Brahms

Summary

Dominique Pagani ranks Brahms among the "three Bs" of German music and sees him as a Romantic who cannot be reduced to the others. He finds him more German than Wagner, and says this is why France long looked down on him12. He sets him mainly against Wagner: Brahms stays clear of Wagner's influence and, in pure music, completely surpasses him3. Still, he notes that Brahms's purist attack on the programmes of Liszt and Wagner is reactionary, since Brahms himself wrote a requiem and set Hölderlin to music4. In his view, Brahms "never stops finishing" Romanticism: he stays attached to classical forms and to a popular strain from the piano bar, where poverty had driven him5. He admires Brahms's languors, while finding in them the spirit of gravity of the Protestant puritan6. He hears a great deal of Brahms in Proust's Vinteuil sonata. He also mentions the Piano Concerto No. 2, the chamber music, and the shadow of Beethoven that delayed the first symphony.

1. 1Nietzsche, or the Great Ninny7 Feb 2023 · 3:32
2. 2#15 Nietzsche: philosophical or musical relevance? Answers to questions23 Jun 2022 · 39:24
3. 3#12 Nietzsche (right up) against Wagner28 Jan 2021 · 1:04:41
4. 4#16 Programme music, pure music10 Mar 2021 · 1:10:40
5. 5#5 Happiness versus the death drive in music11 Dec 2020 · 32:16
6. 6#8 Happiness and unhappiness in music11 Jan 2021 · 1:18:36

Summary produced automatically from 35 of the passages below, to be reviewed; the numbers link to the moment in the session.