Latest news with #Brahms
ABC News
10 hours ago
- Entertainment
- ABC News
QSO: Beethoven & Brahms
Brahms is said to have felt the pressure of continuing on with the development of music in Beethoven's shadow. So it is very apt to program the two composers in the same concert. Beethoven's infamous 4 note motif that starts the fifth symphony starts this concert and then after interval, Stephen Hough performs a mammoth work in Brahms' first piano concerto. Recorded in the QPAC Concert Hall on 14 June, 2025 by ABC Classic. Producer Lucas Burns. Sound Engineer Shelley Bishop. Program Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 5 Johannes Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 2 Robert Schumann: Phantasiestücke Op. 12, No. 3 'Warum?' Artists Stephen Hough (piano) Queensland Symphony Orchestra Umberto Clerici (conductor) Find out more Visit the QSO here
New York Times
20-06-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
In Just a Few Minutes, This Music Will Change Your Day
Take a few minutes and listen to this piano piece. Paul Lewis, piano (Harmonia Mundi) In 1890, when Johannes Brahms turned 57, he told a friend that his career as a composer was probably over, that he'd done enough. The next year, he wrote his will. But before he died, in 1897, he had a final burst of creativity, including writing four sets of short pieces for solo piano. They contain introverted, quiet, thoughtful music. Brahms called a lot of these little pieces intermezzos — suggesting that he was just having a brief word with the listener between grander statements. This one, though, he called a romance: a tender, intimate song without words. Listen to the whole thing. Then listen to this moment, to the lines in the pianist's two hands — the melody, higher up, in the right hand, and that calm, regular flow of notes in the left: Listen to the second section, which Brahms put in a different key for a different mood — swifter, airier, perhaps a memory of a freer time: Listen to the way that the pianist trills — making a sound that's like quivering — to get from that second section back to the music from the beginning: Do you hear the return of that original music in a new way after the contrasting middle section? With Brahms, at the end of the 19th century, there is often a sense of lateness, or maybe a better word is afterness. His music gives the feeling that he thought he was living and working long beyond the time of true greatness, of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert. That gives his music, especially these pieces near his death, an autumnal quality, a sense of things drawing to a close. That doesn't mean they're treacly. (Think of Rembrandt's late, russet-colored self-portraits, ever more unsentimental as they gaze deeply on the aging face.) This romance is wistful but not weepy, deeply emotional but dignified. The music is simple; what it's expressing is not. There is a lot of music that cries. I associate Brahms's music, though, with holding back tears, with not confessing to your ex that you're still in love, with gazing back without lingering, with a stiff upper lip that — like that trill — is ever so slightly quivering.
ABC News
09-06-2025
- Entertainment
- ABC News
The Swedish Radio Choir Sings Brahms
Justin Doyle conducts the Swedish Radio Choir in Johannes Brahms's love songs Liebeslieder-Walzer for mixed choir and piano four hands. It is not known whether Brahms's wrote the piece in frustration with his unrequited love for composer colleague Clara Schumann or not, but it can be seen as journey through the emotional turmoil of love. In this concert Brahms's work is combined with traditional songs and pieces from Antonín Dvořák's Slavonic Dances. Recorded live in concert at Musikaliska Kvarteret, Stockholm 28/9/24. Recording courtesy of the European Broadcasting Union. Program Johannes Brahms: Two songs from 'Liebeslieder-Walzer, op. 52' Traditional (Germany): Es waren zwei Königskinder, from 'Acht Ausgewählte Volkslieder' arr. Reger Johannes Brahms: Four songs from 'Liebeslieder-Walzer, op. 52' Traditional (Germany): Liebchens Bote, from 'Fünf Ausgewählte Volkslieder' arr. Reger Antonín Dvořák: Slavonic Dance No. 2 in E minor, op. 72 Johannes Brahms: Three songs from 'Liebeslieder-Walzer, op. 52' Traditional (England): I love my love arr. Holst Antonín Dvořák: Slavonic Dance No. 2 in E minor, op. 46 Johannes Brahms: Six songs from 'Liebeslieder-Walzer, op. 52' Traditional (England): The Turtle Dove arr. Vaughan Williams Johannes Brahms: Three songs from 'Liebeslieder-Walzer, op. 52' Antonín Dvořák: Slavonic Dance No. 3 in A flat, op. 46 Traditional (Sweden) - Uti vår hage arr. Alfvén and Doyle Traditional (Wales) - The Ash Grove arr. Doyle Johannes Brahms: Zum Schluss: Nun, ihr Musen, genug, from 'Neue Liebeslieder, op. 65' Artists Michael Engström (piano) Stefan Lindgren (piano) Swedish Radio Choir Justin Doyle (conductor)
South China Morning Post
09-06-2025
- Entertainment
- South China Morning Post
Pianist Tony Siqi Yun produces poetry in Hong Kong recital with some dark themes
Given all the pianists out there who have been dubbed 'poets of the keyboard', the phrase has become a little tiresome. But its use is justified when applied to a musician of the calibre of 24-year-old Canadian pianist Tony Siqi Yun. Musical poetry was front and centre in Yun's self-curated recital at Hong Kong City Hall on June 4 of works whose themes include death, madness and redemption. Yun began with Brahms' lyrical Four Ballades Op. 10, which take a more literal approach to the genre than Chopin's and were inspired by narrative poetry. The recent Juilliard School graduate and winner of the first prize in the inaugural China International Music Competition in 2019 delved deep in the opening 'Edward' Andante, which takes its dark subject from a Scottish poem about patricide, playing with power in its impassioned passages without sounding forced or percussive. Tony Siqi Yun performs during his piano recital at Hong Kong City Hall on June 4, 2025. He presented a programme of works by Brahms, Busoni, Schumann, Alkan and Liszt. Photo: Kenny Cheung/PPHK In the deliciously nostalgic sounding second movement and the poignantly punctuated Intermezzo. Allegro third movement, Yun never lost sight of the interconnectedness between the four ballades. He capped off the set with an Andante con moto of hymn-like quality.
Otago Daily Times
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Otago Daily Times
DSO - Brahms and Mataatua: A Journey in Music
Brahms's monumental Piano Concerto No. 2 was written when his compositional powers were at their peak. From a deceptively benign opening with a lone horn melody, the movements in turn evoke grace and turmoil, leading to an exhilarating climax. Acclaimed Wellington pianist Jian Liu returns to deliver the dazzling technique and musical depth this great work calls for. We celebrate Matariki with The Journey of Mataatua Whare, a newly commissioned work by Dame Gillian Whitehead which commemorates 100 years since the Mataatua Wharenui returned to NZ. The work tells the Wharenui's story: from the carved meeting house's creation in Whakatāne, the loss of Ngāti Awa control over it, its travels and mistreatment, its return to NZ for Dunedin/Ōtepoti's 1925 Great Exhibition and then Tūhura Otago Museum, and its final return to Ngāti Awa in Whakatāne. Three distinguished NZ singers and a selected chorus will join DSO's Principal Guest Conductor James Judd on stage for this very special event. For more information please visit | Brahms and Mataatua a Journey in Music
