the scores of the symphonies it'samazing how often he writes piano dolce or pianissimodolce. Dolcecomes up so often, even more than with Beethoven, andBeethoven uses that "warning" a lot. Take the beginning of Brahms'sFourth Symphony: it's very often played far too loud, but then youcan't build it any more. When he uses piano, he creates a beautifulsound and when you start at that level you can make a huge build-up, otherwise, with that movement in particular, it gets a little stale.That is one of the secrets of playing Brahms: you have to be veryacute about how you pace the dynamics.'

One of the intriguing things about the composer is howextraordinarily well he covered his tracks, both personal and musical.He left virtually no drafts, few first thoughts or even first versions.The published work we have is virtually all there is. For Alsop,Brahms's witnessing at close hand Robert Schumann's mental decline,and the public interest in it, is key. 'I think Brahms is very difficult toget a handle on. From seeing Schumann in the limelight and watchinghow the paparazzi of the time worked, he was extremely aware andconscious of not leaving much of a trail. So he rarely documentedanything, he rarely kept notebooks and sketches, so most of what weknow is anecdotal or conjecture. I think that was all very intentional.'

Naturally this presents the double-edged situation where almostevery piece of his is in its finished text. 'Before I started work on thesymphonies I spoke with the Brahms expert Robert Pascall. We wentthrough the scores and what you find are mostly dynamic issues, thekinds of minor things that you get when you transfer from amanuscript to a print where the publisher or editor would make somechanges, often unintentionally — but they're really tiny alongside,say, Mahler's. Maybe that's a nice element not to have to agoniseover. But one agonises in different ways, but then that's great, too.You can imbue his music with a lot of your own associations.'

For Haitink, the question of Brahms the man and Brahms's music —and indeed any composer and his music — presents the ultimateconundrum. 'How far the character of an artist has influence on hisactual creative process one never knows. I always try to read thebiography and read around the composer. It's always good to do butas a performer one doesn't learn anything from it strangely enough,but to be confronted again by the man and the artist is important. Itis an enormous riddle to me. How does the personal life of an artistinfluence his music? Look at Mozart: during his most miserable lastyears he wrote extremely sad pieces but always balanced by humouror a slight optimism. Maybe not the G minor Symphony [No 40] whichis a very dark brooding work, but K543 [No 39] and the Jupiter arewritten by a man who was broke, people ignored him, perhaps hegambled all his money and his credibility away. He was maybe a verylonely man and he writes this fantastic C major music. It's amazing!'

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Over the years, Haitink admits, his attitude to the music has changed.'I'm much more touched by it, much more intrigued by it. Brahms wasnot an easy man and I think you can hear that in his music. One ofthe famous things he said when he left an evening gathering was "If Ihaven't offended someone here, I apologise!" He was difficult. Peoplealways think of this man with the beard, relaxing with his cigar, butthere was so much more to him that that. I was in the Musikverein inVienna a while back — where he left his library — and it's amazingwhat is there. He was an incredibly well-read man, very educated. ButI think he was a very lonely man, too.'

Read the booklet-note or programme-note to any Brahms symphonyand you'll learn that the composer waited until middle age to unveilhis first work in the genre — well after he'd grown that splendidbeard and taken up the mantle of upholder of German music. Hespoke often of the towering example of Beethoven's remarkable ninesymphonies. But scale alone did not deter him — one of Brahms'searliest works is the Piano Sonata in F minor, Op 5, a five-movementwork of titanic proportions and reach. Perhaps a need to develop anorchestral language delayed his first attempts, but by the time hestarted work on his First Symphony, some time in the mid-1860s,he'd already written two serenades (admittedly for small ensemble)and the huge (in every respect) First Piano Concerto. When he didgrapple with the symphony he published two in relatively shortsuccession (1877 and 1878) and then, before a decade was through,another two, again almost as a pair (1884 and 1886). So when wereach Brahms's First Symphony, we are not encountering the work ofa tyro composer: it is the mature embracing of a form that he alwaysviewed with dread. 'You don't know what it is like,' he once told theconductor Hermann Levi, 'always to hear that giant marching alongbehind me'.

How many other composers have started their first symphony in soimposing — and confident — a way? The steady tread pounded out asif to acknowledge that marching giant but defiantly refusing to becowed by it. For Alsop, the key to interpreting the First is not to allowindulgence. 'You cannot wallow. There's an organic tempo in eachsymphony. For me, I feel there is a very particular tempo but I'vecertainly heard some dramatic extremes. I think it just depends onwhat one's take on this pulse at the beginning is. If it's a heartbeatthen for me it has to be manageable — I'm not having to run a six-minute mile. But if it's not, and is just a general kind of life-pulse,then I can understand speeding it up. One has to be very committedto it.

'The music is so strong. More than with any other composer thetimpanist shapes Brahms for me. It's absolutely critical to havesomeone who understands not only pacing and timing, but also thecolour of sound and the weight of sound. One of the things I adoreabout Brahms is his ability to have one foot firmly anchored in thetradition of music. He was famed for his adoration of Beethoven, butalso of Bach as well — and that leads to his beautiful bass-lineconstruction — but he was also completely aware of where music washeading. And to be able to straddle those two worlds successfully ishis real genius. Take his choice of instrumentation — in the FirstSymphony he saves the trombones for the last movement just so theywere still something special. Or to use the tuba in only one symphony— to make these choices, to use horns as if they were still naturalinstruments even though he didn't need to. He could really playtribute to the past but look ahead to the future so strongly.'

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Haitink is in agreement. 'The opening of the First Symphony ismarked Poco sostenuto. It should not be too slow. He can temptindulgence. It sounds a bit odd for a conductor to say this but oneshould leave it alone. It plays itself in many ways as long as one takescare of the sound, of the tempo, of the dynamics — that's already alot to ask! — but don't fool around with ritardandi that he hasn'twritten. When he writes poco ritenuto, don't make it molto. It's ahabit that when people want to impress, they think they impress bypulling it around. But they don't. Going back to that opening of No 1,it's passionate but there's also the danger that performers wantitfortissimo, when he writes forte. Later on they will have the chancefor fortissimo in the resolution. It's very important to get a wonderfulsound for that beginning: passionate but not fortissimo.' 

Symphonies Nos 1 and 2 were written just a couple of years apart, sodoes that encourage thinking of them as a pair? Alsop: 'One of thegreat rewards about conducting these symphonies is that they're alldifferent planets but they belong to the same solar system. WithBrahms there's a completely unique world with each work: it's a lifeunto itself, and a very different cohesive life. That's the joy of it. But Ireally do see them as complements of each other so No 1 and No 2feel related. I feel so strongly in Nos 1 and 2 the influence ofBeethoven. For me, No 2 is highly influenced by the Eroica so I don'tfeel the term that is often applied to it — Pastoral — is quite accuratebecause it has that inner strength.

'If you look at the openings of 1 and 2 they couldn't be morediametrically opposed. No 1 is all about downbeats and No 2's allabout upbeats.' A very Bernstein-y comment? 'The one thing Iremember Bernstein talking to me about in Brahms — and yes, heloved to make those epic statements — was when he was working onthe Fourth Symphony. He was explaining to the orchestra that"there's always a moment in Brahms when there's an amazing silence"— actually there are many moments — but he would try and prioritisewhat the biggest silent moment in a Brahms symphony would be.Those things are so great to think about, those big ideas.'

Haitink, too, finds Pastoral for No 2 a misnomer: 'I think that's a bitsimplistic because it could invite a very relaxed attitude. Of coursethe first movement is relaxed, but it should not be too slow in tempo:it should be very transparent and it has some wonderful textures.One can't sit back and enjoy the countryside all the time! The secondmovement has no pastoral atmosphere at all for me. It's a verystrange movement, I love it, but it's so dark and brooding. The thirdmovement is lovely, a real scherzo in mood and the finale is veryfestive. One could almost think of Haydn there. But it's so dangerousto use these labels. In comparison with the other symphonies, yesthere's a pastoral feel but ...'

The Third and Fourth Symphonies followed in the mid 1880s and, intheir very special way, present an even more intriguing pairing thanthe first two symphonies: No 3 is concise and concentrated — andfiendishly difficult to bring off — the equivalent perhaps ofBeethoven's similarly proportioned Eighth Symphony, a powerful littlework before the epic splendours of the Choral Symphony. The Thirdis traditionally the most neglected of the four. Marin Alsop laughsand admits to the vapidity of the conducting profession who avoid it,it's often suggested, because of its gentle ending, hardly a way for aconductor to leave the stage in a blaze of sonorous glory. 'I think theThird is probably the most challenging to conduct but I don't think itis obscure in any way. The opening is crucial. I think it's really a

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technical dilemma which must stem from an interpretive question onthe part of conductors because it's quite tricky to find the righttempo that propels it without pushing it too much. That is crucial andthat is the key to Brahms — to give it the space without making itsound slow. And I think great orchestras can really do that. They canfill in the time so you push the envelope of time without reallyexpanding it. Just like filling it up as much as you can before itchanges shape. I think that in the Third it's really important to feelthe water filling in all those chords at the beginning.'

Haitink agrees. 'It's always said that conductors don't want to endwith it because of its quiet close. No 3 is a very complex piece andit's not for nothing that's it's not performed as often as the othersymphonies. But I would always place it last. When I do it later thisyear in Berlin the programme goes Haydn symphony, Bartók DanceSuite — interval — then Brahms Third. The first movement isincredibly symphonic and technically quite difficult for a conductor tokeep together in 6/4. It's very difficult to launch: there was this oldtradition of those two chords, major and minor in the brass and thatconductors made a crescendo towards the third bar. For me they'retwo pillars that shouldn't be messed around with: here's one andthere's one. It's very passionate, but then it breaks down at the endof the first movement already to a piano finish. Then this wonderfulsecond movement, which is pure chamber music, and the thirdmovement is so introverted, but such an extremely touching piece.And the last movement starts very foggy, rather North German fogbut then the sun cuts through and there is an enormous, heroicoutburst but at the end it breaks down again and ends maybe againin resignation.'

And so to the great Fourth Symphony. Every time I hear it I have afeeling that something has been happening before the music starts.Marin Alsop points out that in its original form — and it's one of thefew examples of an early thought that survives — there was a slowchordal opening. 'I can see why he abandoned the original opening ofthe Fourth which was four bars of sustained chords because the Thirdopens with those chords, I think the idea of having these pillars againjust doesn't appeal. With the Fourth you sort of open the door andthe conversation is already happening. That was a brilliant thing.' ForHaitink, 'something already's going on and the curtain rises. Andthere it is...'

And again, the label that often gets attached to the Fourth is Tragic.Haitink: 'It reminds me always of autumn, and like that season there'salways a little resignation with life. Summer has gone... but againwe're putting stickers on it, and that's so dangerous!' Alsop, too,doesn't see anything as strong as a tragedy here. 'I think there's anelement of longing, perhaps a sense of loss but not "spoken-out-loud" loss, more like "I wish I had said what I meant to that personbut didn't" — that kind of thing. To me the slow movement of theFourth really is one of the most sublime movements in music. I thinkit's spectacular. The way it opens with this repetitive figure — it'salmost like you're all by yourself in the mountains, you're singingsomething out that keeps echoing back and forth. The audience hasno real feel for where the beat is and Brahms puts us off centre sooften. He moves bar lines by displacing the downbeat and that's justa brilliant compositional technique. People who aren't musiciansdon't understand why, but they feel a little bit uncomfortable: that'sfantastic. But that slow movement in particular I find very poignantand gorgeous.'

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Brahms was, famously, anointed by Schumann as Beethoven's naturalsuccessor, a man who from his earliest compositions was the creatorof 'veiled symphonies'. He was seen as the torch-bearer for the greatGerman tradition that seemed to jump from peak to peak from Bachto Beethoven to Brahms. In the opposite camp were Liszt — whosemusic Brahms loathed — and Wagner — whose music, especiallyMeistersinger, he rather admired. But was Brahms the loyal,traditionalist, more keen on carrying a tradition, or was he forward-looking, into the future. Arnold Schoenberg, a man who altered thecourse of music as no other, was a great Brahmsian, the man whospoke in a lecture given in February 1933 on the centenary ofBrahms's birth, of 'Brahms the Progressive'.

Marin Alsop in is no doubt as to Brahms's musical direction. 'I dothink he's a real progressive. And I think that often greatprogressives are the ones who pay homage to the past whilst lookinginto the future. One of my favourite things is to do the Schoenbergorchestration of the First Piano Quartet. I'd love to do it as part of thiscycle. It's fun and actually very Brahmsian.' And let's leave the lastwords to Bernard Haitink. 'I have friends, many of whom really doknow and love music, but for them Brahms is too Teutonic. How can Ianswer that? I think it's probably the fault of bad interpretation, whenthe sound gets clogged, it's a problem. That can happen easily — it'sthe same a bit with the music of Elgar who occupies a similar sort ofsound world. I always get irritated when people say he is atraditionalist and a reactionary. Schoenberg, who was hardly a fool,recognised that! When you listen to Brahms's music, you encounterhis imagination, his orchestration, his incredible structural strength.For me, there is nothing backward-looking about Brahms.'

Composer: Johannes Brahms (/composers/johannes-brahms-34098)Bernard Haitink (/musicians/artist/bernard-haitink-47964)

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