This is number 1 in a discontinuous series of ‘quotes of the day.’ (’The day’ being the day I come across them.)
Florence May: “How can I most quickly improve?”
Johannes Brahms: “You must walk constantly in the forest.”
A little background: Florence May (1845-1923) was a talented English pianist who had travelled to study piano technique under Clara Schumann but who ended up as a pupil of Brahms himself. She later wrote a two-volume biography of Brahms.
Brahms was a supremely accomplished pianist (when he went on tour he never bothered to take any music), composer and conductor given to perfectionism, grumpiness, verbal asperity, charity, fine cigars and … long walks in the Vienna woods. She asked him how she could play the piano better, and he told her to head for the forest.
Her fingers had done all that they could. After that, only the forest could help.
Brahms great skill as a
Brahms great skill as a composer is his use and exploration of romantic expressionism in his music, as pioneered by Mozart & develped by Beethoven. However when you visit and revisit Brahms, the great chamber music such as the String Sextets show an intensity & poigniancy that is quite limited & simple compared with the complexity of Beethoven (eg late quartets) or Mozart chamber music. That said I love the imperfection of Brahms, compared with the intrinsic genius of Mozart & Beethoven. The intervention of perfomance and performers matter more greatly with Brahms.
I think, James, there was a
I think, James, there was a big dose of Schubert in that ‘romantic’ streak, too — arguably more than from either Mozart or Beethoven (whose hefty shadow nearly crushed Brahms in the early years). With Mozart, too, perfection sometimes got uncoupled from inspiration. Brahms was so tough with himself that you can feel the flame of inspiration inside most of what he left us.
Thanks, wish my knowledge
Thanks, wish my knowledge about classical music would go beyond Mozart and Brahms...
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